Gov. DeSantis’ DOGE to dive into university DEI, administration

It’s not just academic. Gov. Ron DeSantis is revealing more details into his proposed equivalent to Elon Musk’s federal Department of Governmental Efficiency, specifically regarding how it will regard Florida’s universities.

He told the Board of Governors that it will probe some familiar topics, including diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) initiatives that theoretically have been ferreted out, as well as administrative “bloat.”

“There’s certain state policies that have been implemented, such as the abolition of DEI, which I know on a superficial level, the universities went and applied with,” DeSantis said.

“But as we’ve seen, you know, you kind of burrow in and rename, do what you want. And there is some sense in some quarters that whatever the law in the state of Florida is, it just is not obligatory on them and they can kind of do their own little fiefdom. That’s not going to fly here.”

In DeSantis’ first term, his administration greenlit many of those policies in the very colleges he’s targeted more recently.

DeSantis told reporters in 2023 he was once ignorant of the subject that he signed a law banning that same year.

“I didn’t know what DEI was a couple of years ago as this had taken hold. I mean, it sounds innocuous, right? I thought maybe diversity of ideas, maybe actually have more than one viewpoint. Well, that’s not what it is. What it is, is trying to enforce a political agenda and a political orthodoxy under the auspices of administration,” DeSantis said. “And that is something that is not in the best interests of the state.”

Now, though, he’s clearly pushing against DEI. Additionally, he warned Wednesday about “ideological studies.”

“First of all, it’s not my cup of tea, but that’s not what the people of Florida want their tax dollars to do. People want that, they can go to Cal Berkeley. They can go a bunch of different places. For us, we really want to focus on what the classical mission of a university should be,” DeSantis said.

“We’ve got some great programs across different parts of the state on things that are really, really meaningful, where you’re really challenging students and you’re making them better. So I would just say, keep up with that. Let’s make sure that we’re having that, people read these course catalogs and they’re not wincing as to why the heck that would be in there with Florida tax dollars.”

DeSantis also suggested that university workforces could be pared down nationally, and that Florida’s deserved a critical look as well.

“I think if you look nationwide over the past three decades or so, I’ve seen a massive increase in universities in administrative staff, huge increase. And it almost parallels the explosion of student loan money that’s gone out,” DeSantis said.

“And so we’ve asked, you know, look, how is Florida doing in that respect? How are we doing in terms of the bureaucracies and the administrative? Are we a well-oiled machine? Is there room for improvement?”