Continuing an effort to eliminate diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives from Florida’s higher-education system, Gov. Ron DeSantis on Monday signed a measure aimed at prohibiting colleges and universities from spending money on “DEI” programs.
Signing Senate Bill 266 into law, DeSantis fired the latest salvo in his campus culture wars. The new law takes direct aim at what the governor calls a primary source of "woke" ideology.
“We are eliminating the DEI programs, we’re gonna treat people as individuals,” DeSantis said.
University system Chancellor Ray Rodrigues joined DeSantis for a bill-signing event at New College of Florida — the small liberal-arts school in Sarasota that has become a focus of the push by DeSantis and other state leaders to remake higher education.
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“In reality, what this concept of DEI has been is an attempt to impose orthodoxy on the university. And not even necessarily in the classroom, but through the administrative apparatus of the university itself,” DeSantis said.
What does the bill entail?
Under SB 266, colleges and universities will be prevented from spending state or federal money to promote, support or maintain programs or campus activities that “advocate for” diversity, equity and inclusion. Schools also will not be able to spend money on programs or activities that “promote or engage in political or social activism” as defined by the State Board of Education or the university system’s Board of Governors.
‘‘This has basically been used as a veneer to impose an ideological agenda and that is wrong," DeSantis said. "In fact, if you look at the way this has actually been implemented across the country, DEI is better viewed as standing for discrimination, exclusion and indoctrination, and that has no place in our public institutions."
The measure, which will take effect in July, also seeks to place new requirements on general-education core courses at colleges and universities. The state education board and the Board of Governors will appoint joint faculty committees to review such courses. The reviews could lead to the “removal, alignment, realignment, or addition” based on certain criteria.
For example, such courses would be barred from being based on “theories that systemic racism, sexism, oppression, and privilege are inherent in the institutions of the United States and were created to maintain social, political, and economic inequities.”
“Some of these niche subjects like critical race theory, other types of DEI-infused courses and majors, Florida’s getting out of that game," DeSantis said. "If you want to do things like gender ideology, go to Berkeley, go to some of these other places, that’s fine."
Reactions to SB 266
Rodrigues, a former Republican state senator, touted the bill as providing for the “dismantling of the DEI bureaucracy that has grown up on our campuses.”
But the United Faculty of Florida sharply opposed the measure during this year’s legislative session, which ended May 5. Andrew Gothard, the union’s president and a professor at Florida Atlantic University, slammed DeSantis’ signing of the bill Monday, saying it shows the governor’s “authoritarian approach” to education.
“Today, we saw a governor who believes that viewpoint discrimination, the undermining of constitutional rights, compelling speech from students and faculty, and censoring ideas he disagrees with are somehow acceptable in a democratic society,” Gothard said in a statement.
While calling for restrictions on classroom discussion, DeSantis also said should sound be free from indoctrination on campus.
“If you’re saying it’s not permitted to study how gender interacts with other aspects of life, you’re banning enormous swaths of the curriculum of a wide variety of fields," said Nicole Morse, who directs Florida Atlantic University's Center for Women, Gender and Sexuality Studies and serves on a DEI committee.
Rep. Anna Eskamani, D-Orlando, decried what she called a “destructive law” that “targets diverse students like me and our ability to thrive in higher education institutions.” Eskamani is a daughter of immigrants from Iran who is working on a doctorate at the University of Central Florida.
“It also suppresses academic freedom and inserts conservative political orthodoxy into the classroom,” Eskamani said in a statement.
DeSantis and other Republican leaders have targeted what they describe as “trendy ideology” on campuses. DeSantis on Monday also praised the bill (HB 931) that will prevent colleges and universities from requiring “political loyalty” tests for students and employees as a condition of admission or employment.
“They will call them ‘diversity statements,’ but it’s really requiring you to sign up to support an ideological agenda that you may not be supportive of,” DeSantis said.
The bill will prevent such things as compelling statements in support of a “specific partisan, political, or ideological set of beliefs.”
DeSantis signed a third bill Monday (SB 240) that is aimed at strengthening workforce education, in part by providing tax breaks to businesses that employ apprentices or pre-apprentices.
