Florida's Disney district board abolishes 'Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion' programs

Governor Ron DeSantis signed a bill in February, establishing a new board while dissolving its predecessor. The previous entity was closely associated with the main business it was tasked to regulate — Disney World, the Epoch Times reports.

The move was part of DeSantis's ongoing conflict with Disney, sparked by its leaders' opposition to his Parental Rights in Education Act, which passed last year. Critics of the bill have falsely labeled it as the “Don't Say Gay” bill.

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Established in 1967, the district conferred a distinctive self-governance privilege to Disney, exempting it from the purview of Florida's county or city governments. It was under the jurisdiction of the Reedy Creek Improvement District, whose members were appointed by Disney itself. This arrangement also came with various tax benefits.

Pointing out that no other Florida business enjoyed such preferential terms, DeSantis established a new board, the Central Florida Tourism Oversight District (CFTOD), the members of which he selected himself.

“Today, District Administrator Glenton Gilzean announced the abolition of all DEI programs at the Central Florida Tourism Oversight District,” the district said in a statement Aug. 1.

“The announcement comes after the Reedy Creek Improvement District implemented hiring and contracting programs that discriminated against Americans based on gender and race, costing taxpayers millions of dollars,” it read. “The announcement comes after an internal investigation into the district's policies.”

“The district's DEI committee will be dissolved and any DEI job duties will be eliminated. CFTOD staff will also no longer be permitted to use any staff time to pursue DEI initiatives.”

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“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,” stated Gilzean.

“Our district will no longer participate in any attempt to divide us by race or advance the notion that we are not created equal,” he noted. “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.”

Per the statement, Reedy Creek, through its Minority/Women Business Enterprise and Disadvantaged Business Enterprise program, regularly assigned contracts “based on racially and gender driven goals to businesses on the basis of their owners' race and gender.”

The former Reedy Creek district established racial and gender thresholds “to ensure that contractors met a certain threshold of diversity,” as mentioned in the statement by the new district.

The statement further explained that “in order to meet those quotas, it is estimated that the district had to pay millions of dollars more in order to find businesses who could comply.”