Gov. Ron DeSantis' education overhaul continues with bathroom rule at Florida state colleges

Gov. Ron DeSantis' overhaul of Florida's education system in the name of "parental rights" and combatting "woke ideology" continues apace with the Florida Board of Education approving a new rule Wednesday requiring people at state colleges to use restrooms and changing facilities that align with their sex assigned at birth.

Separately, leadership at the New College of Florida, where DeSantis appointees and allies abolished the diversity office and moved to cut gender studies, instructed student orientation leaders this week to remove Black Lives Matter and LGBTQ Pride pins from their clothes and bags as they worked during the college's mandatory introductory program for new students. The move drew immediate pushback from students who called it "infuriating."

DeSantis has faced widespread criticism from educators and civil rights advocates but said he believes the school system "should be about educating kids, not indoctrinating kids.

"And that means we have gone on the offensive against toxic ideologies,” he said before a crowd of supporters in May. “I can tell you this, I have only begun to fight.”

DeSantis has signed a flurry of bills into law and policies have spurred detailed reviews of reading materials in schools and restrictions on how sexuality and race can be discussed in classrooms.

Here's a look at the latest:

New rule for state college staff: Use bathroom of your sex assigned at birth or be fired

Transgender faculty and staff at Florida state colleges will be fired if they use a bathroom that aligns with their gender identity, according to the new Florida Board of Education rule approved Wednesday.

The rule requires Florida State College institutions to update their student and employee handbooks, disciplinary procedures and code of conduct to adhere to House Bill 1521, which states people must use restrooms and changing facilities that align with their sex assigned at birth.

Both students and employees at Florida colleges must follow the guidelines, and the rule not only applies to instructional facilities, but also to student housing owned or operated by the institution or its support organizations.

"Bathroom spaces are very intimate and private," said board member Grazie P. Christie. "There is historically and cross culturally accurate reasons why males and females use different spaces in those intimate moments, not just for girls and women, but also for boys and men. This is not something that as a culture we should ditch because of very, very new ideologies that are challenging the science of male and female, which doesn't change because biology doesn't change."

But critics say the new rule goes beyond the scope of HB 1521. The law was part of a "Let Kids be Kids" bill package Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis signed in mid-May.

"Trans people just want to pee in a stall safely and mind their own business, and now college students can't even do that in their own housing," said Max Fenning, founder and executive director of PRISM, an LGBTQ advocacy group.

New College student orientation leaders push back when told to remove Pride, BLM pins

Xabier Rezola, a 21-year-old student and orientation leader at New College, said that he and all 17 orientation leaders were instructed to remove Black Lives Matter and Pride pins from their shirts. Rezola added that they were told to wear only their name tags.

Instead, the orientation leaders chose to put the pins on their pants and backpacks, which the college's leadership also told them to remove.

Rezola had said Tuesday he and several other orientation leaders planned to continue wearing the pins. He also said he found it "infuriating" because the college had a civil discourse meeting about respecting other people's beliefs.

"We want to provide a welcoming environment for all students and I will not censor myself for someone else's comfort," Rezola said.

New College's Interim President Richard Corcoran posted to social media Wednesday to respond, writing that "ambassadors can't wear buttons of any kind (NRA, BLM, etc.)," and "all of our students, including ambassadors, are free on their own time to wear any kind of button they want."

The small Sarasota college has been undergoing a conservative transformation since January when DeSantis appointed six new board members, who quickly fired the previous president.

More than a third of New College's faculty have left the school following the board's controversial actions, prompting several class cancellations ahead of the start of the fall semester on Aug. 28.

Contributing: Anna Kaufman, USA TODAY; The Associated Press