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Gov. Ron DeSantis announced he will completely defund diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives at Florida universities during a press conference Tuesday morning.
DeSantis addressed what he called “DEI bureaucracies,” or departments within universities that promote diversity, equality and inclusion, which he said impose a liberal agenda on university students and faculty.
“These bureaucracies are hostile to academic freedom, and really they constitute a drain on resources and end up contributing to higher costs,” he said.
Speaking at State College of Florida, Manatee-Sarasota, DeSantis started by saying he wants to make sure that everybody that goes through a Florida university has to take “certain core course requirements, that’s really focused on giving them the foundation so that they can think for themselves and the core curriculum must be grounded in actual history, the actual philosophy that has shaped Western civilization,” though he wasn’t specific.
“We are also going to eliminate all DEI and [critical race theory] bureaucracies in the state of Florida, no funding and that will wither on the vine,” DeSantis went on to say. “And I think that that’s very important because it really serves as an ideological filter, a political filter.”
Another DeSantis proposal would increase the standards for preeminent state research universities so that they have to do annual research expenditures of at least $50 million on STEM programs, or business partnerships that will directly increase the ability of Florida students to become gainfully employed.
More details can be found in a graphic shared by DeSantis on Twitter.
New higher education proposal builds off our 2022 reforms:
– Core courses rooted in Western tradition
– Elimination of DEI/CRT bureaucracies
– Bolster civics-focused institutes at UF, FSU and FIU
– Additional accountability for tenured faculty pic.twitter.com/XV6mExlzHJ— Ron DeSantis (@GovRonDeSantis) January 31, 2023
