Right Wing Media Cheer as DeSantis Destroys Education in Florida
By Jaden Satenstein
The right loves to complain about a so-called free speech crisis in American education, but when Republican politicians take drastic measures to restrict speech they see as furthering a liberal agenda, conservative outlets seem to forget everything they said about upholding the First Amendment.
Nowhere is this hypocrisy clearer than in right-wing media’s coverage of Florida Governor Ron DeSantis’s recent efforts to transform Florida’s educational institutions.
Don’t Say You Know What
Desantis made headlines when he signed the “Parental Rights in Education” bill into law in March 2022. The bill, famously dubbed by critics as ‘Don’t Say Gay,’ states that, “Classroom instruction by school personnel or third parties on sexual orientation or gender identity may not occur in kindergarten through grade 3 or in a manner that is not age-appropriate or developmentally appropriate for students in accordance with state standards.”
Now, a year later, DeSantis’s administration is trying to expand “Don’t Say Gay” to all grade levels.
Opponents have pointed out the law’s lack of clarity as what constitutes “instruction,” especially considering the bill’s preamble states that the authors aim to eliminate not only “instruction” of these topics but also “discussion” of them entirely. With many possible interpretations of the law’s language, activists and educators worry that any mention of LGBTQ+ people, identity or related content could lead to legal action.
Right-wing media, however, paints those pertinent questions as “phony outrage” created by Democrats. Conservative outlets have argued that the use of the phrase “Don’t Say Gay” is a “lie” since the law technically doesn’t use the word “gay.” Instead, PJ Media describes it as an “anti-grooming bill.”
“The reason this bill had to be written is that public school teachers and administrators are actively converting children into the trans cult and then hiding their brainwash-job from parents,” PJ Media’s Megan Fox wrote. “They are leading children to irreversible hormone therapy and mutilation without informing parents.”
The Federalist attacked Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg for criticizing the bill on Twitter, calling him the “lamest gay man in American history.” The article even argued that the law is completely unrelated to LGBTQ+ identities, stating that, “it has as much to do with being gay or transgender as it does with being heterosexual. Which is to say, it has nothing to do with any of those things.”
But ‘Don’t Say Gay’ is just one of many of DeSantis’s extreme policies.
A Blatant College Takeover
Right-wing media helped create the narrative that schools are indoctrinating children with radical critical race theory (CRT) curricula, and now outlets are helping DeSantis chip away at any instruction on history and race that isn’t “rooted in Western tradition,” as Desantis put it.
The governor’s plans target public education at all levels, from banning a new Advanced Placement (AP) African American Studies course in high schools to defunding Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) and CRT programs in universities.
One of DeSantis’s most drastic measures yet is the complete overhaul of New College of Florida, a public liberal arts college in Sarasota that he aims to transform into the “Hillsdale of the South,” as his chief of staff put it. DeSantis’s college coup included replacing the Board of Trustees with vocally conservative members, abolishing the DEI office and firing the school’s president, replacing her with a former Republican speaker of the Florida House of Representatives.
To students and faculty, it’s a right-wing hellscape. To conservative media, it’s a blueprint for the future of education. Numerous outlets now call on other states to take similar action.
Warnings for the Future
“Thank you, Florida, for finally taking steps to reform. Let’s hope other states follow,” Carrie Sheffield wrote for The New York Post.
In a piece titled “DeSantis Is Right to Reform Higher Education,” the Nation Review Senior Editorial Staff wrote that the governor “has taken the first steps in what seems set to be a decades-long political fight over the nature of America’s public universities.” PJ Media’s Kevin Downey Jr. celebrated DeSantis’s changes at New College as evidence that, as his headline states, “This Is How We Win: Why Patriots Will Take the Day.”
The Federalist staff editor Samuel Mangold-Lenett explicitly encouraged red states to follow DeSantis’s lead and “rechart the trajectory of our nation’s youth.” “It really shouldn’t be that difficult of a task for conservative leaders to appoint conservatives like [anti-CRT activist Chris] Rufo to the boards of public schools in red states with Republican majority legislatures,” Mangold-Lenett wrote.
According to right-wing media, American education is a liberal brainwashing machine, and DeSantis is the hero coming to rescue our kids. They publish these articles with the hope that their readers will buy into the nonsense and push their representatives to take similar action. With each shower of praise on DeSantis’s ‘war on woke,’ conservative outlets make clear their goal of ensuring free speech “for me, but not for thee.”
Jaden Satenstein (@jadensat) is a writer, producer and social media consultant. She has worked for WNYC, FRONTLINE PBS, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch and Straus News Manhattan.
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According to right-wing media, American education is a liberal brainwashing machine, and DeSantis is the hero coming to rescue our kids. They publish articles with the hope that their readers will buy into the nonsense. (Image: Wikimedia Commons)
