Florida Senate Bill 266, signed into law on July 1, 2023, reshaped how the state’s public colleges and universities operate. The law cuts off state and federal funding for diversity, equity, and inclusion programs, rewrites what general education courses must teach, gives each university president final authority over faculty and administrative hiring, and requires a comprehensive review of every tenured professor every five years. Parts of the framework are being challenged in federal court on First Amendment grounds, but the law is in effect and institutions have already restructured around it.
The DEI Spending Ban
The provision that drew the most attention bars Florida’s public colleges, state universities, and their direct-support organizations from spending any state or federal money to advocate for diversity, equity, and inclusion, or to promote or engage in political or social activism as defined by rules from the State Board of Education and Board of Governors regulations.1Online Sunshine. Florida Code 1004.06 – Prohibited Expenditures DEI offices, training programs, and staff positions funded with public dollars fell within the ban.
The statute carves out several exceptions. Institutions can still spend on programs required by federal law, and they can maintain programs needed to keep institutional or discipline-specific accreditation with approval from the State Board of Education or Board of Governors. Access programs are also preserved for military veterans, Pell Grant recipients, first-generation college students, nontraditional students, transfer students from the Florida College System, students from low-income families, and students with unique abilities.1Online Sunshine. Florida Code 1004.06 – Prohibited Expenditures
Student organizations are treated separately. Student fees can still fund these groups and institutions can still let them use campus facilities, even for speech or expressive activity that would otherwise fall inside the spending ban. The only requirement is that funds and facility access be allocated according to the institution’s written policies.1Online Sunshine. Florida Code 1004.06 – Prohibited Expenditures
A separate law signed the same day, HB 931, prohibits public institutions from requiring students, faculty, or staff to complete political loyalty tests or meet ideological qualifications for admission or employment.2Florida Senate. Florida House Bill 931 – Higher Education It is often mentioned alongside SB 266 but is its own statute.
New General Education Content Rules
SB 266 rewrote the standards for general education courses at public colleges and universities. The stated goal is that every undergraduate graduate as an informed citizen through coursework that is “traditional, historically accurate, and high-quality” and that promotes the constitutional republic. Courses built around unproven or speculative content are treated as better suited to electives than to general education credit.3Florida Senate. Florida Code 1007.55 – General Education Course Principles, Standards, and Content
The law also sets content requirements for the five subject areas: communication, mathematics, social sciences, humanities, and natural sciences. Humanities courses must include selections from the Western canon. Where applicable, general education courses must cover the historical background and philosophical foundations of Western civilization, including the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, and the Federalist Papers.3Florida Senate. Florida Code 1007.55 – General Education Course Principles, Standards, and Content
General education core courses may not distort significant historical events, include curriculum that teaches identity politics, or rest on theories that systemic racism, sexism, oppression, and privilege are built into American institutions and were created to maintain social, political, or economic inequities.4Online Sunshine. Florida Code 1007.25 – General Education Core Course Options Core courses in each subject area are capped at five options unless the State Board of Education and Board of Governors approve additional ones.
Concepts That Can’t Be Endorsed in Class
Beyond the general education rules, Florida’s nondiscrimination statute classifies certain instructional content as discrimination based on race, color, national origin, or sex. It is unlawful to subject a student or employee to training or instruction that promotes, advances, or compels belief in any of the following:5Online Sunshine. Florida Code 1000.05 – Discrimination
- That members of one race or sex are morally superior to members of another.
- That a person is inherently racist, sexist, or oppressive because of their race or sex, consciously or unconsciously.
- That a person’s moral character or status as privileged or oppressed is determined by race or sex.
- That a person bears responsibility for actions committed in the past by other members of the same race or sex.
- That a person should be discriminated against or receive adverse treatment to achieve diversity, equity, or inclusion.
- That a person should feel guilt or psychological distress over past actions by others sharing their race or sex.
- That merit, hard work, objectivity, and racial colorblindness are racist or sexist, or were created to oppress another group.
Faculty can still discuss these concepts as part of a broader course, so long as the instruction is objective and does not endorse them as fact.5Online Sunshine. Florida Code 1000.05 – Discrimination Where that line falls in a given classroom has been one of the harder practical questions for instructors.
Presidents Take Over Hiring
SB 266 consolidated hiring authority at each public university in the office of the president. The president now has final say over hiring the provost, the deans, and all full-time faculty, and must assess the performance and employment practices of the provost and deans and report on them to the board of trustees at least twice a year.6Florida Senate. Florida SB 266 Enrolled Bill Text – Section 1001.741
The president can delegate hiring authority to the executive management team, the provost, or individual deans. But the statute says plainly that neither the president nor any delegate is bound by the recommendations or opinions of faculty committees or other individuals in making hiring decisions.6Florida Senate. Florida SB 266 Enrolled Bill Text – Section 1001.741 That is a move away from the shared-governance model in which faculty search committees held substantial influence.
Post-Tenure Review Every Five Years
Post-tenure review changed from something the Board of Governors could require to something it must require. Every tenured faculty member at a state university now undergoes a comprehensive review every five years, covering at least four areas:7Florida Senate. Florida Code 1001.706 – State University System
- Accomplishments and productivity since the last review.
- Performance in assigned research, teaching, and service duties.
- Performance metrics applied consistently across the institution.
- Consequences and rewards, including recognition and compensation for strong performance and improvement plans or consequences for underperformance.
The statute leaves the specifics of what happens after a failed review to Board of Governors regulation. The inclusion of consequences for underperformance as a mandatory category means tenure no longer functions as an unconditional guarantee of continued employment.
What Universities Have Done
Public universities in Florida moved quickly to comply. The University of Florida eliminated all DEI-related positions outright. Florida State University dismantled its diversity, equity, and inclusion office. Across the system, institutions eliminated DEI programming, fired or reclassified staff in DEI-focused roles, and left vacated DEI positions unfilled. By 2025, compliance across the state university system was widespread.
The changes go beyond staffing. Institutions have revised general education course offerings to match the new content standards, submitted updated course lists for state-level review, and adjusted hiring practices to reflect the president’s expanded authority. The Board of Governors adopted the required post-tenure review regulation, and universities have begun cycling tenured faculty through the five-year process.8Florida Department of Education. General Education Course Options
Court Challenges
Groups of university professors have sued over SB 266 and the underlying restrictions on classroom instruction. In Austin v. Lamb, professors argued the classroom restrictions amounted to government censorship of protected speech. A federal court denied a preliminary injunction, finding the universities’ threats to enforce the law were too speculative at that stage to justify emergency relief, and the case continued past that ruling.
In Novoa v. Diaz, a federal district court found that several plaintiff professors had standing to press First Amendment claims against the prohibited-concepts provisions. The court said it found “no authority” requiring it to defer to what it called the state’s “blatant viewpoint-based restrictions on protected speech” once a subject has been included in the curriculum. That case focused on the 2022 Individual Freedom Act, which SB 266 incorporates and builds on.
No final ruling has held the law unconstitutional, and the appeals courts have not yet resolved the underlying First Amendment questions. Until they do, SB 266 remains in effect and universities are operating under it.