Under the authority from an anti-DEI bill signed into law by Florida Governor Ron DeSantis last May, the State Board of Education announced a new set of restrictions last Wednesday. Now, “the state’s 28 public colleges” are prohibited “from using government funds for diversity, equity and inclusion [(DEI)] efforts.”
This means that both state and federal funds are not allowed to be used to administer any DEI programs on public college campuses in Florida.
DEI efforts have long been practiced, but they gained steam when corporations and government institutions began to assess and pledge to support racial equity in the wake of the Black Lives Matter and George Floyd protests in 2020. But conservative backlash to the programs have since eroded those plans, with Republican administrations creating their own sets of definitions to ban them.
Florida, where Governor DeSantis has now ended his presidential campaign, defines DEI as “any program, campus activity, or policy that classifies individuals on the basis of race, color, sex, national origin, gender identity, or sexual orientation and promotes differential or preferential treatment of individuals on the basis of such classification.”
In a statement, Florida Commissioner of Education Manny Diaz, Jr. said, “Higher education must return to its essential foundations of academic integrity and the pursuit of knowledge instead of being corrupted by destructive ideologies.”
“These actions today ensure that we will not spend taxpayers’ money supporting DEI and radical indoctrination that promotes division in our society,” Diaz continued.
According to Diaz, it is “unacceptable to use taxpayer dollars to support programs that categorize individuals by their race or sex.” “DEI is DOA in Florida,” Diaz added.
In addition, the Board also passed a rule on Wednesday that replaces the “‘Principles of Sociology’ course with a general education course in American history.” A press release indicated their goal is “to provide students with an accurate and factual account of the nation’s past, rather than exposing them to radical woke ideologies, which had become commonplace in the now replaced course.”
Thus, the war on “woke” and DEI continues, which the DeSantis administration has defined as “the belief there are systemic injustices in American society and the need to address them.” And fighting against “wokeness” has been a central component of both his gubernatorial platform and flailing presidential campaign.
Florida isn’t the only state with DEI restrictions. GOP legislators have been introducing bills trying to undercut DEI initiatives in more than a dozen other states across the country.
But, there is a concerted effort to circumvent these attempts underway. The NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund (LDF) and the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) filed a lawsuit challenging the Stop Wrongs Against Our Kids and Employees (“Stop W.O.K.E.”) Act, which severely restricts Florida educators and students from learning and talking about issues related to race and gender in higher education classrooms.”
“This is about discrimination against people who have just begun to get access to these spaces,” said LDF assistant counsel Antonio Ingram. “They’re being told the doormat is being rolled up, we’ve had enough.”
“Governor DeSantis’ nefarious attack on truth, history and public education cannot be masked by a fatuous acronym mocking a Black colloquialism,” LDF President and Director-Counsel Janai S. Nelson stated. “Florida’s dangerous anti-truth measure is part of an extremely troubling wave of legislation across the country aimed at limiting essential free exchange in classrooms, undermining facts of history, and blunting the quality of education students receive — especially as it relates to issues of race and systemic inequality. We must all reject these attacks.”
