DeSantis-appointed Disney governing district abolishes all DEI programs

A Ron DeSantis-appointed Walt Disney World governing district has abolished all diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) programs, it said this week, in a move that continues the Florida governor’s war on diversity-promoting programs in the state.

In a statement the Central Florida tourism oversight district said “any DEI job duties” would also be eliminated.

The oversight district, which was created earlier this year following a row between DeSantis and Disney, is managed by five DeSantis appointees. It replaced a Walt Disney Company-controlled county district, which was dismantled after Disney opposed DeSantis’s anti-LGBTQ+ policies.

In a press release the Central Florida tourism oversight district criticized its predecessor for introducing “minority/women business enterprise and disadvantaged business enterprise programs”. The district did not respond to a request for comment.

Glenton Gilzean, the district administrator, said:

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

In February, DeSantis, who is currently running an ailing campaign for president, took control of the Reedy Creek improvement district, home to the Walt Disney World Resort. It was renamed the Central Florida tourism oversight district earlier this year.

Disney previously controlled the Orlando-area district, which gave it the power to decide what it builds in the area, but after incurring DeSantis’s wrath it was stripped of those powers by the Republican legislature.

That allowed DeSantis to appoint his own five people to the district’s board, including the founder of a rightwing parent group, a Christian nationalist and a deep-pocketed Republican party donor.

The Florida governor had reacted emotionally after the then Disney CEO, Bob Chapek, criticized, belatedly, Florida’s “don’t say gay” bill, which prohibits teachers from discussing sexual orientation through eighth grade.

The Walt Disney Company did not immediately respond to the Guardian’s request for comment.

In April, Disney, which is Florida’s largest private employer, filed a lawsuit against DeSantis, claiming he had subjected it to “a targeted campaign of government retaliation”. The company has also canceled plans for a $1bn corporate campus for 2,000 employees in Florida, citing “changing business conditions”.

DeSantis has touted Florida as a place where “woke comes to die”, and has based much of his increasingly quixotic presidential campaign on his record of stoking division through culture wars.

He was criticized in July, including by members of his own party, for supporting Florida’s new educational standards – which require public school teachers to tell pupils enslaved Black Americans benefited from their forced labor by learning useful skills.