John,

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis is sending his right-wing thought police into Florida’s public colleges and universities. A new Florida law requires the State Board of Education and The Board of Governors to survey students, professors, and staff about their beliefs in order to determine “viewpoint diversity.”

These survey responses won’t be submitted to an independent education commission, but instead directly to DeSantis’s own office. This is the same governor who banned public schools from teaching critical race theory and who rejected dozens of math textbooks over claims they were indoctrinating children.

Join me and our national allies in calling for an end of Ron DeSantis’s student censorship and for Florida’s “viewpoint diversity” law to be repealed! Sign now >>

This is a blatant attempt at intimidation and censorship in the right-wing’s long-held goal of defunding public schools. As Clay Calvert, director of the University of Florida’s Marion B. Brechner First Amendment Project, said:

“It is being mandated because it gives a conservative state legislative body a tool to withhold funding from a university that, based upon the survey results, seems to discriminate against conservative viewpoints.”¹

Public universities in the United States are already bound by the First Amendment and cannot discriminate against viewpoints. Students already have the right to free speech on campus.

All a survey like this does is create opportunities for political manipulation that could have a chilling effect on intellectual and academic freedom. Colleges and universities shouldn’t have to investigate and monitor the political leanings of students and teachers, and students shouldn’t be asked to share them.

Sign now to stand with students against Ron DeSantis’s so-called “viewpoint diversity” law and demand the law be repealed.

Thank you for fighting back against attacks on our thoughts and on public education.

In solidarity,

Rashida

¹ https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2021/06/24/florida-intellectual-freedom-law-mandates-viewpoint-surveys/