{"id":242470,"date":"2026-04-22T22:42:15","date_gmt":"2026-04-22T22:42:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/242470\/"},"modified":"2026-04-22T22:42:15","modified_gmt":"2026-04-22T22:42:15","slug":"ron-desantis-signs-law-blocking-local-florida-governments-from-funding-dei-florida","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/242470\/","title":{"rendered":"Ron DeSantis signs law blocking local Florida governments from funding DEI | Florida"},"content":{"rendered":"

Florida governor Ron DeSantis<\/a> on Wednesday signed a law prohibiting local governments from funding or promoting diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives, saying that white men have been discriminated against.<\/p>\n

The Florida<\/a> governor has been at the forefront of combatting DEI initiatives, despite criticism from groups nationwide. Under the new law, residents can sue local governments for violations and if individual local officials are found to have funded DEI initiatives, they can be removed from office.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are, of course, the state where woke goes to die,\u201d DeSantis said during a press conference announcing and signing the two new laws in the state.<\/p>\n

The law is a further effort to challenge local counties\u2019 goals to promote race and gender inclusion programs. Supporters of DEI initiatives say that they help remedy the effects of long-term and historical discrimination of certain groups.<\/p>\n

While the governor is entitled to his opinion, his views differ from \u201ceveryone else\u2019s\u201d, said Evelyn Foxx, president of the NAACP branch in Gainesville, in an interview<\/a> with the Associated Press.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you talked to 100 white men, they wouldn\u2019t feel the same way\u201d as DeSantis, Foxx said. \u201cThe governor is out of touch with people, and that is the bottom line.\u201d<\/p>\n

During the press conference, DeSantis also called DEI an \u201cideological construct\u201d to the detriment of \u201cdisfavored groups\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe disfavored groups, No 1, obviously, would be white males, and I think they\u2019ve been discriminated against,\u201d DeSantis said. \u201cAnd it\u2019s, it\u2019s like, a lot of people are: \u2018Oh that\u2019s fine. That\u2019s fine.\u2019 No, it\u2019s not fine. It\u2019s wrong.\u201d<\/p>\n

During the press conference, DeSantis said that Asian American students had also been discriminated against by DEI initiatives.<\/p>\n

The new laws follow others signed by the Republican governor targeting DEI initiatives: in 2023, DeSantis signed a bill into law<\/a> barring public colleges and universities from spending money on DEI initiatives.<\/p>\n

DeSantis also signed a law on Wednesday that prohibited climate change-related initiatives, including a bar on businesses having to pay carbon taxes.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe see some of the things still being done in local governments,\u201d DeSantis said, pointing to some counties in the state pushing for climate sustainability plans and calling them \u201cradical climate policies\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re just going to stop the madness here, and that\u2019s what this bill does,\u201d DeSantis added.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Florida governor Ron DeSantis on Wednesday signed a law prohibiting local governments from funding or promoting diversity, equity…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":242471,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[28,30,29],"class_list":["post-242470","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-florida","tag-florida","tag-florida-headlines","tag-florida-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/242470","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=242470"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/242470\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/242471"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=242470"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=242470"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=242470"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}