DeSantis: I’ll take accreditation from schools with DEI programs

As president, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis says he would strip accreditation from colleges and universities that offer diversity, equity and inclusion programs. 

In an interview Wednesday, the faltering Republican presidential candidate told conservative commentator Hugh Hewitt about his plans for higher education. The governor, who has suggested that he might pursue drone strikes against Mexican drug cartels as president, said he would “totally blow up the accreditation cartel” if he wins the White House:

Part of the reason universities operate [the way] they are is because they need to get accredited, and these accreditors are all trying to create the types of universities that we object to as conservatives. So we’re going to have alternative accreditors. It’s going to be, instead of ‘You have to have gender studies or you have to have DEI to get accredited,’ it’ll be the opposite. We’re not going to accredit you if you have DEI and some of these other things.

Allow me, the former president of a college organization that received DEI funding, to tell you what DeSantis’ crusade would look like in practice: Schools that host events promoting cultural diversity — as varied as lectures, concerts, study groups, book clubs, campus safety seminars for frequently targeted groups, along with a seemingly endless array of other events — would be at risk of losing their official recognition as postsecondary institutions if DeSantis becomes president.

The governor also said he wants to remake schools in the image of New College of Florida, a school that he has placed under the control of right-wing ideologues.

The accreditation plan “is going to create, I think, an opportunity for a lot of innovation in higher ed,” DeSantis told Hewitt before adding: “And what we’ve seen in New College, just by saying, I mean, basically we came in, new president, they got rid of things like CRT [critical race theory], they abolished the gender studies department, they rebranded the university as being the best classical publicly funded liberal arts college.” (Read more on what DeSantis means by “classical” here.)

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These remarks are worthy of concern — even though the prospect of a President DeSantis seems increasingly unlikely — because what he’s voicing is fundamentally a white supremacist talking point. 

“Diversity is not our strength” is literally a phrase popularized by white nationalists. It’s also the implicit mantra of today’s conservative movement, and it appears to be the credo driving DeSantis’ policy proposals, from bans on books about social inequality to his effort to prevent workplaces from instituting DEI policies. 

To be clear, crusading against DEI programs is not unique to DeSantis. The Republican speaker of Wisconsin’s state Assembly, for example, has said he would block pay raises for university employees unless DEI cuts are made. And another GOP presidential candidate with paltry poll numbers, Vivek Ramaswamy, has made attacks on affirmative action his calling card — despite the fact he has benefited from it personally. 

Much like affirmative action policies for school admissions, which the Supreme Court gutted earlier this year, DEI programs serve to make campuses more welcoming of marginalized groups and more enriching for all students.

What DeSantis and like-minded Republicans seem to want are campuses reminiscent of a time before integration, when campuses were welcoming to a white and wealthy few.