Florida Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis is accused of turning the state into an Orwellian hellscape after signing a new law requiring all Florida universities and colleges to educate students, faculty and staff on their political and racial beliefs. Check to see if there is enough. “Intellectual diversity” will be captured.
The survey called for by the bill is designed to measure “the extent to which competing ideas and perspectives are represented” at public universities and colleges and seeks to determine whether Students, faculty, and staff are “free to express their own. Beliefs and viewpoints on campus and in the classroom,” according to the text.
Although the bill signed by DeSantis does not provide details on how the survey collection date will be used, the governor and the bill’s sponsor, GOP Sen. Ray Rodriguez, have already warned That results could lead to budget cuts in schools if they “teach their students.”
“It’s not worth the tax dollars and it’s not something we’re going to support moving forward,” DeSantis threatened, speaking about the bill at a press conference at a middle school in Fort Myers.
Stating that the bill aims to prevent universities and colleges from “becoming bastions of outdated ideology,” DeSantis lamented the loss of intellectual diversity at institutions of higher learning. Florida
“It used to be thought that a university campus was a place where you could be exposed to a lot of different ideas,” the Florida governor said. “Unfortunately, the norm now is that they are more creative intellectual environments. You have orthodoxies that are promoted, and other points of view are avoided or even suppressed.”
Critics of the new law fear that it is an attempt to control state psychology and a dangerous violation of their own rights to free speech in relation to the protection of conservative views. He sees the survey as a fodder for campus speech regulation by self-interested politicians who don’t want anyone saying anything that hits their ideological nail.
For his part, Governor DeSantis could not recite any specific events to back up his accusations of anti-Americanism at state universities and colleges. Instead, he invoked vague, Trumpian generals to justify the need for the bill. relied on, stating that “many parents know that they are concerned that their children will be ‘industrialized’ when they leave for college and that universities will force their brains out.” Pushing in. “Orthodox” studies.
University administrators were virtually silent on the new bill, possibly fearing the threat of budget cuts that DeSantis wielded against them like a cudgel.
The University of Florida in Gainesville issued a statement of defense that painted the university as a “marketplace of ideas where a variety of opinions are expressed and free inquiry and lively academic…