Ron DeSantis and his Republican allies in the Florida legislature have their eyes on a new slate of bills that targets teachers and marginalizes already vulnerable students in the state. The proposals, which the GOP-led body will take up Tuesday when they return for a new session, include measures that would prohibit educators from using students’ preferred gender pronouns, eliminate gender studies and diversity programs in higher education, and cede more power over curriculum to parents. The half-dozen bills, which also include plans to weaken tenure for university professors, ban discussion of gender and sexuality in third through eighth grade classrooms, and implement a universal private school voucher program, are an intensification of the classroom culture wars that have defined DeSantis’ reign in Florida — all as the governor inches closer to announcing his expected presidential candidacy.
“There’s a new bill every day,” as Democratic Florida Representative Maxwell Frost told CNN on Sunday. “He is abusing his power and using the state to target political opponents and political enemies. And there’s a word for that, and it’s fascism.”
“It’s just a problem for Florida now, sure,” Frost added. “But in a few years, it could be a problem for the nation.”
DeSantis, like his rival, Donald Trump, has always put grievance at the center of his governance. But his crusade against all things “woke” has largely come to focus in his efforts to remake the state’s education system, from elementary school classrooms up to the universities. “The state is telling you what you can and cannot learn,” Irene Mulvey, president of the American Association of University Professors, told the Washington Post. “That is inconsistent with democracy.” DeSantis, meanwhile, has benefited politically from his attacks: He tightened Republicans’ grip on Florida in November’s midterms and appears to be the only real challenger to Trump for the GOP’s 2024 nod so far, and the party is hoping to build a resurgence using his blueprint.
His political gains, of course, have come at the expense of teachers and students — particularly LGBTQ+ kids, who have already been targeted by DeSantis’ “Don’t Say Gay” law and other legislation, and students of color, whose full history is being denied in Florida classrooms by DeSantis and his Republican allies. “Governor DeSantis and the lawmakers following him are hellbent on policing language, curriculum, and culture,” Equality Florida Public Policy Director Jon Harris Maurer said of the latest proposals. “Free states don’t ban books or people.”
“This legislation is about a fake moral panic, cooked up by Governor DeSantis to demonize LGBTQ people for his own political career,” Maurer added.
The moral panic may be manufactured, but the consequences of DeSantis’ attacks are obviously real: Not only has he worked to marginalize LGBTQ+ and Black Floridians — he’s contributed to a political environment in which increasingly dangerous, dehumanizing rhetoric about those very communities has been welcomed into the mainstream of the Republican party. Now, with many in the party in lockstep behind him, and his run seemingly imminent, DeSantis is promising to double-down on his agenda. “We have an opportunity to tackle more issues in a short period of time than even we were able to in any of our four years so far,” DeSantis said during a stop promoting his new book last week. “You ain’t seen nothing yet.”
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