Florida state senator Alan Hays (R) is working on a bill requiring students in Florida’s 1,700 public high schools and middle schools to watch conservative author Dinesh D’Souza’s right wing conspiracy docudrama "America: Imagine the World Without Her."
"I think the educational system failure is the biggest reason that the current occupant of the White House sits there. I think his occupancy of the White House is an indictment of our educational system all across America and we need to get back to teaching the truth," Hays argued during an interview with Newsmax Wednesday. "We need to remove politics from the educational system, we need to teach history as it happened and teach it truthfully showing the whole story, and that’s what this movie does quite well."
The film, a sequel to D’Souza’s 2012 anti-Obama film "2016: Obama’s America," accuses liberals of re-writing America's history in an effort to "convince a nation to author its own destruction" and "unmake the America that is here now."
The documentary attempts to debunk several historical fabrications, according to D’Souza, including the genocide of millions of Native Americans during the acquisition of their land and the exploitation of slave labor as the engine of American economic growth.
Salon’s Elizabeth Stoker Bruenig criticized D'Souza's reasoning as "laughably bad" in a review of the film last week.
"The argumentation itself is bad, laughably bad," Bruenig wrote. "Native Americans were bad treaty-keepers who were already killing each other, the brutes, a claim D’Souza curiously follows up with the assertion that they all died of disease anyway -- just naturally, just like that, out of nowhere."
Framing Florida's current public school curriculum as "not completely accurate," Hays claimed that D’Souza’s film, which received a 9 percent approval rating from film review website Rotten Tomatoes, will offer students an "accurate portrayal of history."
Although the Republican lawmaker maintained that he was "terrifically disappointed that our students would be exposed to" countless widespread falsehoods infiltrating Florida's education system, Hays was unable to name a single example of a "mistruth" taught in the state’s public schools during his interview with Newsmax Tuesday.
"If you’re only speaking the truth, the truth will set you free. I will put Americanism and patriotism right up beside any other system that anybody wants to put at it. You put the two, and give them honest presentations, I guarantee you that Americanism is going to win every time," Hays explained. "My word to anybody of another thought process: bring it on. Are you afraid of the truth? And if you’re not, then don’t object to showing this movie."
In May, D’Souza pleaded guilty to a campaign finance law violation after admitting to making illegal campaign contributions in the names of others. The infraction could earn him up to two years in prison.
The pending legislation, which Hays plans to introduce in November, would allow students to opt out of the screening if their parents object to the content, according to The Hollywood Reporter.
Hays also stated that he wouldn't mind if teachers chose to show students a film with opposing liberal viewpoints, although no state mandates exist requiring instructors to do so.
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