Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty ImagesWhile many Republicans are invested in creating a white supremacist backlash within their state's education system, perhaps none as much as Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis. DeSantis signed this week a bill into law that would allow the government to monitor and reduce funding for public institutions of higher education found to be against the Republican white nationalist crusade.DeSantis stated that institutions accused of indoctrinating students could lose crucial state funding.The new Florida law, unlike paranoiac legislation in Idaho and Texas, does not use the right-wing critical race theory. Public universities and colleges will be required to conduct surveys of students, faculty and staff regarding their views and beliefs. Governor Ray Rodrigues and Florida state senator Ray Rodrigues both stated that the bill aims to promote intellectual diversity. However, the law does not mention it. DeSantis or Rodrigues warned that institutions that indoctrinate students could lose crucial state funding.DeSantis is clear about the ideas he considers worthy of concern. Universities that are willing to challenge patriarchy and hegemonic race capitalism will be in DeSantis' crosshairs. It has been criticized as McCarthyite, a rife for dangerous and inhumane censorship and hypocritically threatening intellectual freedom and free speech. It's all of these. We must be aware of which authority is being used. This law is not about decrying the authoritarian nature of the law. The measure will require the State Board of Education and the Board of Governors of state university systems to create or choose an allegedly objective, impartial, and statistically valid survey. It also doesn't offer any guarantees of anonymity for respondents. DeSantis said the measure was intended to prevent public universities from becoming hotbeds of stale ideologies. It is absurd to think that universities in the United States are anti-racist, left-wing institutions. Teen Vogue's Asheesh Kapur Siddique recently wrote, "The modern American university is a right-wing institution, rich in corporate governance and aimed towards capital accumulation." Kapur Siddique pointed out that the only way to understand an institution's ideology is to gauge employees' political preferences. You must first look at the people who run it. This is how you can weaponize public universities in a rights-cynical culture war.
