Protest DeSantis Education Moves
by Jeremy Morrison
On Thursday, students at the University of West Florida joined with thousands of other students on high school and college campuses across the state in protesting Gov. Ron DeSantis’s education policies with a walkout. The statewide protest comes as the governor — considered a 2024 presidential contender — has dug deep into culture-war issues, among them reshaping public education in a way critics consider dangerous.
Although the walkout showing at UWF was small compared to other campuses around the state, a collection of students did gather in front of the John C. Pace Library on Cannon Green to raise awareness and sound the alarm bells about DeSantis’s moves when it comes to education.
“We want to give voices to those who are kind of in fear of speaking out,” said Laylah Curran, part of the leadership team of UWF’s Student for Socialism chapter, sponsoring the local event.
Among the concerns of the students participating in the Feb. 23 protest against Gov. DeSantis is a fear that the governor is targeting people of color and those in the LGBTQ+ community with repressive measures. In addition to the passage of a bill prohibiting the discussion of sexual orientation and gender identity and pushing his so-called Stop Woke Act, which restricts the instruction of race-related issues, the governor is also having public schools culled of books — which often pertain to issues of race, sexuality or gender —has stacked the famously liberal New College of Florida with right-wing allies and, most recently, has ordered colleges to provide data on the gender-affirming care provided to students.
Off to the side of the protest proper, Sarah Brummet, a member of the Party of Socialism and Liberation, relayed how her work as a substitute teacher was providing some unique insight as schools worked to adjust to new state laws and teachers worried about potentially getting in trouble or even sued for teaching material found to be somehow out of line with the state’s evolving standards.
“I am an employee of the public school system,” Brummet said, “and I’m seeing firsthand that teachers are fearful.”
Brummet begins to explain how she thinks that DeSantis’s move are meant to divide and distract the working class — “and to really convince us that there’s something wrong with LGBTQ people, that there’s something wrong with understanding Black history and that our schools are indoctrination camps” — but she was soon drowned out by a nearby man in an anti-abortion t-shirt who began loudly praying on preaching on a stool.
“This guy was at the school board meeting,” Brummet rolled her eyes, referring to a meeting a few days earlier during which the Escambia County School District removed three more books from availability.
As students began to pause on the green and listen, one speaker after the next took to a microphone on the library steps and talked about why they disagreed with the governor’s moves. They spoke about “racists, bigoted attacks on our schools” and about how “teachers are scraping rainbow stickers off their cars.”
“Is that the kind of country we want to live in?” said Chiara, president of UWF’s Young Democratic Socialist of America chapter. “When they say ‘woke,’ they mean queer. When they say ‘woke,’ they mean Black.”
Across Cannon Green, one protester stood on a bench and engaged with the stool-top preacher. The two argued, loudly, about which was the “real Christian.”
Colby Teelin, an associate of the preacher, said that they had not intended to protest the students involved in the walkout against DeSantis’s policy. That said, they were ready for the debate.
“We’re just out here; we come out here every Thursday,” the man said. “Our purpose is not to counter-protest, but also we are opposed to their message. So, there’s that.”
But Teelin said he and his preacher friend shouldn’t be viewed as necessarily cheerleading the governor. His intentions, they feel, are too obvious: “politics, essentially.”
“We do not believe that Ron DeSantis’s motivations are pure,” Teelin said. “We don’t believe Ron DeSantis is necessarily doing this to glorify God.”