The co-hosts of "The View" shredded Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL) during their Wednesday show as he is blocking state universities from teaching anything involving people of color or diversity. His methodology is that because it will be illegal to teach classes like African American history and other topics, it would be useless to get a degree in those studies.
"We're probably the first state that's leading by example," said DeSantis.
"Example of what?" asked Whoopi Goldberg while the audience booed. "He says that DEI bureaucracies are a drain on the funding. 14 percent funding for DEI, including $3 million from the state is what he's saying is draining everything. I don't understand why he believes that. He wants people to see the history of western civilization and history and philosophy of western civilization. He wants to see it through that lens. Why is your lens better than my lens? You know, you're basically saying, like, to people like Marian Croak you're not going to teach her history. What doesn't he get? We're not going anywhere just because you stop teaching it in colleges, you think people are going to stop telling these stories. No."
Joy Behar noted that DeSantis is essentially instituting these policies for his own political ambition and the casualties will be the education of an entire generation of Florida students.
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"I love the idea that he says that it's a drain on resources and hostile to academic freedom to teach LGBTQ, African American and women studies. He's banning AP courses, drag shows, women's right to choose and freedom and inclusion. Freedom for who?" Behar asked. "The freedom caucus is constantly stomping on our freedoms. By the way, Floridians don't have health insurance. He's a lousy governor also. Be glad you don't live in Florida."
Sunny Hostin called it offensive that DeSantis would compare African American studies to zombies. The implication is that because it can't be taught in local schools that all people studying things like women's history, equality or African American studies would only be teaching it after college. The reality is that most people with those degrees don't go on to teach, otherwise there wouldn't be a shortage of educators in Florida.
Hostin went on to ask why DeSantis isn't banning AP European History, AP French Culture, AP German Culture, Japanese Culture, Spanish Literature and Culture and other such studies. It's only African Americans.
"Does he not like African Americans?" she asked.
"Why are you so mad?" Goldberg asked.
But it was Alyssa Farah Griffin, a former communications strategist for Donald Trump's White House that noted this seems to fly in the face of her support of freedom of speech.
"We're talking about this on national television. This is what he wants us to do," said Griffin. "Ron DeSantis wants to gin up his base. He needs name ID to be president. Donald Trump has 98 percent name ID in this country. Ron DeSantis doesn't. Ron DeSantis isn't being talked about in a lot of places. He gins up these fights and rallies up his base on these lines. I think it's a bad strategy. You can win a Republican Primary by winning the base, but then you lose a general election. It happened to Donald Trump in 2020. This is too divisive to ever win in a general election."
See the video below or at the link here.
