Ron DeSantis is able to use schools for fascism because schools are already authoritarian

Fascists like to control people. Schools do too.

You can find an index of all my substack posts on fascism here.

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Earlier this week Ron DeSantis set up a press conference to, among other things, complain about the serious problem of students being on their phones at school. “I think to myself, ‘why are these kids on their phones during class all the time,’” he asked, getting a bit of the Tucker Carlson whine in his voice. He went on to argue that schools should be allowed to confiscate student phones before class and put them in cubbies and give them back after the lesson.

DeSantis’ other dictats on school policy have been significantly more draconian. DeSantis has pushed through laws and regulations stating that all books in schools have to go through a vetting process (ie, pass a fascist censor). As a result, teachers are no longer allowed to have books available in their classrooms. DeSantis has also declared that Critical Race Theory (ie, teaching about racism) and teaching about gender issues (ie, acknowledging LGBT people exist) are verboten. He’s banned an AP African-American studies course in Florida on the grounds that it violates state law.

Some of these laws have already been ruled unconstitutional, but DeSantis has mostly just shrugged and gone ahead with his racist, homophobic authoritarianism anyway.

Again, this all is much more worrisome than telling kids to put their phones down during class. The fact is that many teachers do require students to put away phones, as you’d think DeSantis should be aware. My daughter had parts of the day where she didn’t have access to her phone in blue Illinois. I’m sure it’s not that different in Florida.

When a committed fascist like DeSantis starts to sound reasonable, though, it’s worth taking a second to think about your own presuppositions. DeSantis’ interference in education in Florida is all about control. He wants to control what students read and what they’re allowed to say. He wants to control teachers too; they can’t curate books for their class, they can’t teach about racist history, they can’t talk about their loved ones if they’re LGBT. In many cases, they effectively just can’t exist in school if they’re LGBT. DeSantis is policing actions and identity. He’s treating the school as a prison, in which inmates and guards alike need to be controlled.

DeSantis’ dictats are ugly and horrible. But they’re also not that different from how a lot of people (including a lot of administrators and teachers) see schools, and not that different from how they treat students. I know of recent instances at nominally liberal high schools where the admin shut down a student satire site because they felt it was inappropriate, for example. An AP Government course sounded a lot like it functioned as and was intended as government propaganda. I’ve known teachers to get in trouble for encouraging students to talk about certain topics or for allowing them to make art the administration thought was inappropriate.

I doubt anyone’s shocked; schools are regimented places. Students often have to ask for permission to go to the bathroom—which is pretty ridiculous, when you think about it. When DeSantis says he wants to impound student property, it sounds reasonable because schools are already authoritarian places in many respects. Young people are supposed to do as they’re told. They don’t have any rights.

That’s exactly what makes schools such a tempting locus of action for fascists like DeSantis. Society broadly agrees that young people need to be regimented and constantly surveilled. DeSantis isn’t really changing the dynamic; he’s just changing the rules under which the regimentation and surveillance occur.

Those changes are, to be clear, evil and terrifying. DeSantis’ dictats are meant to terrorize Black children and queer children, and to prevent young people from acquiring skills and knowledge they need to resist fascism. Taking kids’ phones away isn’t comparable.

It’s also true, though, that when you create an institution designed to prevent large numbers of people from having any recourse, you’re not exactly teaching them freedom and justice in the first place. DeSantis is suborning schools from places of education into places of authoritarian discipline. He’s able to do that, in part, because in our society, schools already often act as if authoritarian discipline is more important than learning.  

You can find an index of all my substack posts on fascism here.