ORLANDO, Fla. – The daughter of a Hollywood screenwriter, who faced imprisonment and blacklisting during the anti-communist Red Scare, has criticized Florida’s newly adopted social studies standards. Critics argue these standards could potentially rehabilitate the controversial history of the McCarthy era.
“The new standards in Florida are deeply troubling,” Mitzi Trumbo expressed in an email to The Associated Press on Thursday. “We should not alter history to fit current political narratives, as history offers essential lessons that need to be preserved.”
The Florida Board of Education has approved standards for middle and high school education, which include teaching about the use of “‘McCarthyism’ as a pejorative” and discussing terms like “red-baiter” and “Red Scare” as forms of “slander against anti-communists.”
These standards seem to downplay the longstanding criticism of former U.S. Senator Joseph McCarthy. McCarthy spearheaded a campaign to identify supposed communist influences within the government, civil rights movements, and artistic circles during the late 1940s and early 1950s. This period, marked by public interrogations, loyalty tests, and job dismissals, is often seen as a regrettable episode in American history.
The Cold War tensions between the United States and the Soviet Union intensified fears in the late 1940s about communist infiltration in American society, targeting areas such as the film industry and government. Many individuals targeted by McCarthy and the House Un-American Activities Committee faced professional blacklisting for over a decade.
Among those affected was Dalton Trumbo, known for writing screenplays for iconic films like “Roman Holiday” and “Spartacus.” During the 1950s, due to being on the Hollywood blacklist, he resorted to using pseudonyms or allowing colleagues to claim credit for his work.
Mitzi Trumbo said she and her two siblings had “some difficult and painful experiences growing up in the 1950s” because of their father’s time in prison and the repercussions of him being on the Hollywood blacklist.
During the 1940s, Trumbo had been the highest-paid screenwriter in Hollywood. He also was a member of the Communist Party, supporting unions, equal pay and civil rights.
When Trumbo and nine other members of the film industry were called before the House Un-American Activities Committee in 1947, they refused to answer questions about their communist affiliations and were found in contempt. Trumbo landed in federal prison for 11 months.
While blacklisted, Trumbo wrote screenplays under a pseudonym or fronted by others, including “Roman Holiday” and “The Brave One,” whose scripts won Academy Awards. It wasn’t until 1960 when Trumbo was able to get public credit for the screenplays “Exodus” and “Spartacus.” This period of his life was recounted in the 2015 film, “Trumbo,” starring actor Bryan Cranston.
Other blacklisted Hollywood figures included actress Lee Grant, singer and actress Lena Horne, and actor and director Charlie Chaplin.
Florida’s new teaching benchmarks were prompted by a law signed by Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis in 2024 requiring instruction on “the consequences of communism” to prepare students against indoctrination in higher education.
“It is our responsibility to make sure future generations can thrive and they learn how to think, not what to think,” Layla Collins, a member of the state board of education, said during Thursday’s standards meeting.
The move follows the Republican-controlled Legislature’s designation of Nov. 7 as Victims of Communism Day in Florida’s public schools, to include at least 45 minutes of instruction on figures such as Mao Zedong and Fidel Castro.
Under the new standards, Florida teachers should instruct on efforts by “anti-communist politicians,” such as McCarthy, the House Un-American Activities Committee, President Harry Truman and President Richard Nixon.
Teachers also are instructed to identify “propaganda and defamation” used to “delegitimize” anti-communists.
“Instruction includes using ‘McCarthyism’ as an insult and shorthand for all anti-communism,” the new standards said. “Instruction includes slander against anti-communists, such as red-baiter and Red Scare.”
Trumbo, who exchanged emails with the Associated Press from her northern California home, said she didn’t want to be interviewed by telephone or video because she wasn’t comfortable talking about politics, “especially in today’s political climate.”
“I am glad people are speaking out about the actual history of the period and are explaining how careers and lives were destroyed by HUAC and McCarthyism,” she said, “and how dangerous such political repression is to our freedom of speech and to democracy itself.”
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