Florida House Bill 999: A Looming Threat to Social Justice
Becca Rosenzweig (PPS ‘25)
Florida Republicans’ most pressing policy issue is not hurricanes or mass shootings; according to Governor Ron DeSantis, it is critical race theory (CRT). Their proposal? Ban it in higher education. Florida’s legislature is currently debating House Bill (HB) 999, which would withhold funding from any public university in the state that offers majors or minors based on critical theory, including critical race theory (CRT), radical feminist theory, queer theory, critical social justice, and intersectionality. Under this bill, students like me who are interested in race, gender, and sexuality-related fields would be denied the opportunity to pursue their passions and challenge injustices. CRT reveals how American laws and institutions have perpetuated racial inequality and urges us to dismantle structures that enable discrimination. If we don’t understand structural racism, we will not have the knowledge or tools to combat it. If it passes, HB 999 will silence conversation about structural racism and therefore curb progress towards social justice.
DeSantis has consistently referred to CRT as “state-sanctioned racism.” This baseless claim tells us that DeSantis, like most Americans, does not understand what CRT truly is. Though CRT is often a contentious issue in political debates, only 11% of surveyed Americans claimed to know a lot about it. Further, 35% reported that they know only a little about the subject, and 36% indicated that they had never heard of it. CRT is formally defined as “an academic and legal framework that denotes that systemic racism is part of American society.” It provides a means of exploring alternatives to our government and institutions’ structure to eliminate deep-seeded injustice. CRT is a mechanism to counter discrimination, not to sanction it.
A crucial element of CRT is the recognition that inequality is not simply a product of individual bias and prejudice. Rather, it emphasizes structural inequality, defined as the social, economic, and political inequalities that result from patterns in institutions’ practices. Even seemingly neutral policy can have discriminatory effects or reinforce existing disadvantages. Unequal educational opportunities, access to quality housing, and treatment under the criminal justice system all stem from discriminatory institutional patterns. To address the dramatic levels of inequality in this country, it is essential to act not just on an individual level, but to restructure the institutions and systems that create it.
We cannot begin to tackle discrimination and inequality without understanding where the problem comes from. CRT gives us the answer, but HB 999 seeks to conceal it. Florida Republicans believe that resources allocated towards CRT force faculty and students to comply with a “far-left dogma.” Instead, they believe that HB 999 will promote “viewpoint diversity, intellectual rigor, and an evidence-based approach to history.” In reality, the bill will do the opposite. It will silence progressive viewpoints, deny students the opportunity to think critically about the roots of injustice, and suppress evidence of structural inequality in our nation. Failure to address structural inequality in the classroom will inevitably result in a lack of action in the future. When students are prohibited from learning about an issue, they cannot develop the tools to solve it.
The Florida Legislature is still debating HB 999, which means that it is not too late to prevent its passage. Citizens who support academic freedom and social justice have the opportunity to make their voices heard and prevent the impending attack on our education system. Lobbying is one effective method to influence politicians. Students, faculty, and other affected Florida citizens can exert direct pressure on their legislators to vote “no” on this bill. Power also comes in numbers. Protests have mobilized millions of citizens in the past and present a moving display of collective action. Floridians have successfully achieved policy goals through protest in recent years: following the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School shooting, students organized the March for our Lives, which gathered about two million demonstrators in support of gun control legislation. This mass demonstration prompted the passage of the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School Public Safety Act. A movement to protest HB 999 can similarly capture the Florida Legislature’s attention and make dissenting opinions visible.
State Representative Alex Andrade, a sponsor of HB 999, claims to believe that “state universities should be focused on teaching students how to think, not what to think.” I could not agree more with his hypocritical statement. Florida’s Legislature must stop requiring schools to deny the existence of structural inequality. We deserve the truth.
Becca Rosenzweig (PPS ‘25) is a Public Policy Undergraduate at Duke University’s Sanford School of Public Policy. This piece was submitted as an op-ed in the Spring ’23 PUBPOL 301 course. This content does not represent the official or unofficial views of the Sanford School, Polis, Duke University, or any entity or individual other than the author.
