The “Free State of Florida” is a Fraud
Annaleise Linkenhoker (PPS ‘25)
Ron DeSantis has traveled the nation promoting his book, “The Courage to Be Free: Florida’s Blueprint for America’s Revival” and speaking about “The Free State of Florida,” all but obviously trying to position himself for a presidential run. However, this rhetoric is an elaborate front for DeSantis and the Florida GOP’s anti-freedom agenda of championing their most ardent supporters’ narrow worldviews and preferences at the expense of dissenters’ freedom.
DeSantis’s grip on the Florida legislature and its willingness to follow his demands demonstrate Florida Republicans are eager to sacrifice constituents’ freedom for political and ideological gain. Culture war politics that divide Florida and DeSantis’s unofficial presidential campaign have taken priority over rapidly rising housing and insurance costs, and most recently, Broward County residents who are still recovering from historic flooding. Especially leading up to his expected entry into the Republican primary election, DeSantis has accelerated his aggressive agenda to marginalize ideas and groups he opposes from public life and enforce far-right social policy preferences on Florida.
House Bill 999 has been one of the most controversial, vague pieces of legislation this session, and would be an unprecedented attack on intellectual freedom and progress in higher education to provide support for historically marginalized groups. The most recent version would prohibit various academic theories related to gender studies, queer theory, and critical race theory, prohibit diversity statements, deny funding to cultural affinity groups and programs designed to support minority students, and eliminate NPHC fraternities and sororities. It would also restrict professors’ ability to teach about racism, sexism, and other stains on US History.
Even before its passage, the bill has made it more difficult for public universities to retain and recruit faculty, which threatens our university system’s prestige. Additionally, eliminating DEI programs and resources for minority students will undo progress in making higher education more inclusive and successful at supporting students. Punishing faculty and threatening their jobs defeats higher education’s mission to support rigorous academic inquiry and promote critical thinking. Critically and insightfully confronting problematic aspects of history isn’t unpatriotic, it’s a necessary step to understand our past, how it affects our present, and enable our society to continue process toward racial equity.
DeSantis and Florida Republicans only support corporations engaging in free speech if it supports their agenda. Since 1967, Florida has allowed Disney to operate its own self-governing district surrounding Disney World, which saves taxpayers money on municipal services and development costs. Only after Disney opposed the “Don’t Say Gay” bill did DeSantis start undoing this system.
Many, including myself, were amused when Disney circumvented DeSantis’s new oversight board, embarrassing DeSantis and negating his control over Disney. Angered and humiliated, DeSantis threatened to build a state prison close to Disney, raise taxes, and introduce regulations. Fitting a pattern throughout DeSantis’s governorship of the administration hiring boutique conservative law firms run by friends of the governor to defend questionably constitutional policies, Floridian tax payers will once again pay for DeSantis’s illiberal agenda. Recently, Disney justifiably sued Ron DeSantis for political retaliation and they are likely to succeed based on judicial precedent and lots of evidence.
DeSantis’s attempt to end Disney’s self-governance isn’t about oversight. It’s about political retaliation and power. DeSantis expressed his and his board filled with political allies’ desires to see “to see the type of entertainment that families can appreciate”, which to him means no LGBTQ characters and roles for characters from underrepresented groups that conform with stereotypes of the past. No government should be able to infringe on any media company’s creative preferences and content — it violates our society’s principles of free speech. Additionally, businesses must be able to operate without fear of retaliation and excessive intervention from their government to maintain a thriving economy.
Furthermore, the DeSantis-dominated legislature also threatens intellectual freedom and expression in K-12 education, voting access, and journalists’ freedom by undermining New York v. Sullivan, which ironically was helpful to the right’s beloved Fox News in its recent defamation lawsuit. Ron DeSantis’s Florida, and the United States if he becomes President, which is clearly more important to him than being present when much of Fort Lauderdale is underwater, will be a place of freedom for those who fall in line with his interests, and suppression and lack of freedom for anyone who doesn’t find his extremely conservative and rigid vision for society appealing.
Ron DeSantis’s Florida is a state of freedom for few, and his blueprint is one for Viktor Orban-style autocracy, illiberalism, and undermining of America’s progress; certainly not its revival.
Annaleise Linkenhoker (PPS ‘25) is from Thousand Oaks, CA and an 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.
