Florida's State Board of Education approved a new set of rules on Wednesday that will prohibit taxpayer funds from being “used to promote DEI” in the Florida College System.
The regulations will limit the use of public funding for diversity, equity, and inclusion programs, activities, and policies, as well as remove a sociology class from a list of required courses, and replace it with an American history course at Florida’s 28 state colleges.
The programs implicated by the new rule are defined as anything which “classifies individuals on the basis of race, color, sex, national origin, gender identity, or sexual orientation and promotes differential or preferential treatment of individuals on the basis of such classification.”
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According to a statement from the Florida Department of Education, the new class “Introductory Survey to 1877” will provide students an “accurate and factual account of the nation’s past, rather than exposing them to radical woke ideologies, which had become commonplace in the now replaced course.”
Education Commission Manny Diaz said Wednesday that while the sociology course would still be available, it would no longer be a general education course, because “within the general education code, courses may not distort significant historical events or include curriculum that teaches identity politics or theories.”
The new regulations are based on SB 266, which was passed in May by the state legislature and signed into law by Gov. Ron DeSantis, who has been using Florida schools to prosecute a culture war.
