This is all about politics. It’s the mean girls telling Florida and Texas that they can’t sit at their table.
NBC News reports:
Texas and Florida schools excluded from LGBTQ-friendly college list over new state lawsUniversities in Florida and Texas were excluded from a national list of LGBTQ-friendly schools put together annually by Campus Pride. In presenting the 2023-2024 list this week, the nonprofit group said the exclusions were a result of new state laws that “endanger and harm LGBTQ people.”Every year, Campus Pride, a nonprofit group that advocates for safer and more LGBTQ-friendly colleges, issues a compilation of the “Best of the Best LGBTQ-Friendly Colleges and Universities’’ and the “Absolute Worst Campuses for LGBTQ Youth.” The organization announced it had omitted the University of North Florida, the University of Central Florida, the University of Texas at Dallas and Texas Tech University from its 2023 “Best of the Best” list because “they must abide by new state laws that effectively ban LGBTQ+ inclusion programs and services.”“These laws are being weaponized against LGBTQ+ people, needlessly endangering the safety and well-being of students on campuses across the states of Florida and Texas. Already we are hearing from prospective students and families that they are choosing colleges elsewhere,” Shane Mendez Windmeyer, Campus Pride’s founder and CEO, said in a statement.This year, 17 states have enacted over 30 new LGBTQ-related education laws that are slated to take effect in the 2023-24 school year, unless they are faced with legal challenges, according to the American Civil Liberties Union.In May, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, a Republican, signed into law a bill restricting how race and gender can be taught in the state’s public higher education institutions, which were also banned from using state or federal funding for diversity programs. A month later, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, also a Republican, enacted two bills that directly affect higher education institutions: One imposes restrictions on transgender athletes participating in college sports, and the other restricts diversity, equity and inclusion programs.
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