Conservative co-host of the talk show “The View”, Alyssa Farah Griffin, issued an apology to Florida Governor Ron DeSantis after accusing of him “erasing” Black History Month. 

This comes after she received backlash from viewers for her criticism of the Republican governor on the show on Thursday. 

Farah Griffin was Trump's former Director of Strategic Communications at the White House during his presidency. After leaving, she received attention for being vocally critical of both Trump and the Republican party, despite still identifying as a conservative.

In the episode, she claimed that DeSantis was wrong to block the introduction of an AP African American History class in Florida. Florida banned the course in January after DeSantis called it a “political agenda”.

"You're literally talking about erasing history — not bringing in the theories and the theoretical and the more college-level stuff, that's CRT. This is straight up saying we're not gonna learn about slavery, we're not going to learn about the Civil War. That's much more dangerous,” she said

The class is currently in a pilot phase and being taught at only 60 schools across the US, one of them being in Florida until the ban.

Not the Full Story

DeSantis’s office fired back almost immediately, accusing Farah Griffin of not only being “dishonest and incorrect,” but “lying.”

The Florida governor opposed the class not because it teaches black history but because it doesn’t tell the full story. He claims that the curriculum focuses too much on critical race theory and worries it may indoctrinate students with “woke” ideology.

DeSantis’s press secretary, commented, “As submitted, the course is a vehicle for a political agenda and leaves large, ambiguous gaps that can be filled with additional ideological material, which we will not allow.”

Florida Education Commissioner Manny Diaz Jr. also explained, “We proudly require the teaching of African American history. We do not accept woke indoctrination masquerading as education.” 

DeSantis also spoke up and highlighted the Florida Department of Education’s requirements for any courses on the topic of African American history. 

These include “the history of African peoples before the political conflicts that led to the development of slavery,” ”the enslavement experience,” “abolition,” and "the history and contributions of Americans of the African diaspora to society.”

Christopher Tinson, African American Studies department chair at Saint Louis University, denies that there is anything political about the course, “There's nothing particularly ideological about the course except that we value the experiences of African people in the United States.”

The College Board, which designed the course, soon revised the curriculum following the Florida ban. However, no explanation was given for the change.

A Genuine Apology?

After the backlash, Farah Griffin tweeted on Friday that she made a mistake and apologized to DeSantis.

“Sooo I got tripped up on a point re: DeSantis/ AP black history on air & accidentally misrepresented what the Governor is challenging. It’s more narrow than how I framed it, & while I still personally disagree, I own that I explained it wrong,” she wrote.

While DeSantis and his team accepted and appreciated the apology, he also thinks it wasn’t enough, pointing out that, “The right thing to do would be to make an on-air correction”.

The View has 2.4 million viewers, while Farah Griffin only has over 100,000 followers, so the reach of the message is significantly less.