DeSantis-Controlled Board Ends Diversity Initiatives At Disney World

ORLANDO, FL — The governing body appointed by Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis to oversee Walt Disney World voted Tuesday to eliminate diversity, equity, and inclusion programs at the Orlando park, a decision that aligned with the governor's efforts to abolish similar programs in the state.

In a statement released Tuesday, the Central Florida Tourism Oversight District, said the organization's diversity, equity and inclusion committee would be dissolved, The New York Times reported. Any jobs associated with the committee were eliminated, and gender and race will no longer factor into awarding contracts.

Glenton Gilzean, the district's new administrator who is Black and a former head of the Central Florida Urban League, called such initiatives "illegal and simply un-American." Gilzean has been a fellow or member at two conservative institutions, the James Madison Institute and the American Enterprise Institute Leadership Network, as well as a DeSantis appointee to the Florida Commission on Ethics.

"Our district will no longer participate in any attempt to divide us by race or advance the notion that we are not created equal," Gilzean said in a statement obtained by the Times.

In May, DeSantis signed legislation banning state funding for diversity, equity and inclusion programs at state colleges and universities that promote "dangerous political and social activism."

The law also prevents teaching critical race theory and DEI in general education courses, and prohibits specific CRT and DEI majors, minors and courses.

During the bill signing, DeSantis said diversity and inclusion initiatives are used "to divvy" up students "based on any type of superficial characteristics," adding that colleges should "treat people as individuals."

"If you look at the way this has actually been implemented across the country, DEI is better viewed as standing for discrimination, exclusion and indoctrination," the governor said, according to The Washington Post. "And that has no place in our public institutions. This bill says the whole experiment with DEI is coming to an end in the state of Florida."

DeSantis also has championed Florida's so-called "Stop WOKE" law, which bars businesses, colleges and K-12 schools from giving training on certain racial concepts, such as the theory that people of a particular race are inherently racist, privileged or oppressed.

A federal judge last November blocked the law's enforcement in colleges, universities and businesses, calling it "positively dystopian."

DeSantis appointees took control of Disney World's independent special taxing district known as the Reedy Creek earlier this year. The district gave Disney World the right to self-govern its 25,000-acre footprint in Orange and Osceola counties.

The legislation renamed the Reedy Creek Improvement District to the Central Florida Tourism Oversight District and gave DeSantis the power to select the five-person board.

The move by Florida lawmakers was primarily seen as retaliation for the entertainment giant publicly opposing Florida's Parental Rights in Education bill that bars instruction on sexual orientation and gender identity in schools.

Disney later sued DeSantis and his five board appointees in federal court, claiming the Florida governor violated the company's free speech rights by taking retaliatory action.

Before the new board came in, Disney made agreements with previous oversight board members who were Disney supporters that stripped the new supervisors of their authority over design and development. The DeSantis-appointed members of the governing district have sued Disney in state court in a second lawsuit stemming from the district's takeover, seeking to invalidate those agreements.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.