University of Florida to fire all DEI employees to avoid violating state law

Link: University of Florida to fire all DEI employees to avoid violating state law

March 1 (UPI) -- The University of Florida announced Friday it is firing all employees in positions related to diversity, equity and inclusion at the public university.

According to a memo that the Alligator, UF's campus newspaper, posted on X, the university has "closed its office of the chief diversity officer, eliminated DEI positions and administrative appointments, and halted DEI-focused contracts with outside vendors."...

Excellent. This part blows my mind:

...UF's DEI initiatives consist of the equivalent of 24 full-time employees and costs the university $53 million, $3.3 million of which is state funded, according to the report...

Fifty. Three. Million. To employ 2 dozen holy wokesters. To quote the prophet P.T. Barnum, there's a sucker born every minute. Ye gods.

 

I don't think there's anything wrong with DEI being a part of anything, although I'd agree that $53 million for 24 employees who don't really add any value is laughably absurd.

 

That should be a decision of the university though. Not the state.

It’s fascinating to see the rapid change in republicans that want to slash regulations and allow free market ideas to prevail also being the same ones that are banning books and courses at the state level and trying to force religious indoctrination into schools.

 

The entire $53.3 Million WASN'T being paid to the "equivalent of 24 full-time employees"
Actually:
UF fired 13 full-time diversity, equity and inclusion positions
The combined salaries of the 13 fired employees was no more than $2 Million. Tops.

 

Great news!!!

 

You frequently mention the banning of books and I'd like to point something out. A book is someone's thoughts expressed in the form of text. What is a Tweet of Facebook post? It's someone's thoughts expressed in the form of text So banning a book is the same as banning a Twitter post.

 

Except Twitter is a private business. Can I force Barnes and noble to sell my book?

 

Except it isn’t.

One is government censored the other is privately censored.

Private entities have no obligation to be bound to the first amendment as doing so would violate their freedom of speech.

If a tweet has to be published on a private platform against the wishes of the owner then a baker should have to bake a cake for a same sex couple.

 

University of florida is the state fyi.

 

It’s a state school — the state contributed very little to this program.

So you are fine with states turning the schools into partisan indoctrination camps that ban topic they don’t like?

Noted

 

Are you aware that some schools banned or edited classic books because they were deemed to be insensitive to certain races and the LGB folks?

 

I disagree with that as well, but what does that have to do with what you originally asked or what I responded?

 

Its really simple. STOP TAKING TAXDOLLARS!!!!!!!!!!! Quit sucking on our teats and you can have all the DEI you want. Kick competence to the side of the road, replace it with diversity and go out and compete in the open market. Just for the love of God stop doing it with our money.

 

Good. Wokism must be defeated.

 

That's because we're not really interested in using public funding to fund racist propaganda masquerading as some sort of equality

 

Do you have some sort of verification for this?

 

The question you should really be asking is if you could force the public school system to add it to their curriculum.

 

So you support the idea that private companies can violate the spirit of the Bill Of Rights?

 

Yes of course.

 

Does it make you happy when private companies do the government's dirty work for them in violating constitutional rights?

 

The "forbidden topics" list expands. Government censorship is alive and well in FL.

 

They work for the state!

 

No.

 

I'm 100% fine with organizations that receive large state funding being regulated by the state. As someone who has spent half their life in academia, I've found the creation of DEI and the people hired to carry out the "re-education" to be the opposite of what universities used to be about - a safe haven of debate and radical ideas. In my experience , these DEI hires are the ones who often support the suppression of opposing opinions being discussed on campus. Historically, just to be clear, both parties have taken their turns trying to suppress this type of rigorous debate on college campuses.