Florida International University has one of the most culturally diverse student bodies anywhere in the nation, with a robust Division of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion, known as DEI.
So when Gov. Ron DeSantis attacked DEI programs Tuesday, it raised a lot of eyebrows at FIU.
“We are also going to eliminate all DEI and CRT (critical race theory) bureaucracies in the state of Florida, no funding, and that will wither on the vine, and I think that that’s very important because it really serves as an ideological filter, a political filter,” DeSantis said.
“This isn’t the governor taking out ideology from our campuses, rather it’s the governor implementing what he thinks we should be learning n our college campuses,” said FIU assistant professor Eric Scarffe, in response to the governor’s plan. “It feels a lot more like dealing in fear-mongering than dealing with the actual facts on the ground about what we’re doing here at FIU.”
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Scarffe also represents the faculty union. He said FIU’s DEI division not only provides dozens of scholarships for students, but it also teaches faculty to be better instructors.
“Just because a student doesn’t look like me, learn like me or act like me, doesn’t mean they don’t deserve an education, and what can I change about the way I teach my courses that’s gonna make sure they’re successful, they’re brought into the conversation?” Scarffe said.
“Like being at this school, there’s a lot of diversity and a lot of good comes from that,” said FIU student Jobe Charles.
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Random students we spoke to on campus Wednesday were uniformly against the idea of defunding DEI programs, seeing it as an attack on diversity itself.
“Cutting the funding I feel like really takes away from what makes the school really a great school,” said Allie Francois, a student at the Biscayne Bay Campus.
FIU student Ian King told us cutting diversity programs that provide scholarships will have a negative impact.
“That’s really sad because I feel like that’s gonna hurt a lot of people and it may not seem like a big deal now but I feel like in the future, tears down the line, that’s gonna be a big problem for a lot of people,” King said.
“It’s just like lessening the chance for opportunities for minorities and people of different backgrounds,” chimed in Tynisa Senior, another FIU student.
DeSantis said by cutting DEI funding, there will be more money for attracting faculty.
“Those bureaucracies are not representative of what the people of this state and taxpayers of this state want,” DeSantis said.
Saving taxpayer money might be one of the governor’s rationales, but the state’s universities reported that collectively, they spend only about one percent of their budgets on DEI initiatives. Those programs get much of their funding from federal money.
