Florida Governor Ron DeSantis signed legislation on Monday restricting how race and gender can be taught in Florida’s public colleges and universities and banning them from using state or federal funds for diversity initiatives.
DEI initiatives– which stands for “diversity, equity, and inclusion”– are intended to help universities enhance racial, social, and religious diversity among staff and students. However, the governor and other conservative critics have said that they create racial tensions and other divisions on campuses, Reuters reports.
“DEI is better viewed as standing for discrimination, exclusion, and indoctrination,” DeSantis said at the bill signing on the campus of New College of Florida. “And that has no place in our public institutions,” he added.
According to the governor, Senate Bill 266, one of three bills signed into law on Monday, prevents programs on campuses from “distorting significant historical events” or teaching “identity politics” based on gender or race. Such lessons would need to be reviewed by university trustees.
Opponents of the legislation say that the latest efforts by the governor are an attack on academic freedom. In a statement sent to NBC News, Andrew Gothard, the president of a faculty union at Florida’s public universities, called the bill “authoritarian censorship.”
DeSantis said students who want to study diverse subjects should look to attend universities outside of the state. “Florida’s getting out of that game,” he said.
DeSantis’ approval of the anti-DEI legislation comes just days after signing a law requiring Asian American and Pacific Islander history in Florida’s K-12 curriculum.
According to the bill, curricula will include “the history of Japanese internment camps and the incarceration of Japanese-Americans during World War II; the immigration, citizenship, civil rights, identity, and culture of Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders; and the contributions of Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders to American society.”