Monitoring Desk
ISLAMABAD/FLORIDA: Governor of Florida Ron DeSantis would gain more influence in the state’s public universities system, and gender studies and critical race theory programmes would be finished if the bill filed last week wins support from the Republican-controlled legislature.
The fresh measure, which primarily reflects a legislative agenda announced by DeSantis in January, would restrict consideration of diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) in faculty hiring. It would also require each institution’s board of trustees to approve “iring, giving DeSantis more significant influence over those determinations because the governor appoints many board members.
The wide-reaching legislation represents the new front in the Republican war against the “woke” agenda several conservatives believed liberals were trying to push on public education across the United States (US). DeSantis, who is expected to launch the presidential bid after Florida’s legislative session ends who spring positioned himself as a leader in that fight.
DeSantis said in January, “In Florida, we would build off of our higher education university reforms by aligning core syllabus to the values of liberty and the Western tradition.”. The legislature, a clear Republican majority, convenes for its regular session in March 2022.
Asked about a bill on Friday, the spokesman for the governor, Jeremy Redfern, said that DeSantis will decide whether to sign it after seeing the final version passed by lawmakers.
The bill’s sponsor, Alex Andrade, a Republican state representative, couldn’t be reached for comment.
Academics, free speech advocates, and university students condemned the measure. Jeremy C. Young, a senior manager of free expression and education at the writers’ organization PEN US, tweeted that it would be the “central battleground for the soul of higher education.”
Young said on Friday that “It would virtually end university freedom, shared governance and institutional autonomy at all Florida universities and colleges,” Florida’s university system includes 12 universities with more than 400,000 students.
The use of DEI programmes in hiring has caused controversy. Critics said that favoring underrepresented groups is unfairly detrimental to others, while proponents said such efforts have needed to help give traditionally marginalised groups equal footing.
Texas Republican Governor Greg Abbott said that public universities such practices violated labor laws. The University of Texas system’s board of regents said that it had paused all fresh DEI policies in its hiring.
Universities programme
The Florida bill would prohibit spending on programs and universities campus activities promoting DEI and what it calls “Critical Race Theory rhetoric. “The programmes must comply with central regulations, and other assistance programs would be exempted.
The measure states that the general education core courses taught at public universities “may not suppress and distort important historical events and include a curriculum the teaches identity politics, such as critical race theory, or defines US history as contrary to the build of a new nation based on world principles stated in the Declaration of Independence.”
Critical race theory is the academic concept that asserts that racism is woven into the US legal system and ingrained in its primary institutions.
