If Ron DeSantis becomes President, the Department of Justice Civil Rights Division would have a new task.
The Florida Governor and 2024 Republican candidate told radio host Hugh Hewitt the Justice Department would branch out its understanding of civil rights to “do all discrimination” as part of “taking some of these agencies and making sure they’re actually doing the things that we would want.”
One of those “things,” DeSantis noted, would be going after diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) initiatives.
“For example, like the Civil Rights Division, our Civil Rights Division in Justice will do all discrimination,” DeSantis promised.
“Yes, of course, you don’t discriminate against a racial minority. But you also have to look at corporate America, government, academia, how they are wielding things like DEI in a discriminatory manner against other people. And so we will say no tolerance for discrimination of all kind, regardless of whether you’re in the majority or the minority.”
Much of the DOJ Civil Rights Division’s recent work includes targeting hate crimes, discrimination in prison and employer abuses of immigrants. In addition to helping marginalized communities, the Governor would also focus on protecting the “majority.”
The comments from DeSantis follow an award presenter at the Tony Awards likening DeSantis to a Ku Klux Klan “Grand Wizard” on Sunday, a day after people in Nazi regalia demonstrated outside Walt Disney World with at least one DeSantis 2024 sign.
DeSantis has already promised to remove DEI from the military, saying it’s “diverting from the core mission” and “recruiting is suffering, people are leaving the service.”
The Governor has also blamed “DEI and politics and all kinds of stuff” for the failure of Silicon Valley Bank earlier this year.
DeSantis declared war on DEI this year in rolling out legislative proposals “pushing back against the tactics of liberal elites who suppress free thought in the name of identity politics and indoctrination.” These proposals targeting universities and colleges spending money “for discrimination, exclusion and indoctrination” became law during the 2023 Legislative Session.
But the Governor’s derision of DEI is new. Earlier, in his first term, his administration greenlighted much of it in the very colleges he’s targeted more recently.
DeSantis told reporters in February he was ignorant of the subject back then.
“I didn’t know what DEI was a couple of years ago as this had taken hold. I mean, it sounds innocuous, right? I thought maybe diversity of ideas, maybe actually have more than one viewpoint. Well, that’s not what it is. What it is, is trying to enforce a political agenda and a political orthodoxy under the auspices of administration,” DeSantis said. “And that is something that is not in the best interests of the state.”
The post Ron DeSantis would sic DOJ Civil Rights division on DEI appeared first on Florida Politics – Campaigns & Elections. Lobbying & Government..