radical right wing religious nut florida governor Ron Desantis signs bill into law so that schools don't teach evolution as fact

these religious nuts claim dinosaurs aren't real because it goes against their dusty old book called the bible


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The University of Florida was roiled in the fall of 2017 when Richard Spencer tried to bring his white nationalist roadshow onto the school’s campus. He’d just made his way through Charlottesville, Virginia, that summer for the Unite the Right rally, and many were worried that a Spencer-led rally could lead to violence on campus. University President Ken Fuchs initially tried to prevent Spencer from speaking, but in the end he allowed it. There was nothing he could do. The First Amendment is the First Amendment.

“The University of Florida can’t say we like country music, but we don’t like alternative music — or in this case, we like diversity, but we don’t like Richard Spencer’s message,” Clay Calvert, a UF free speech professor and director of the school’s Marion B. Brechner First Amendment Project, told The New York Times.

Spencer’s appearance was a clear testament to the university’s role as an impartial marketplace of ideas, but Ron DeSantis and Florida’s Republican state legislature still aren’t convinced. Last week, the MAGA-friendly governor signed a bill mandating students and faculty at the state’s public universities be surveyed about “the extent to which competing ideas and perspectives are presented,” with a goal of ensuring students “feel free to express beliefs and viewpoint on campus and in the classroom.”

It’s not clear what the survey will look like and what will be done with the results, but the bill has raised concerns that the GOP wants control the discourse on campuses. In announcing the bill, DeSantis threatened to defund universities found to be “indoctrinating” students with what he described as “stale ideology.” What exactly is “stale ideology”? It’s up to Republicans and the state’s Board of Education, whose chairman doesn’t believe evolution should be taught as fact.