It looks like Governor Ron DeSantis is taking the same approach to Disney World that he did with the New College in Florida.
One of the first things his appointees did was shut down the DEI policies.
Caroline Downey writes at National Review:
DeSantis-Controlled Disney Board Ends ‘Illegal and Un-American’ DEI Programs, RolesThe tourism body appointed by Governor Ron DeSantis to oversee Disney World and its properties announced Tuesday that it will discontinue all diversity, equity, and inclusion programs, including related roles.Race-based contracting and a DEI committee will be eliminated, the Central Florida Tourism Oversight District confirmed in a statement, because these initiatives “discriminated against Americans based on gender and race, costing taxpayers millions of dollars.”The announcement follows an internal investigation into the district’s policies.“The so-called diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives were advanced during the tenure of the previous board and they were illegal and simply un-American,” District Administrator Glenton Gilzean said. “Our district will no longer participate in any attempt to divide us by race or advance the notion that we are not created equal. As the former head of the Central Florida Urban League, a civil rights organization, I can say definitively that our community thrives only when we work together despite our differences.”
See if you can spot the subtle biases in the reporting on this from the Associated Press:
DeSantis also has championed Florida’s so-called “Stop WOKE” law, which bars businesses, colleges and K-12 schools from giving training on certain racial concepts, such as the theory that people of a particular race are inherently racist, privileged or oppressed. A federal judge last November blocked the law’s enforcement in colleges, universities and businesses, calling it “positively dystopian.”…The DeSantis appointees took control of the renamed district earlier this year following a yearlong feud between the company and DeSantis. The fight began last year after Disney, beset by significant pressure internally and externally, publicly opposed a state law banning classroom lessons on sexual orientation and gender identity in early grades, a policy critics call “Don’t Say Gay.”
The always great Ace of Spades recently wrote on this topic:
By the way, the whole reason the Reedy Creek Improvement District even exists is because Walt Disney planned to build there an actual city, a planned community, which would be his sci-fi-meets-nostalgia notion of the ideal place to live for workers and families.The government of Florida granted a special right to build this district, granting Disney unheard-of rights to basically run a corporation-owned city.But Disney abandoned this idea when he realized he couldn’t actually control the people living in that community like he controlled his employees. In a planned city, there would be alcoholism, prostitution, infidelity, divorces, etc. — things that aren’t ideal and aren’t part of the Disney brand.So he took the land he owned there and just build Walt Disney World, the theme park. The only vestige of the old “city of tomorrow” idea is Epcot Center.So that’s how Disney wound up being granted, for 70 years or so, an unprecedented degree of corporate control over the government of a big piece of land people both work and live on.DeSantis cancelled that. He had every right to. It’s highly dubious the grant should ever have been made in the first place.
Disney picked the wrong time to have this fight with the state of Florida.
DeSantis is completely within his rights.
CLICK HERE FOR FULL VERSION OF THIS STORY