Florida governor Ron DeSantis, choosing a confrontational campus setting, signed legislation that ends diversity hiring programmes at the state’s colleges and universities and restricts classroom discussions of race.
In the latest moves by the 2024 US presidential hopeful to make higher education a cultural battleground, Mr DeSantis travelled to the New College of Florida to sign three education-related measures over the shouted protests of students whose progressive campus leadership he had earlier replaced with conservative ideologues.
One of those partisan activists, Christopher Rufo – part of a majority slate that Mr DeSantis appointed to the New College board of trustees in January – taunted the demonstrators outside the event, miming the blowing of kisses from behind the safety of a police escort.
Inside the ceremony, Mr DeSantis declared that Florida’s public colleges and universities would no longer offer “niche subjects” such as critical race theory. “Florida is getting out of that game,” the governor said. “If you want to do things like gender ideology, go to Berkeley, go to some of these other places.”
He was joined by Richard Corcoran – the former Florida House of Representatives speaker appointed by Mr Rufo and the other new trustees to be interim president of New College – who joked that the students they heard yelling outside were upset about the lack of air conditioning in their dorms.
Mr DeSantis staged the theatre because he is reported to be within days of formally announcing his presidential candidacy, despite facing rising doubts that he can either defeat Donald Trump in the Republican primary or avoid alienating mainstream US voters with his brand of culture-heavy political antagonism.
One of the bills signed by the governor forbids any universally required course at a public college or university that explains to students the fact that “systemic racism, sexism, oppression, or privilege are inherent” in US public institutions.
That codifies a policy that Mr DeSantis has already mostly forced Florida’s 28 state colleges to accept, out of fear of political retribution.
The new law also forbids Florida’s colleges or universities from spending any state or federal funds on efforts aimed at increasing student and faculty diversity in areas that include race, sexual orientation and socio-economic status. It also establishes and expands conservative-oriented centres and institutes at several of the state’s public universities.
Mr DeSantis signed two other bills at the New College event – one that forbids diversity-related statements in hiring, promoting and admissions, and one that expands workforce-related education programmes.
The enactment of the anti-diversity measures, as approved by Florida’s Republican-dominated legislature, brought the state another round of condemnations from national higher education advocates.
The bill restricting teaching and hiring related to diversity, said the American Association of University Professors, “further cements the decline of Florida’s higher education system by enshrining into law culture-war-inspired censorship that will have a disastrous impact on students, faculty, and the future of education in the state”.
“This is a dark day for public higher education in Florida,” said Jeremy Young, a programme director at PEN America, a writers’ group focused on issues of free expression.
