Senators Rick Scott (R-FL), John Kennedy (R-LA), and Eric Schmitt (R-MO) introduced the Crucial Communism Teaching Act Thursday, aiming to arm high school students with lessons on communism’s grim history and threats to liberty.
Joined by Rep. María Elvira Salazar (R-FL), who filed a companion bill in the House, the lawmakers seek to counter what they call an alarming rise in young Americans’ favorable views of the ideology.
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“America shines as a beacon of freedom, in stark contrast to communist regimes that stripped families of liberties,” Scott said, nodding to Florida’s exile communities. “This bill ensures our kids learn the dangers of communism to protect our nation’s values.” Kennedy labeled communism a “cancer” of “oppression, suffering, and death,” while Schmitt pointed to polls showing nearly a third of Gen Z view it positively—a sign, he said, of educational failure.
Salazar, representing Miami’s anti-communist heartland, stressed preserving the memory of “pain and suffering” caused by regimes that killed over 100 million globally, with 1.5 billion still under their grip.
A 2020 Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation poll found over 25% of Millennials and nearly 33% of Gen Z see communism favorably, fueling the bill’s urgency.
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“Communism is a cancer, and it always produces the same results: oppression, suffering and death,” said Senator John Kennedy. “We must teach the next generation of Americans the threat communism poses to liberty and justice for innocent people around the world.”
The legislation taps the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation to supply teaching materials, mandating high schools to cover communism’s history and its clash with America’s founding principles.
As Trump allies rally against “failed socialist ideologies,” the act aims to shape a generation wary of totalitarianism’s shadow.
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