House Republicans led by Representative María Elvira Salazar from Florida are hoping to pass the Crucial Communism Teaching (CCT) Act into law. The proposed legislation seeks to ensure that high school students across America "learn that communism has led to the deaths of over 100,000,000 victims worldwide; understand the dangers of communism and similar political ideologies; and understand that 1,500,000,000 people still suffer under communism."
According to The Epoch Times, the bill was introduced on Thursday by Rep. Salazar and if passed would hold the non-profit Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation (VCMF) responsible for developing curriculum that features "a comparative discussion" about how ideologies such as communism and totalitarianism are go against "the principles of freedom and democracy that are essential to the founding of the United States."
Such curriculum will be designed to ensure it will fit into current high school courses such as social studies, government, history, and economics.
Upon establishing the curriculum that teaches the dangers of communism, the VCMF will be authorized to work with state and local leaders to assist in using the curriculum and its resources, which will feature personal stories of Ameircans who had fallen victim to communism.
VCMF president and CEO Andrew Bremberg, who was at the Capitol Hill event announcing the CCT Act on Thursday, remarked that the "majority of young Americans simply do not know the history of communist regimes."
"They don't know the simple fact that 100 million people have been victims of communism or know about the destruction and deaths it has wrought," Bremberg lamented. Rep. Salazar, who is a daughter of Cuban immigrants, backed this up with facts and statistics.
"Unfortunately today, we're seeing an alarming shift in our national conscience. One-third of Gen Z...have a favorable view of communism, 33%. And over 40% of millennials...say they don't know much about Marxism or what it looks like," the 60 year old Republican leader explained, as reported by the Washington Examiner. Rep. Salazar represents Florida's 27th congressional district in Miami, where a large Cuban population resides.
Rep. Salazar was supported at the press conference on Capitol Hill by other Republican leaders and the bill's co-sponsors, Texas Rep. Dan Crenshaw, New Jersey Rep. Jeff Van Drew, and Iowa Rep. Mariannette Miller-Meeks.
This development comes at the heels of other state level efforts in Florida, where Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis recently signed a measure that requires the history of communism to be taught in the state's public high schools. Unlike this already passed legislation, the CCT Act from Rep. Salazar and her coalition of Republican House leaders won't mandate schools to teach the history of communism, but instead "builds a curriculum and provides materials through the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation for states and local educators to use."
Republican Congresswoman Elise Stefanik of New York showed her support for the proposed legislation, saying, "Our nation was founded on the principle of democracy, and we should equip the next generation to be fully aware of the dangers of Communism."
