Your county government was training senior employees to reject white culture – and charging you for it.
Now DeSantis is about to make that illegal everywhere in Florida.
And a bill sitting on his desk will strip every city and county in the state of the power to run DEI programs, hire DEI officers, or force contractors to fund the ideology with your tax dollars.
What Pinellas and Alachua Were Doing With Your Money
Rep. Dean Black laid it out on the House floor.
Pinellas County was running staff training sessions on the importance of using correct pronouns.
Alachua County was training senior employees to "reject white culture."
Both were billing taxpayers for it.
This is not a hypothetical.
This is what DEI bureaucracies do when no one is watching – they turn your local government into an ideological re-education operation funded by people who never voted for it.
The Florida House passed SB 1134 on Tuesday 77–37.
Under the bill, counties and municipalities must shut down DEI offices, fire DEI officers, end DEI training programs, and require contractors to certify they are not spending local tax dollars on the ideology either.
Officials who defy the law face misfeasance and malfeasance charges – and removal from office.
In January, Governor DeSantis noted how “Florida has led the nation on DEI elimination.”
“Now, Sen. Yarborough and Rep. Black have filed a bill to eliminate DEI in local government,” DeSantis wrote on X. “Lets go!”
https://twitter.com/RonDeSantis/status/2008902251130061199?s=20
Florida Has Been Closing the Exits for Three Years
DeSantis signed legislation in 2023 defunding DEI programs at every public college and university in Florida.
The State Board of Education followed with a permanent rule banning DEI funding across all 28 state college campuses.
Florida's 12 public universities dismantled their DEI offices, fired the staff, and reallocated the money.
The University of Florida alone eliminated 13 full-time DEI positions and redirected the funding to faculty recruitment.
The local government loophole was the last place the ideology had room to breathe.
The legislature just closed it.
The DEI Industry Was Always a Political Operation, Not a Government Function
Florida's public universities burned through $34 million in DEI spending before DeSantis shut it down.
At the federal level, Biden embedded DEI across 460 federal programs – with analysts at the Center for Renewing America identifying more than $1.1 trillion in DEI-designated spending for 2025 alone.
Trump killed it on day one with an executive order calling the programs "radical and wasteful."
https://twitter.com/Heritage_Action/status/2029623980743643576?s=20
DEI bureaucracies expand when no one is watching, consume millions in taxpayer money, produce no measurable public benefit, and leave a trail of divided workplaces, ideological litmus tests, and employees trained to see racism everywhere.
That last part is not commentary.
Researchers at the Network Contagion Research Institute and Rutgers University found that DEI training made employees significantly more likely to perceive discrimination and demand punishment even when no discrimination had occurred.
Florida built the model – universities first, state agencies second, colleges third, local governments now – and DeSantis is expected to sign the final piece into law this week.
The bill sponsor put it plainly: "DEI has to D-I-E, because it's in our way."
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Sources:
- Rep. Dean Black, House Floor Statement, Florida House of Representatives, March 10, 2026.
- Florida Department of Education, "State Board of Education Passes Rule to Permanently Prohibit DEI in the Florida College System," FLDOE Newsroom, January 17, 2024.
- Goldwater Institute, "Tax Day Alert: DEI Schemes Diverting Millions of Hard-Earned Dollars," Goldwaterinstitute.org, April 2024.
- Center for Renewing America and Functional Government Initiative, "DEI Spending in the Biden Administration," Americarenewing.com, March 10, 2025.
- White House, "Ending Radical and Wasteful Government DEI Programs and Preferencing," Presidential Executive Order, January 20, 2025.
- Florida Phoenix, "Ban on Local Governments Enacting DEI Initiatives Headed to Governor's Desk," Floridaphoenix.com, March 10, 2026.
