DeSantis-backed bill that would eliminate DEI from Florida college curriculum advances in state House

A bill backed by Republican Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis that would restructure higher education and eliminate diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) programs from college curriculum advanced in the state House. 

Sponsored by state Rep. Alex Andrade, the bill, known as HB 999, was approved along a 12-5 party line vote by the House Postsecondary Education and Workforce Subcommittee Monday. 

It now advances for discussion before the state Senate later this week. 

As more than 150 people reportedly showed up to the House subcommittee hearing Monday to voice opposition to the legislation, Andrade stressed that it would not limit student activities no matter the political agenda. 

AXIOS REPORTER BLASTED FOR CALLING DESANTIS DEI ROUNDTABLE PRESS RELEASE ‘PROPAGANDA’

“I believe that state universities should be focused on teaching students how to think, not what to think,” he said, according to FloridaPolitics.com.

DeSantis, who hosted a DNI roundtable the same day as the subcommittee meeting, has categorized such programs as a drain on resources forcing faculty and students to comply with a far-left dogma, the Orlando Sun-Sentinel reported. The governor’s budget chief recently conducted a survey of the state’s 12 universities that found a combined $34.5 million went toward DEI programs and faculty. About $20.7 million came from the state, representing less than 1% of those universities’ budgets.

“And so that clearly has no place in American institutions,” DeSantis said at the roundtable. “It’s more something you would expect to see in like the CCP [Chinese Communist Party].“

The bill requires the Board of Governors to periodically review specified information related to state universities to ensure their curriculum aligns with the mission of offering a “curriculum that promotes citizenship in a constitutional republic” and that “state’s existing and emerging workforce needs.”

HOW THE MEDIA ARE TRYING TO MORPH DESANTIS INTO A SCARIER VERSION OF TRUMP 

Gov. Ron DeSantis supports eliminating DNI from college curricula. (Joe Burbank/Orlando Sentinel/Tribune News Service via Getty Images)

Upon completion of the review, the board may “provide direction to each constituent university to remove from its programs any major or minor that is based on or otherwise utilizes pedagogical methodology associated with…