DeSantis-backed Florida Senate Bill 266 is now in the crosshairs of a federal lawsuit filed by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Florida and attorneys on behalf of educators who insist the law “punishes educators and students for expressing diverse and undesirable views.”
Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis signed the bill in 2023, barring colleges and universities from using state funds to promote, support or maintain DEI programs or activities on campus.
“Continuing its efforts to police the marketplace of ideas, the Florida Legislature has once again enacted vague, viewpoint-discriminatory laws that greatly limit academic freedom and impose the state’s privileged viewpoints on public higher education, punishing faculty and students for expressing divergent and undesirable viewpoints,” the lawsuitfiled last week, he said in part.
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The Florida state flag is flown during the game between the North Carolina Tar Heels and the Miami Hurricanes on Saturday, Oct. 8, 2022, at Hard Rock Stadium, Miami Gardens, Fla. (Peter Joneleit/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)
Diversity, Equity and Inclusion, better known by the acronym DEI, is defined as “any program, campus activity, or policy that classifies individuals based on race, color, sex, national origin, gender identity, or sexual orientation and promotes different or preferential treatment of individuals based on such classification,” according to State University System of Florida.
The practice has been a focal point for conservatives considering a return to a more merit-based system and an education curriculum they argue should be less divisive.
The lawsuit describes the regulations on the subject as “ambiguous, inconsistent and too broad to provide any real guidance, other than indicating the intent of the Legislature and the BOG (Board of Governors) not to favor certain speech,” in addition to the educators’ attorneys. writing that these regulations “have left instructors and students fearing for the future not only of education, but of free thought and democracy in Florida.”
The defendants identified in the lawsuit are members of the Board of Directors of the university system and trustees of the universities where the teachers work.
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Florida Governor and 2024 Republican presidential candidate Ron DeSantis speaks at the Iowa Republican Party’s 2023 Lincoln Dinner at the Iowa Events Center in Des Moines, Iowa, on July 28, 2023. (Photo by SERGIO FLORES/AFP via Getty Images)
DEI faced challenges in other educational domains as well. Last year, the University of North Carolina Board of Regents voted to abolish the mandate of the DEI for public universities across the Tar Heel State. Alabama, Oklahoma, Texas and others have similarly targeted the practice with legislation.
DeSantis is among the Republicans who have openly expressed their disdain for DEI and have proudly declared the Sunshine State the site of “where he woke up he goes to die.”
President Donald Trump, former GOP presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy and a host of red state governors have also condemned DEI’s practice.
Meanwhile, several large companies are canceled their DEI programs recently.
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