In his latest effort to regulate higher education, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis signed legislation back in April that will allow the state to oversee the inner workings of universities, or what DeSantis referred to as a "hotbed for stale ideologies." The series of regulations, collectively called the "Stop W.O.K.E. Act," took effect on July 1st and includes changes to the tenure system, the abolishment of widely accepted accreditation practices, and mandatory yearly "viewpoint diversity surveys" — perhaps the most controversial part of the new regime. The law also places a ban on training focused on race or diversity in schools and in the workplace.
"It used to be thought that a university campus was a place where you'd be exposed to a lot of different ideas," DeSantis said at a press conference earlier this year. "Unfortunately, now the norm is, these are more intellectually repressive environments. You have orthodoxies that are promoted, and other viewpoints are shunned or even suppressed."
