Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) on Monday held a roundtable discussion on the Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) scam in colleges and universities, shining a light on some of the most egregious examples of what the governor described as a “misallocation of resources” in the Sunshine State.
The press conference began with a montage of media clips covering a rage of DEI controversies within the universities in Florida. The montage, for example, showcased a letter showing the University of South Florida’s (USF) counseling center rejecting an individual from attending the BIPOC (black, indigenous and people of color) students-only group because the individual did not fit in those categories. The montage also revealed that the University of Florida (UF) funds a gender program “that performs double mastectomy on females as young as 16,” according to the presentation. The presentation added that UF requires all pediatric residents at UF Health to shadow in this clinic.
The montage also highlighted Florida International University (FIU’s) inclusive language guide, which listed she/he, mother/father, and women/men as “non-inclusive” terms and they/them, chosen pronouns, and latinx as “positive & affirming” terms.
“Well, first of all, I teach latinx literature in every class that I teach,” Ana Luszczynska, Chair of FIU’s Department of English stated in the montage.
“So when I teach literary theory, I teach latinx literature … it always appears in my curriculum. So I think first of all, because it has a very long history in the U.S. since the U.S. was Mexico,” she continued.
The presentation noted that FIU’s Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion office costs $1 million a year, while USF’s Diversity and Inclusion office costs $1.1 million.
While it said some universities, such as FSU and FIU have taken corrective measures, the issue still needs to be addressed.
“Off course you want diversity, things like diversity of viewpoints, right? We want to have robust debate. … But I think in reality, what it’s been is anything but those things,” DeSantis said following the presentation, explaining that DEI has been “used in the administrative apparatus of universities to try to impose not diversity of thought, but to try to impose uniformity of thought.”
“And instead of inclusion, the people that dissent from this orthodoxy are actually excluded and marginalized. And so it’s using the administrative apparatus of the university to impose an ideological agenda, and we’ve seen it all throughout the United States,” he said, noting that Florida, earlier this year, asked state universities to report how much they’re spending on the DEI. According to the self-reported figures, it is at least $34 million. DeSantis said they believe it could be “significantly higher.”
“But at the end of the day, you’re looking at that type of money and wondering, ok, what could be done to use that money in a better way?” he asked, lamenting the “misallocation of resources” for something that is “highly, highly ideological.”
WATCH:
COMMENTS
Please let us know if you're having issues with commenting.