Gov. Ron DeSantis on Friday formally received a bill that would require Florida colleges and universities to conduct surveys about “intellectual freedom and viewpoint diversity” on campus and a bill that would require public schools to hold a moment of silence at the beginning of each day.
The Legislature sent those bills and two others to DeSantis.
The higher-education bill (HB 233) would require the state university system’s Board of Governors and the State Board of Education to create an “objective, nonpartisan and statistically valid survey.” Students, faculty and staff at the schools would be given the surveys, and the resulting data would be published by the governing bodies that oversee colleges and universities.
The public-schools bill (HB 529) would require principals to direct first-period teachers to hold a one- to two-minute moment of silence at the beginning of each day. DeSantis will have until June 26 to act on the bills, which passed during the legislative session that ended April 30.
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This article appears in Jun 10-16, 2021.