GAINESVILLE, Fla.—Three years ago, as a University of Florida freshman, Bia Castanho kept her head down and her mouth shut when classroom conversations veered toward politics. Virtually every time students with her conservative orientation entered a debate it ended badly for them, she said.
Her time on campus has paralleled a concerted effort by Republican lawmakers to dismantle what they consider entrenched liberal orthodoxy within Florida’s institutions of higher learning. In a class this past fall about the economics of farming, she felt emboldened enough to take a stand: Donald Trump was right, illegal immigration was wrong and farmworkers without proper documentation should not be allowed to work, she said.
“Things are changing,” said Castanho, now a senior. “When I got here, if you were a conservative, people thought you were a hater, a racist or homophobic. Now at least some people will at least listen to your ideas.”
During his presidential campaign, Donald Trump vowed “to reclaim our once great educational institutions from the radical Left.” Recent edicts from him and his new administration ordering colleges to end diversity, equity and inclusion programs or anything they deem as discriminatory—or risk losing federal funding—aim to begin the process.
Colleges are rolling back programs that they fear could run afoul of the new administration’s guidance and are making other changes. The University of Virginia voted last week to dissolve its DEI and community partnerships office. “DEI is done at the University of Virginia,” said Gov. Glenn Youngkin.
The University of North Carolina will no longer mandate students take DEI-related classes to fulfill general education or major requirements, Andrew Tripp, the system’s senior vice president for legal affairs and general counsel, wrote chancellors in February. The risk of jeopardizing federal research funding was “simply too great to defer action,” he wrote.
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