The University of North Florida will be closing four of its diversity centers, including the campus LGBTQ center. Students protested on Wednesday, the same day that the Florida Board of Governors voted to stop funding for diversity, equity, and inclusion services and activities at state universities. The vote, unfortunately, doesn’t come as a surprise as it follows Gov. Ron DeSantis’ law banning Florida’s public higher education institutions from using state or federal funding for diversity programs.
Lissie Morales was one of the students who protested on Wednesday. She carried a rainbow flag and yelled “What do we do? Stand up, fight back!” She told NBC affiliate WTLV of Jacksonville, “The center provided me friends; it provided me education to learn more about my gender and sexual orientation. In regard to the turnout, it warms my heart to see people care about something as much as I do, especially when it comes to the LGBT center, because it was one of the reasons why I came to UNF in the first place.”
UNF President Moaz Limayem said that the university will be closing its Office of Diversity and Inclusion, its interfaith, intercultural, women’s and LGBTQ centers, to comply with the new law.
“We want UNF to be a place where all people feel safe and welcome, and where there is no place for hate,” Limayem said in a letter to the UNF community. “This semester, we will begin seeking ways to reinforce UNF’s values in everything we do, and we will review and expand resources as necessary to ensure success for all members of our campus community.”
This is far from the first time that DeSantis has tried to silence and censor the queer community. Carlos Guillermo Smith, policy adviser at the LGBTQ advocacy group Equality Florida, called the new state law “a rubber stamp for Ron DeSantis’s agenda of censorship and surveillance.”
“The Board of Governors had the opportunity to hit the brakes, but instead, shamefully followed their censorship agenda off a cliff in service to DeSantis’s failed political ambitions,” Smith continued.
Florida has quite the reputation for anti-LGBTQ laws, famously for the enactment of the “Don’t Say Gay” law in 2022, which limited discussions of sexual orientation and gender identity in public schools until third grade. Last year, that law was expanded to eighth grade. NBC Out reports that, since the start of the year, Florida lawmakers have introduced about a dozen anti-LGBTQ bills.
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