Rights Behind the Headlines is a blog series from the ACLU of Florida that dispels misinformation and gives Floridians critical information about the most pressing issues facing our state. Read the full series at aclufl.org/rightsbehindtheheadlines.

We’re dispelling Gov. DeSantis’ claim that new laws that attack diversity and free speech in education “encourage diversity of thought, civil discourse, and the pursuit of truth for generations to come.”

Gov. DeSantis’ administration is continuing its attempts to dictate what ideas and history students can learn about in school. Right now, it’s stoking a one-sided culture war  in an attempt to justify expanding government control over campus conversations at the expense of our First Amendment rights to learn and freely share ideas.

We’ve previously covered the unconstitutional Stop W.O.K.E. Act (H.B. 7), which targeted primary school students. A federal judge called the bill “positively dystopian” in a November ruling in favor of the Florida students and educators suing the governor. Despite this, the governor ramped up his positively dystopian education agenda in 2023, first by removing an AP African American Studies course in January, saying that the course “lacks educational value” and pushes a “political agenda.”

Gov. DeSantis said a lesson on queer theory was not an important part of the course. To correct the record, Brandi Waters, AP African American Studies' senior director, told USA TODAY that the intention of the course was to teach students “a diversity of lived [experiences].” This included a section on various movements and debates throughout Black American history, including “the Civil Rights Movement, housing discrimination against Black Americans, the Black Power Movement, feminist movements and ‘diversity within Black communities.’”

Queer Black Americans are as inseparable from Black history as Harriet Tubman and Martin Luther King, Jr. Prominent LGBTQ+ Black Americans like James Baldwin, Marsha P. Johnson, and Audre Lorde were thought leaders, authors, and activists whose musings on civil rights, feminism, and the LGBTQ+ experience are behind significant cultural shifts that radically changed the face of American society today.

It is no more inappropriate to talk about their lived experiences than it would be to discuss, say, LGBTQ+ victims of the Holocaust who were persecuted and sent to death camps by the Nazi regime.

In May, however, Gov. DeSantis signed Senate Bill 266. This new law puts critical faculty decisions, including hiring and review of tenure, in the hands of political appointees. The law also forbids colleges and universities from spending money on activities, speakers, events, and clubs that promote diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI). Because the language is so vague and broad, the law threatens historically Black sororities and fraternities, as well as DEI groups such as veterans’ services and student religious groups.

The governor signed this latest anti-free speech bill at New College of Florida, which is being treated as an incubator for the governor’s ideological playground. Disturbing stories from the school highlight personal financial gain, racist decisions overruling student input, and retaliation. The changes implemented at New College are a cautionary tale of how stoking a one-sided culture war in support of a single political ideology tramples on free expression and the ability to actually teach and learn in a classroom.

The First Amendment right to learn, to teach, to express does not end at the classroom door. It is not dictated by a governor, a state legislature, or political appointees. Florida’s education system is not a forum for the government to exercise unilateral ideological control out of fear or disgust for American history that includes the treatment of and contributions of marginalized people.

As queer Black civil rights activist James Baldwin once said, “It is certain, in any case, that ignorance, allied with power, is the most ferocious enemy justice can have.”

Rights Behind the Headlines is a blog series from the ACLU of Florida that dispels misinformation and gives Floridians critical information about the most pressing issues facing our state. Read the full series at aclufl.org/rightsbehindtheheadlines. 

We’re addressing the impacts of Gov. DeSantis’ assaults on the voting rights of Black Floridians during his term as Florida’s governor.

Why does Ron DeSantis work against Black people? A better question, perhaps, is how he has done it.

Ron DeSantis has systematically made it more difficult for Black Floridians to participate in their government since he was inaugurated the 46th Governor of Florida on January 8, 2019.

DeSantis did this, first, by dismantling Florida’s Voting Restoration Amendment (Amd 4).

The dismantling of Amendment 4 was primarily facilitated by the re-criminalization of the same people with past felony convictions that Amendment 4 was intended to help, with Gov. DeSantis’ implementation of Senate Bill 7066 creating a pay-to-vote system in 2019. Since then, the governor created an elections police force in 2022, arresting several people who believed they were eligible to vote for supposed election crimes, despite a lack of any indication that the individuals intended to violate any law.

This election police did succeed in chilling people who paid their debt to society from participating in their own government.

The ACLU of Florida along with other organizations has litigated against the state for its deceptive practices that effectively bar people with past convictions from voting, an affront to Florida voters who chose to restore the franchise to them.

Gov. DeSantis further reduced the power of Black Floridians’ voices in Congress by his usurping of the state’s 2020 redistricting process, during which he single-handedly dismantled a North Florida Congressional district intended for Black voter access, a district originally drawn to comply with the 2010 Fair Districts Amendment to the state’s constitution.

The district in question, then represented by regional native Al Lawson, was also drawn in a region of the state that is home to many of the Black descendants of Florida’s former slave population.

Following the 2020 census, the ACLU of Florida has litigated or otherwise sought to address racial gerrymandering practices in numerous municipalities across the state. Most recently our work was successful in getting the Jacksonville City Council to accept newly drawn district maps that fairly represent the city's Black population.

The governor has also censored anti-racist perspectives of American history in Florida’s K-12 social studies curriculum, namely with his so-called “Stop W.O.K.E.” law. A proposed expansion of the law to Florida public colleges and universities is being challenged by the ACLU among others for violating the free speech and equal protection of the First and 14th Amendments for students and educators alike.

Time and time again over the last four and half years of the tenure of Gov. Ron DeSantis, he has demonstrated indifference to improving the lives of not just Black Floridians, but the well-being of all Floridians.

We deserve better.