MIAMI — Students at one Florida public university say that they have had positive experiences with diversity programming and classes at their university and feel that shutting them down would make them feel unsafe or hinder their education, according to recent survey results shared with the Miami Herald.
All within the past two months, Gov. Ron DeSantis announced a proposal to defund and eliminate diversity, equity and inclusion programs in public universities, asking each school to submit a list of programs and classes related to DEI and critical race theory. He also required schools to submit detailed information on services provided to transgender people seeking gender-affirming care. Additionally, he overhauled the leadership of New College of Florida, a small liberal arts school in Sarasota. The public university’s Board of Trustees then got rid of the school’s diversity and inclusion office.
At the University of North Florida, the student government took matters into its own hands and asked students, through the survey, whether they felt classes and programs on UNF’s list were indoctrinating them or discriminating against them or others in any way, among other questions.
“If Ron DeSantis says students are being indoctrinated, let’s ask the students,” Nathaniel Rodefer, UNF’s student body president, told the Herald. Roughly 800 students responded to the survey, which the student government distributed through emails, flyers and in-person events. Some faculty and staff also responded.
The responses — shared with the Herald — highlight a disconnect between the governor’s claims about higher education and the students receiving it. Close to 70% of respondents said they’d had positive or somewhat positive experiences with DEI programming at UNF. Just 28 individuals said their experiences had been at all negative.
The survey asked specifically about UNF’s Office of Diversity and Inclusion, Intercultural Center, Interfaith Center, LGBTQ Center, Women’s Center, and the OneJax Institute, an interfaith group, given those programs could be on the chopping block. It also asked about classes on race, gender and politics, as well as an introductory anthropology class and a diversity in education class, which were included on the list.
Lee Jordan, a junior studying sociology, chose to attend UNF in part because of its nationally recognized LGBTQ Center.
“I thought it would help me adjust to college life and being away from home for the first time as an LGBTQ person,” Jordan said.
The center, Jordan said, helped him find a community on campus and in Jacksonville, providing sexually transmitted infection testing and offering a bountiful library of LGBTQ texts. Staff there helped him deal with an incident freshman year when someone wrote homophobic messages on his dorm room door, Jordan said..
“The campus can be a hostile place,” he said. “The center is vital in giving students the resources to deal with these issues.”
Jordan, who is Jewish, has also worked with the university’s Interfaith Center on a campus Jewish Student Union. Neo-Nazi posters and swastikas have appeared around campus in recent years.
“It’s given me leadership skills that I need to take these kinds of things into my own hands,” Jordan said. “Without resources like these, I feel like UNF would be a much worse environment for students. It facilitates us to really learn from each other. ... That’s what American life is. It’s people from different experiences and beliefs and backgrounds coming together in one democracy.”
In one section of the survey, students were asked to write short responses on how the removal of diversity, equity and inclusion programs and coursework would affect them personally.
One student, who self-described as African American, described the isolation of being “the only Black person” in many of their classes. The student said the programs have helped them connect with people of similar backgrounds and provided “an outlet.”
Other responses suggested students are concerned they will lose access to support from the university’s LGBTQ Center, Women’s Center and similar programs.
“It would make me me feel unsafe and not supported as (a) Black queer student,” one wrote.
A smaller number of students expressed negative sentiments. About 14% of respondents said that the programs probably or definitely indoctrinated students, while almost 13% said the classes in question did.
If DEI programs were eliminated, “I wouldn’t feel like a villain everyday I come to school,” one student wrote.
Another said that axing the programs would create a campus where “we view people as individuals with character instead of intersectionalities, races, and sexual orientations. ... These DEI programs want students to view each other as intersectionalities in the name of ‘equity.’”
But others questioned continuing their education in Florida if the programs are removed entirely. “This erases my desire to continue my education in a space that doesn’t support my history, my comfort, or my desire for success in an already oppressive system,” one student said.
Overall, said Rodefer, the student body president, “the survey is giving a very different message so far than the one Ron DeSantis is pushing.”
He also told the Herald that faculty and staff are demoralized and several who have spoken to him are questioning whether they should leave the state.
“They love UNF, they love the campus, they love the students,” said Rodefer, a 22-year-old senior majoring in environmental studies.
But “higher education in Florida could become something that is simply just … not for them anymore,” he said.
J. Andrew Gothard, president of United Faculty of Florida, the state’s higher education union, pointed out that DEI programs offer a wide-range of support for minorities, first-generation students, students with disabilities, veterans and other vulnerable groups.
“These programs that fall under DEI help protect everyone,” said Gothard, an English instructor at Florida Atlantic University. “Anyone who actually wants to see higher education succeed should support these programs. They help students succeed. ... These are not indoctrination camps.”
Gothard said that far from promoting freedom, DeSantis’ proposals would actually “enforce state-sponsored speech and ideology on our campuses.”
“Anything outside of his ideology is not welcome,” he said.
The OneJax Institute, a campus interfaith group, has already announced it will sever its ties with UNF and the state.
Kyle Reese, OneJax’s executive director, said that DeSantis’ public statements and the threat of new legislation have made it impossible to keep doing diversity and inclusion work in partnership with the university. In recent months, Reese said, his group was told it could not organize a civility pledge among candidates for Jacksonville’s upcoming mayoral election or hold a campaign celebrating the city’s diversity.
“It really became evident that if we weren’t able to do the work of helping people be nice to each other, it was time for us to go our own way,” Reese told the Herald. “We are gaining the freedom to fulfill our mission, and that’s impossible in the current political climate.”
Reese said he did not want to specify who forbade his group from its normal activities beyond saying that “the civility pledge was from outside the university, the diversity campaign was from inside.”
OneJax has its own private funding, making the separation possible — an opportunity that Reese pointed out is not realistic for faculty, staff and students who depend on state funds.
In a statement, UNF President Moez Limayem said: “We part as friends, and I wish OneJax well as it continues to pursue its work in the greater Jacksonville community.”
Matt Hartley, who runs the Interfaith Center at UNF, said if the state defunds the center, the university would lose a resource that helps it understand students who are coming from different religious backgrounds. These students, he said, have very specific accommodations they need to feel at home on campus — such as places to pray — as well as to feel that they are treated fairly in the classroom. (Hartley said he was expressing his own opinions and not speaking as a representative of UNF.)
“The students I speak to are really concerned,” he said, “about protecting these areas of diversity on campus.”
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(McClatchy’s Susan Merriam contributed to this report.)
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