{"id":150304,"date":"2026-02-10T15:44:10","date_gmt":"2026-02-10T15:44:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/150304\/"},"modified":"2026-02-10T15:44:10","modified_gmt":"2026-02-10T15:44:10","slug":"famu-student-says-school-required-black-to-be-removed-from-black-history-month-flyers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/150304\/","title":{"rendered":"FAMU Student Says School Required ‘Black’ To Be Removed From Black History Month Flyers"},"content":{"rendered":"

A student at Florida\u2019s<\/a> largest HBCU<\/a> said the university attempted to take the \u2018Black\u2019 out of a student group\u2019s Black History Month activities. The advertising restriction appears to be part of a larger effort by Florida to censor diversity, a policy that has now been replicated on the national level under the Trump administration.<\/p>\n

Ban on using \u2018Black\u2019 and other terms for Black History Month advertisement<\/p>\n

Florida A&M University student Aaliyah Steward, who is in her last year at the school\u2019s College of Law, said the school required her to censor promotional material that the Black Law Students Association was using to advertise its Black History Month activities. Notably,\u00a0Steward said, \u201cWe couldn\u2019t use the word \u2018Black\u2019 in Black History Month. We need to abbreviate it.\u201d Steward also said the university objected to other terms, including \u201caffirmative action\u201d and \u201cwomen.\u201d The university did not deny Steward\u2019s claim, saying in a statement, \u201cFlorida A&M University has consistently been in full compliance with Senate Bill 266<\/a> and Board of Governors\u2019 Regulation 9.016.\u201d The university stated, \u201cWe support and have implemented the policy direction established by the Governor, the Legislature, and the Board of Governors as it relates to DEI, and consistent with related federal court rulings.\u201d<\/p>\n

Censoring discussion of Blackness at an HBCU<\/p>\n

\u201cI was very angry and baffled because this is a Historically Black College and University, and for them to say we can\u2019t use the word \u2018Black\u2019 was kind of insane,\u201d Steward told News 6 Orlando<\/a>. The university maintained in its statement that it \u201cis committed to fostering a campus community that encourages the free exchange of ideas while ensuring an environment of mutual respect, safety, and awareness.\u201d FAMU claimed that \u201cthe University recognizes that freedom of expression is fundamental to academic inquiry, personal development, and civic engagement.\u201d Steward described a very different experience. \u201cI just don\u2019t want us to be censored this way. Not being able to use the word \u2018Black\u2019 is very frustrating,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Florida Republicans\u2019 anti-\u2018woke\u2019 restrictions on diversity<\/p>\n

The censorship being conducted by FAMU is a manifestation of the anti-DEI policies<\/a> put in place in Florida under the leadership of conservative Gov. Ron DeSantis. In 2023, the governor made defunding diversity, equity and inclusion programs in Florida universities a key part of his campaign against so-called \u201cwoke\u201d ideologies. The policies put in place by DeSantis and the Republican-controlled legislature created an atmosphere that led the NAACP to issue a 2023 travel advisory warning Black people not to visit the state. Since President Donald Trump returned to the White House in 2025, he has been implementing a set of anti-diversity policies at the national level that have strictly interpreted the Supreme Court\u2019s anti-affirmative action ruling<\/a>; under Trump administration guidelines, any race-conscious programming<\/a> on college campuses could be viewed as illegal.<\/p>\n

Florida\u2019s anti-diversity policies laid the groundwork for other states like Texas to adopt restrictive policies toward their schools, and Florida\u2019s policies also served as a precursor to restrictions being implemented at a national level. Now, the state\u2019s restrictions have apparently created an absurd situation in which students are being restricted from publicly advertising the \u201cBlack\u201d aspect of Black History Month.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A student at Florida\u2019s largest HBCU said the university attempted to take the \u2018Black\u2019 out of a student…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":150305,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[232,234,233],"class_list":{"0":"post-150304","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tallahassee","8":"tag-tallahassee","9":"tag-tallahassee-headlines","10":"tag-tallahassee-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/150304","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=150304"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/150304\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/150305"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=150304"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=150304"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=150304"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}