The Florida Department of Education has rejected 54 math textbooks from next year’s school curriculum, citing alleged references to critical race theory among a series of rationales for some of the rejections, officials said.

The department said in a news release Friday that some of the books were rejected for failing to meet state content standards, Benchmarks for Excellent Student Thinking. [Best]but that 21% of the books were rejected “because they incorporate prohibited subjects or unsolicited strategies, including CRT”.

Ministry officials disapproved 11 additional books “because they do not properly align with best standards and incorporate prohibited topics or unsolicited strategies, including CRT.”

Critical race theory is an academic practice that examines how racism operates in American law and society.

The release does not list the titles of the books or provide excerpts to explain why the books were removed. The announcement follows a series of sweeping moves by state Republicans to change teaching in schools as conservatives ushered the issue of critical race theory into the ongoing political culture wars in the state. country.

In June of last year, the Florida school board decided to ban the teaching of critical race theory in public schools. This included teaching the New York Times Pulitzer Prize-winning series, The 1619 Project, which re-examines American history in the context of slavery and its aftermath.

In a statement, Republican Florida Governor Ron DeSantis welcomed the Department of Education’s announcement and accused some textbook publishers of “indoctrinating” children with “concepts like racial essentialism, especially , oddly, for primary school students”.

Florida Democrats chastised the announcement. Democratic State Rep. Carlos G Smith claimed on Twitter that DeSantis has “turned our classrooms into political battlegrounds and this is just the beginning.”

Swathes of Republican-controlled states in the US have passed measures to ban the teaching of critical race theory, which is likely to be a top conservative talking point in the midterm elections. of this year.

Many of these bills and ordinances are vaguely worded, raising fears of censorship on school and college campuses across the country.