- [Announcer] This is a production of WEDU PBS, Tampa, St. Petersburg, Sarasota.

- Right now on WEDU, the NAACP calls on Black student athletes to boycott Florida's public colleges and universities over the cancellation of diversity programs.

The legislature wrapped up its work last week and will discuss the most significant legislation emerging from the two-month session.

Our guests are Douglas Soule, a reporter with "USA Today" and "The Tallahassee Democrat."

Veteran journalist Jason Garcia, who now publishes the "Seeking Rents Newsletter."

And we'll have Democrat Gayle Andrews and Republican Deborah Tamargo for an in-depth discussion of state and local issues on "Florida This Week."

(uptempo music) Welcome back.

One of the nation's leading civil rights groups, the NAACP, said in a letter this week that Black student athletes should reconsider attending Florida's public colleges and universities.

This in response to a new state law eliminating diversity, equity, and inclusion programs.

- [Reporter] Last year, Republican governor Ron DeSantis signed a bill prohibiting the use of state funds for any DEI programs.

- But this has basically been used as a veneer to impose an ideological agenda.

- [Reporter] University of Florida responded by closing the office of the Chief Diversity Officer, eliminating 13 full-time DEI positions and 15 administrative appointments, and ending DEI-focused contracts with outside vendors.

Several other public colleges and universities have done the same.

Professor David Canton, who directs the African American Studies program at UF says, "Top-quality talent might now choose to avoid Florida's universities."

- So there might be a long-term impact in terms of recruiting high-end talent based on the fear that, you know, this state isn't welcoming to diversity and inclusion.

Governor DeSantis sees DEI as toxic.

People love to think that DEI is only for African Americans, which is not true.

It also applies to White women, Asian Americans, LGBTQ, disability students.

- So, Gayle, should Florida be concerned about this letter from the NAACP?

- I think they should.

We're already labeled as the state where racism comes to thrive, and here we go with this.

Of course, African American and minority students, as all students, are viable to the university experience.

And I just find this incredible, and this is the way to respond and it's the right to free speech.

And the idea that you wanna minimize the heritage of people of color is just nuts because, you know, we understand that all cultures are different, and the United States is the epitome of a multicultural nation that is the greatest in the world.

Why do you want to try to erase the viability of particularly African American history, impact, in telling the story of why we are where we are and so forth?

So here you have a governor, a governor leading the charge in trying to pretend, for example, and we know what all this was.

We talked about it the last time I was on the show about saying that this is indoctrination, it's the truth.

Tell the truth about what happened in our history.

And it happened, we can't make it go away.

So he's trying to erase that and pretend, for example, that slavery was an apprenticeship program.

It's crazy.

So I believe that it will gain traction.

It's gonna cause problems, and this is because they continue to press this issue.

It's not healthy.

- Deborah, let me put up two quotes, one from the governor.

This is right after the University of Florida canceled the DEI programs, and the governor said, "DEI is toxic and has no place in our public universities."

He said, "I'm glad that Florida was the first state to eliminate DEI, and hope more states follow suit."

That was the governor at the beginning of the month.

And let me read from Emmitt Smith, who is an NFL Hall of Famer, also a graduate of the University of Florida.

He was a longtime player for Dallas, and this is what he said.

He said, "I'm utterly disgusted by UF's decision and the precedent that it sets.

We cannot continue to believe and trust that a team of leaders all made up of the same background will make the right decision when it comes to equality and diversity.

History has already proven that this is not the case."

And, Deborah, let me ask you, do you think that the Florida athletic programs or Florida scholarship programs will be heard by what the legislature and the governor have done?

- No, they will not suffer.

I've been around athletes at every level, from youth all the way through professional, and in many, many, many sports, and they don't see color, they don't see culture.

They see their buddies, their team, they love one another.

It's only society that tries to divide their teams, and it won't have any effect.

They're coming to Florida, they love Florida, they love their teammates, they love their sports.

It will have no effect at all.

In fact, they resent the division that comes from outside that doesn't understand team sports.

- So, Jason, I wanna ask you, (Gayle laughs) how is Ben Sasse viewed in this, you know, as the University of Florida goes, so goes much of the public university system in Florida.

How has Ben Sasse being viewed as one who took the lead on this and eliminated DEI on his campus?

- Yeah, I think a lot of folks think this is exactly why Ben Sasse was brought in to sort of be the sort of the henchman for this sort of thing, right?

And just to recall, like, so viewers remember how Ben Sasse got that job.

The Florida legislature and Governor Ron DeSantis passed a law that made it secret who was applying for university presidency jobs.

So the public could no longer see who the applicants were.

And it was supposed to be that you would find out when there were finalists.

So the public would see the three or four finalists who would then be decided on.

But they abused that system and made it so Ben Sasse was the only finalist, and in effect, he was given the job - [Gayle] (laughs) Right.

- Without any sort of public scrutiny, and now he's doing this.

I mean, it's a further sign of the politicization of Florida's universities, which has been a hallmark of the DeSantis administration.

- Oh yeah, definitely.

The other thing is FSU did it too.

FSU just did it.

I don't know if the rest of the panel knows.

They recently secretly eliminated DEI program.

Why do we have to keep this stuff secret?

It's just outrageous.

And they've also completely dismantled government in the sunshine.

Well, we're not into that right now, but I do believe that the Black student athletes, in particular, will be protesting.

- Douglas... - They were protesting against FAMU on things that they didn't agree with, without hesitation.

So don't think that all is goodness and light here, because this is exploitation, and it's pure racism.

- Oh, it really is ridiculous.

- Douglas, some Florida Republicans though say that DEI programs are racist against White folks.

That's been a complaint from Republicans here in Florida.

- You know what, I understand that, Rob.

But no one has said anything about this.

No one has felt like their kids were being indoctrinated prior to Ron DeSantis using culture wars to try to gin up his base.

It didn't work.

America said, "We don't want you as our president, we don't wanna be like Florida."

So guess what?

The culture war thing is not working.

All this foolishness that he's doing with public schools and eliminating DEI and all of this sort of thing and eliminating Black history, it's not working.

People would rather focus on other things like improving education, as opposed to implementing stuff that actually is punitive politics.

That's what it is.

- Douglas, how do you think... - It's legal power,it's clear.

- Go ahead, Doug.

- Just a contextual note, this is actually not the first time the NAACP has come out against the state's leadership.

When the governor Ron DeSantis first signed the DEI spending ban for state colleges and universities, they actually issued a travel advisory for the state of Florida, as did multiple other organizations.

Now team DeSantis just responded that that was a stunt.

But this has kind of been brewing for a while.

The DEI bill signing spurred a lot of it, but there was also the controversy around AP African American studies as well.

I mean, this has been a long conversation in this state, and obviously based on events this week, it's going to continue.

- Right, I had a conversation with Adora Nweze, who is a good friend, so there's more to come.

She's not fooling around.

And the national NAACP is looking at this, as are other civil rights organizations.

And, of course, we know there aren't many.

- Deborah, I've talked to a lot of professors who teach at public universities here in Florida, especially locally in the Tampa Bay area, and they say that they see a number of job openings and PhD candidate openings, and they see a drop-off in applications for both of those, for both the jobs as professors and the drop off-in PhD applications.

So does that indicate, I mean, this is anecdotal of course too, but does that indicate we have a problem?

- No, I think a lot of those professors have become of retirement age, so there's a lot more openings than there are.

And, you know, the opportunities there.

Some universities are shrinking because more young people are going into trades and professions where they can immediately make money.

They need to make money with this very depressing economy.

So I don't think it'll have any effect on the quality because you have to remember, Florida universities are ranked some of the top in the entire United States.

And that's all three of our majors.

- Alright, well last week the state legislature ended its annual two-month session by passing a record-high budget.

State House and Senate also debated many bills, some of which passed and others never made it through the process.

I've asked all the panelists to choose something that the legislature did that was most significant.

It could be a bill passed or an issue ignored.

And let's start with Jason Garcia of "Seeking Rents."

Jason, what do you think was the most significant thing coming outta the legislature this year?

- Yeah, I'm gonna give you two bills, just 'cause they were the very two last policy bills to pass the Florida legislature this year.

And I think it sort of indicates sort of who was really running the show in Tallahassee this year.

The first is a bill called House Bill 433.

And if your viewers haven't heard about this, this is gonna do three things.

First, it is going to erase living-wage ordinances around the state.

So these are local laws in places like Miami and St. Petersburg and Orlando that require government contractors, companies profiting off local government contracts, to pay their employees just a few dollars more than the minimum wage.

That's what they call it, a living-wage.

House Bill 433 will dissolve those allowing government contractors to cut wages for employees.

It will also preclude local governments from passing any local ordinances to enact what are known as fair workweek laws or predictive scheduling laws.

And there are none of these in Florida yet.

We've started to see them.

They've been passed in places like Chicago and Seattle, Los Angeles, and these are for part-time and hourly employees who work really erratic schedules, many of whom are juggling two part-time jobs just to make ends meet.

A predictive scheduling ordinance would require an employer to give their workers their schedule just two weeks in advance just so they can try and plan their lives basically.

But under House Bill 433, no community in Florida will ever be allowed to adopt a local fair workweek law.

And that's still not all.

House Bill 433 will also prevent local communities from passing any heat protection rules for workers.

And these are local laws.

Miami was working on one that would require businesses with lots of outdoor employees working outside in extreme heat.

So you're talking about like agricultural companies and farm workers or construction crews, roofers, that sort of thing.

These heat protection standards would require them to provide basic heat safety measures like just access to cool drinking water, periodic breaks in the shade, that sort of thing.

But those will be outlawed.

No community, Miami nor anybody else, will be able to require heat protection standards of employers.

And so that was all in House Bill 433, and right after they passed that they passed House Bill 49, which loosened the state's (laughs) child labor laws and will allow teenagers to work much longer hours in Florida now.

And both of these were built around, I think one of the panelists said something about the poor economy.

It's actually one of the strongest economies we've ever seen because we have historically low unemployment, and what that means is the labor market's really tight.

Workers have a lot of leverage right now to demand higher pay and better benefits.

Both of these laws are designed to undercut that by undercutting workers' leverage to demand more, and sort of flooding the labor market with more cheap teen labor.

- And, Jason, do we offer more protection to high school athletes when it comes to heat than we do to workers who are working outdoors in places like roofing and other, you know, very hot jobs?

- Yeah, we absolutely do.

And in fact, for the last couple of years, there has been legislation filed in Tallahassee that would require it.

It doesn't even set requirements, it just requires training for employers with lots of outdoor workers.

And again, we're talking primarily about agribusinesses, farming companies that have lots of people working in fields and construction companies, home builders, folks working on construction sites, roofing, that sort of thing.

There's been legislation that would just require them to do basic training around how to recognize like heat illness, signs of heat stress.

And that bill keeps failing to pass because of lobbying from the agricultural and construction industries.

So yes, we do provide more safety standards for student athletes playing outside in the heat than we do for the folks picking our strawberries and tomatoes.

- Douglas, so let's go to you.

What was the most significant thing in your mind that came out of the legislative session this year?

- Well, there's a lot of significant things.

I'll tell you that as a First Amendment reporter in the state of Florida, this was a very busy legislative session.

I mean, this program would have to be the length of a "Lord of the Rings" movie to get to everything.

That being said, there are multiple things of note.

One of them, I know another panelists will get to, which is the social media restriction for kids.

There's also a legislative item that would raise the age to work in an adult entertainment establishment, such as a strip club, from 18 to 21.

And the thing I'm gonna focus on today though is the School Chaplain Legislation.

Lawmakers, in the final days, to pass the bill that would authorize school districts to adopt policies for school chaplains to provide support and services to kids, to students.

Now most of the rollout of that legislation, if it is in fact signed by Governor Ron DeSantis, would be left up to school districts.

That being said, there are some requirements, for example, that the chaplains would have to undergo background checks, parents would have to provide consent for their child who has to see this chaplain, and the chaplains would have to be listed on the school website.

Bill supporters say that it is a important bill for students to address mental health issues and a lack of school counselors across the state.

Bill opponents have concerns.

They worry about the constitutionality of the measure, especially when it's implemented at the school district level, if the school district decides to implement it.

They worry about the credentials of these chaplains who will be potentially interacting with students with serious mental health issues.

Another topic of concern with the opponents, which was a large contingent of Democrats in the state legislature, was that this could open the doors for some of the more controversial religions to have school chaplains.

For example, the Satanic Temple has said that it's excited about this law, and that it will absolutely take advantage of it.

So that is something to watch out for.

And, I mean, I think this is something that if it is signed and when it is enacted, in that case, you're gonna be hearing a lot about it in the months and even years to come.

- So the Satanic Temple will offer its chaplains to college, to high schools and grade schools around the state.

That's what they're threatening to do?

- That's what they're saying.

They're not even threatening, they're saying that they're already looking to do that.

And some democratic opponents on the legislative floors also asked about, you know, religious ceremonies like sacrifices.

Could you restrict some religious rights and not all?

I mean, these are all topics that come up when, you know, church and state combine.

And these are questions that will be continued to be asked in school districts and charter schools across the state in the months to come.

- Douglas, did you cover mental health care spending for kids under 18?

I mean, did the state do anything to advance the amount of mental health care that's available for kids in K through 12?

- You know, the budgetary side, that I'm not intimately familiar with, but I do know mental health with youths is a huge area of concern for our state lawmakers, whether they're democrat, republican or whatever else.

For example, you saw that with the social media legislation that put restrictions on it for minors younger than 16, There's a parental rights...

If a parent says a 13 or 14, a 14 or 15 year old has permission, they can't access it.

But, you know, it still makes a pretty big restriction, and it all was done through this concern of mental health for minors, especially following COVID and especially following the proliferation of use of the social media platforms.

Mental health of youths are a huge concern, and it's something that we're gonna be hearing about for many sessions to come.

It's something we've heard a lot about this past legislative session.

- Deborah, what do you think was most significant about this legislative session?

- Well, I think it was the social media bill.

Well, the theme of a legislative session was safe, strong and sound, fiscally sound.

And, you know, following those themes, safe was just not in your neighborhood, but it was also in your bedroom or wherever you are watching and playing with social media.

You know, back in the '30s and '40s you got in trouble for going to swim in the river.

Then in the '40s and '50s, '60s it was like smoking a joint or having a can of beer if you were a teenager.

And then all of a sudden we hit year 2000 and it's social media.

And it started off quite innocent, sharing pictures and so forth.

So it was a great outlet for teenagers particularly, you know, their after school hours if they're left home alone.

So it had a positive influence.

And then the algorithms started, and then the big social media companies saw opportunities to monetize.

And so you were able to get fentanyl, you were able to see porn, you were able to interact and bully, and then started the suicides and the mental health issues.

And so therein was the problem.

- So some kids will no longer be able to access social media if they're under 16, is that right?

- No, actually there are some age groups and it prevents 14 and under from having their own accounts, okay?

A parent can still have an account, a child can still go onto the parent's account.

What it does is prevent that age when their brains are not mentally prepared for some of the things that they would be exposed to.

Human trafficking, being lured into being trafficked, giving the parents IDs and identity theft.

And so then there's some other stipulations, and some are on the social media companies, some are on the child and the parent.

So then you get to the 16 age group and parental notification, parental rights and so forth so they can have limited access.

And then you get to 18 where you have unlimited because they believe...

But it was the FTC, the CDC, all the mental health organizations who have seen how this has catapulted from a positive to a negative.

And I must say there was great unity between Republicans and Democrats because it was unanimously voted, I think 115-4.

So, a great agreement.

Now, the governor did veto the first bill, and rightly so.

I was a person up there saying, "I don't like this bill," because it took away parental right.

What I also like is there's a lot of education for these teenagers.

So they start learning the ills, okay, the negative.

And for their parents... - I don't mean to cut you off, Gayle, we have a minute.

What do you think was most significant item coming outta the legislative session?

- I think what was significant was the House and the Senate returned to a reasonable method of trying to pass legislation where the House sort of does the legislation and the Senate determines whether it's gonna live or die.

And one of those incidents that no one really talks about a lot was they were trying.

It didn't pass, but the Republicans are looking to return to the dual primary system because they know that they're going to have a crowded primary running in the governor's race.

And they don't want someone with 30% of the vote coming out the way the status of the primary system is now.

So they want to have a dual primary system.

That would keep them from having Matt Gaetz as their nominee.

The other thing I thought was really bad... - But that bill failed.

That bill failed, Gayle.

- That bill failed, but I know they'll come back next year.

They have to.

- Gayle, I'm sorry, we're out of time.

I gotta move on.

- Okay, no problem.

- But before we go, what other news stories should we be paying attention to?

And, Douglas, let's start with you.

The other big story of the week.

- Well, so just yesterday I attended a Department of Education work group where they were discussing the training for book removals and book selections.

And, of note, half the members of it were Moms for Liberty members who are, you know, proud advocates for removing books in schools that they view as inappropriate.

So I think the topic of book removals in Florida is going to continue to be a huge topic of a conversation making a lot of headlines, especially since the legislature passed a bill that limits how many books non-parents can challenge in school districts if governor DeSantis signs that.

Also look out for litigation.

I mean, that's every session, but especially related to the social media legislation.

As mentioned, it bans social media for minors younger than 16, though there is an exception for 14 and 15 year olds who have a parents' permission.

But I've read they expect there to be litigation filed almost immediately once that's signed and enacted.

- Alright, Gayle, your other big story.

- Again, the governor is on the airwaves all over the place saying that Warrens Haitians, who are under quite a lot of duress in Haiti, he says, "You need to just stay home.

Don't come to Florida," which is the continuation of his very bizarre culture war.

He seems to be in it all by himself.

(laughs) - Okay, Jason, your other big story of the week.

- So the governor just recommended one of his top aides to run the district that oversees Disney World, right?

This is the district he seized control of amid the fight with Disney.

And he has a former top aide in the governor's office who went to work for the campaign and now needs a job, so he is recommending her for that job.

But what's really interesting about that is this is the same aide that worked with Disney lobbyists well in the DeSantis administration to help Disney get carve-outs from DeSantis administration laws.

So in other words, the person overseeing Disney now is gonna be someone who once helped Disney get loopholes baked into laws that DeSantis was signing.

- Alright, Deborah, your other big story.

We just have 30 seconds.

- A very exciting big story.

Steve Garvey, our homegrown Chamberlain High School, is running for senate, U.S. Senate in the state of California.

And he is polling, a leader at this point.

So I say, Floridians, make calls.

We know he's a man of integrity, intellect, passion.

We'd love to see him in the U.S. Senate.

- Alright, thank you all for a great show, and thank you for watching.

This is a reminder that Tuesday is the Republican presidential primary election here in Florida.

There are seven candidates on the ballot.

The Florida Democrats have decided not to have a presidential primary this year.

But in addition to the GOP presidential primary, some cities in Pinellas County have races for mayor.

Go to your county supervisor of elections office and look up, there are other races too.

Thanks a lot for watching.

We'll see you next week.

(uptempo music)