Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis signed legislation that bans all state funding for diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) programs in the state’s universities on Monday.
DeSantis signed the legislation, SB 266, on the campus of New College of Florida, an institution to which he has made drastic changes this year. SB 266 prevents any public university from using state funding to pay for DEI programs, and it also grants university presidents more authority over hiring practices.
The bill is DeSantis’ latest offensive against what he calls “woke” influences on education. Recent years have also seen him pass legislation that grants parents more authority over their children’s education in elementary, middle and high school.
The Republican governor’s action comes as part of a larger national movement that is pushing for education reform. That push gained momentum in Virginia’s gubernatorial election in 2021, when parents revolted against the lack of transparency in the state’s schools and its emphasis on critical race theory.
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DeSantis is using New College of Florida, based in Sarasota, as a template for reforming the state’s public universities. His administration stated that it wants to make the college more like Michigan’s Hillsdale College, a private liberal arts school.
“Our hope is that New College of Florida will become Florida’s classical college, more along the lines of a Hillsdale of the South,” Florida Education Commissioner Manny Diaz said in January, when DeSantis began making changes at the institution.
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DeSantis touted his changes to New College of Florida during a speech on Monday, saying his effort to deemphasize DEI and CRT in the institution is attracting faculty from across the country.
“There’s a lot of interest in faculty around the country, and not conservative faculty [but] across the board, because I think there’s a recognition that this whole framework has been very intellectually oppressive,” DeSantis said. “People feel like they’re walking on eggshells. … That’s not a healthy environment. They don’t believe that they have the freedom to speak their minds on a lot of these university campuses.”
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In addition to Monday’s funding ban, DeSantis also signed a bill to ban public universities from requiring students and faculty to provide “diversity statements” in order to be admitted or hired. Such statements typically are meant to demonstrate how an applicant’s experiences would help make a campus more diverse and inclusive.