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<span class="x_ContentPasted0" style="font-size:12.0pt; font-family:"Courier New"">Sport and Society for Arete </span></p>
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<span class="x_ContentPasted0" style="font-size:12.0pt; font-family:"Courier New"">March 28, 2023 </span></p>
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<span class="x_ContentPasted0" style="font-family:"Courier New"">For those who think that sport and politics are separate entities, I offer a look at the strange world of Florida politics and the presidential aspirations of the governor of Florida. I do this
as a historian and, in particular, a sport historian; as a Professor Emeritus of History at the University of Central Florida; and as a citizen of Florida and the United States. </span></p>
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<span class="x_ContentPasted0" style="font-size:12.0pt; font-family:"Courier New"">Over the past two or three years as Ron DeSantis has been seeking to raise his national profile as a Republican alternative to Donald Trump,
<span class="x_ContentPasted0" style=""> </span>the governor has been mounting an attack on education, critical race theory(CRT), and the LGBTQ community. These targets all are connected, directly or indirectly, with sport. </span></p>
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<span class="x_xcontentpasted0"><span class="x_ContentPasted0" style="font-family:"Courier New"">When I was in graduate school many years ago, CRT was a term of which I was not aware. However, it was something I practiced during my entire academic career as
a Professor of History.</span></span><span class="x_ContentPasted0" style="font-size:12.0pt; font-family:"Courier New""> Any study of American History from the colonial period to the present cannot avoid dealing with race and racism because they are central
realities of the American Experience. </span></p>
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<span class="x_ContentPasted0" style="font-size:12.0pt; font-family:"Courier New"">In Sport History,
<span class="x_ContentPasted0" style=""> </span>these issues stare you in the face. The prohibitions, restrictions, and proscriptions on African Americans and other people of color morph and change over time, but they are always present. Horse racing illustrates
this from the period of slavery to the present. Baseball moved from discrimination to exclusion and then back. Professional football restricted, then excluded, and went back to restrictions over the course of a century of its existence. Add to this, the country
club sports of golf and tennis and the picture is clear. </span></p>
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<span class="x_ContentPasted0" style="font-size:12.0pt; font-family:"Courier New"">In the educational world of Ron DeSantis, these realities need to be treated carefully so that students would not feel uncomfortable. The discomfort of the targets of discrimination
is never mentioned. In DeSantis’ world there was and is no systematic or institutional racism. Rules, regulations, or gentlemen’s agreements are not to be taken as evidence to explain the exclusion of people of color from multiple areas of sport. These matters
should not be included in the Sport History curriculum or any History curriculum in Florida or anywhere else in DeSantis World. </span></p>
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<span class="x_ContentPasted0" style="font-size:12.0pt; font-family:"Courier New"">Universities and school boards are now required to police their curriculum carefully, monitoring what is taught, by whom, and what materials are used. African American authors
are suspect; known radicals must be exposed; books must be censored. The notion of a Black Studies curriculum is rejected by DeSantis. He scoffs at the notion that it has any legitimate educational value. For him, it is just another element in the “liberal
woke agenda.”<span class="x_ContentPasted0" style=""> </span> </span></p>
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<span class="x_ContentPasted0" style="font-size:12.0pt; font-family:"Courier New"">How does anyone teach Sport History with these sorts of restrictions? Is Jackie Robinson’s story to be redone to eliminate race from the narrative? Were there no African American
quarterbacks in the National Football League because they had neither the desire nor talent for the position? Did the Joe Louis-Max Schmeling heavyweight fights have no implications for race? What did it mean when there was a search for “A White Hope” to defeat
heavyweight champion Jack Johnson?<span class="x_ContentPasted0" style=""> </span>
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<span class="x_ContentPasted0" style="font-size:12.0pt; font-family:"Courier New"">Next there is the matter of the so-called “Don’t Say Gay” law. Although originally created to protect those up through third grade, it will now be extended to include high school
education. This law is clearly aimed at the LBGTQ community and has multiple levels of meaning. Just one of the many ramifications found in the legislation are transgender issues. </span></p>
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<span class="x_ContentPasted0" style="font-size:12.0pt; font-family:"Courier New"">DeSantis and the Florida legislature are targeting trans persons, essentially barring them from following their gender identity, and barring LBGTQ issues from the curriculum.
Knowledge of, or interest in, gender identities beyond “male” and “female” are prohibited. An attack has been launched against those who do not conform to the simple bifurcated identities: “men are men, and women are women, case closed.” Science be damned. </span></p>
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<span class="x_ContentPasted0" style="font-size:12.0pt; font-family:"Courier New"">Athletes are required to report their gender identity as recorded at birth. That designation will be used when they compete in inter-scholastic athletics in Florida. No trans-athletes
will be allowed to compete in Florida athletics, nor will the possibility of such a thing be acknowledged in the study of sport, including Sport History. The law is justified under the guise of protecting female athletes from having to compete against males,
thereby preventing the destruction of women’s sport and protecting the progress achieved by Title IX.
<span class="x_ContentPasted0" style=""> </span> </span></p>
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<span style="font-size:12.0pt; font-family:"Courier New""> </span></p>
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<span class="x_ContentPasted0" style="font-size:12.0pt; font-family:"Courier New"">In one of the more cynical moves, the governor is seeking to take control of the Florida High School Athletic Association. A bill, currently moving through the legislature, will
terminate the independent governing board, replacing it with a new larger board chosen by the governor. </span></p>
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<span class="x_ContentPasted0" style="font-size:12.0pt; font-family:"Courier New"">There are many issues surrounding this change, one being a guarantee that Florida athletics will not allow any ambiguity on the issue of gender identity. Trans-athletes will
be barred. Within sport’s governing bodies at large, there is no agreement on these matters, but within the world of Ron DeSantis there will be no disagreement. </span></p>
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<span class="x_ContentPasted0" style="font-size:12.0pt; font-family:"Courier New"">In teaching sport history, how will gender issues be handled? How will such Olympic giants as Bruce Jenner be treated historically? Will Jenner’s identity be defined by Jenner
or by state boards making uninformed judgements? Or will Jenner just be erased from Olympic history and be dismissed as a non-person? Will sex identity be discussed in any course materials dealing with the history of sport? Will the case of Castor Semenya
or that of Lia Thomas be hidden from view? </span></p>
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<span class="x_ContentPasted0" style="font-size:12.0pt; font-family:"Courier New"">Ron DeSantis is not interested in the nuances of these arguments. He has answers, and they are driven by his political ambitions. He shouts from the housetops that he is defending
freedom and that Florida is the freest state in the Union. In reality, he is building a dystopia where truth is what he says it is. If you don’t agree, you could lose your job and your freedom. </span></p>
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<span class="x_ContentPasted0" style="font-size:12.0pt; font-family:"Courier New"">This road has been travelled many times in human history, and the scenery along the way is not pretty, littered, as it is, with banned books, ruined lives, and the crippling
of democracy. </span></p>
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<span style="font-size:12.0pt; font-family:"Courier New""><span class="x_ContentPasted0" style=""> </span> </span></p>
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<span class="x_ContentPasted0" style="font-size:12.0pt; font-family:"Courier New"">On Sport and Society this is Dick Crepeau reminding you that you don’t have to be a good sport to be a bad loser. </span></p>
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<span class="x_ContentPasted0" style="font-size:12.0pt; font-family:"Courier New"">Copyright 2023 by Richard C. Crepeau </span></p>
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