The Florida Department of Education (DOE) has confirmed that Michelangelo’s “David” (1501-1504) can indeed be shown in classrooms. The department’s statement follows a viral story last month in which a Tallahassee manager was forced to resign after an art teacher showed Michelangelo’s naked statue to his sixth-grade students. Principal Hope Carrasquilla had failed to warn the parents beforehand, three of whom complained, with one even calling the famous Renaissance sculpture “pornographic”.
“Florida encourages the teaching of classics and classical art, and would not prohibit its use in teaching,” Florida DOE Communications Director Alex Lanfranconi said in a statement shared with The Voice of Florida. “The statue of David has artistic and historical value.”
The story made national headlines and proved even more embarrassing when it emerged that a 1990 The Simpsons episode predicts a series of similar events. Since then, the mayor of Florence guest his city’s art teacher in a tweet and the conservative Michigan college that lends Tallahassee charter schools its ‘classical’ curriculum ended partnership and called the “David” short stories a “travesty” and “distraction” from the “real goals of classical education”.
The DOE didn’t go so far as to condone the Tallahassee Classical School, a chartered institution founded in 2020 after parents “saw all the bullshit that’s taught in public schools,” according to its chairman of the board. , Barney Bishop III.
“The matter at Tallahassee Classical School is between the school and an employee, and is not the effect of any state rule or law,” reads the DOE statement.
Board chairman Bishop described Carrasquilla’s forced resignation in an interview with Slate but said he could not legally cite the reason for the principal’s ouster. Carrasquilla told the Tallahassee Democrat she believed she was let go after the “David” debacle.
In his interview with Slate (and elsewhere), Bishop has proven himself to be a strong advocate of “parents’ rights,” a conservative call-out that has helped galvanize legal restrictions on the discussion of race, sexual identity, and gender. in Florida classrooms.
