Lately, Florida Governor and Republican presidential candidate Ron DeSantis has significantly curtailed his use of the term ā€œwoke.ā€ Whereas just a few months ago he said the word seven times in 26 seconds in a speech, he avoided it completely during the first primary debate.

DeSantisā€™s rhetorical retreat is likely due to recent polling showing that his once-declared ā€œwar on wokeā€ is yielding diminishing electoral returns. But anyone hoping that this political shift would be accompanied by a policy shift will be disappointed. His authoritarian, white supremacist attacks on Floridaā€™s public education system have continued apace.

DeSantis has enacted multiple ā€œeducational gag ordersā€ that criminalize classroom discussions of race, gender identity, and ugly historical realities that might make white students ā€œfeel guilt, anguish, or any other form of psychological distress.ā€ Florida teachers, whose salaries rank 48th in the country, have seen their jobs become only more thankless. The end result is an exodus of teachers, and what Florida Education Association (FEA) head Andrew Spar has called ā€œone of the worst teacher and staff shortagesā€ in the stateā€™s history. ā€œThe policies, vilification, and low pay are certainly all factors,ā€ Spar told me. ā€œI was shocked, going around the state and talking to teachers as we were starting the school year, hearing over and over again, ā€˜Iā€™m getting out of education in general because, as much as I love working with and teaching kids, Iā€™m really not able to do that. I just want to be able to teach.ā€™ā€

Sparā€™s anecdotal experiences are borne out by statistics. In January 2019, when DeSantis was sworn into his first term as governor, there were 2,217 teacher vacancies in the stateā€™s K-12 public schools. As he entered his second term in January 2023, that number had ballooned to 5,294, according to the FEA. This August, the FEA found the number of unfilled positions neared a staggering 7,000.

DeSantisā€™s education policies not only ban free speech in the classroom but encourage increased curriculum surveillance through what PEN America calls ā€œeducational intimidation billsā€ that empower DeSantisā€™s conservative allies to monitor and punish educators who step out of line. For example, HB 1467, signed by DeSantis in 2022, requires that every public elementary schoolā€™s website provide ā€œa list of all materials maintained in the school libraryā€ and invites not just parents, but any ā€œresident of the county,ā€ to file an objection. While the law neglects to mention specific penalties, it makes passing reference to Florida statute 847.012, a preexisting law classifying the dissemination of sexually obscene material to minors as a felony. The confusion has led at least one county to err on the side of caution by restricting in-class discussions of Shakespeareā€”Shakespeare!ā€”to excerpts that steer clear of racy sexual content.

ā€œTeachers donā€™t know what to say, or what not to say, and so theyā€™re opting to not say anything, not only because of fear of getting fired but of potentially getting arrested and being charged if they happen to violate this law,ā€ Nikki Fried, chair of the Florida Democratic Party, told me.

In the realm of higher education, DeSantisā€™s takeover of the state university systemā€™s honors college, New College, has seen him install six political cronies to its board of trustees, among them right-wing provocateur Christopher Rufo. The partisan board fired the collegeā€™s president, appointed a DeSantis ally in her place, voted to end the gender studies program, signaled the sunsetting of tenure, and aggressively recruited male students to undo what right-wingers call the ā€œfeminizationā€ of American colleges. The board takeover also drove 40 percent of the faculty to quit and a slew of classes to be canceled just days before the school year started.

ā€œDeSantis isnā€™t choosing people who are qualified to be presidents of universities and collegesā€”heā€™s putting in people for the sole purpose of changing the philosophies of the teaching,ā€ Fried told me. ā€œWe have multiple high-ranking leadership positions open at the University of Florida, and I donā€™t know who theyā€™re going to fill them withā€”because if you care about academia, youā€™re not coming to the University of Florida right now.ā€

Itā€™s not just educators who are recoiling. This March, an Intelligent.com survey found that 91 perĀ­cent of college-bound Florida high school students ā€œdisagree with DeSantisā€™s policies,ā€ along with 79 perĀ­cent of currently enrolled college students in the state. Nearly 13 percent of graduating high school seniors cited DeSantisā€™s ā€œeducation policiesā€ as the reason they wonā€™t attend a Florida state college. Among those who plan to enroll in a Florida state school, 78 percent are concerned that DeSantisā€™s ā€œpolicies will have a negative impact on their education.ā€ And one out of 20 state college students said they ā€œplan to transfer because of DeSantisā€™ education policies.ā€ As of early August, at least two dozen of New Collegeā€™s 700 students had taken up Massachusetts-based Hampshire College on its offer to accept any New College defectors at the same tuition.

DeSantis has shrugged off any suggestions of an impending educational brain drain. Of the New College faculty departures, he said, ā€œIf youā€™re a professor in, like, you know, Marxist studies, thatā€™s not a loss for Florida.ā€ After signing a bill that defunded diversity programs in the stateā€™s colleges, he suggested that students who disagree should ā€œgo to Berkeley.ā€ And at the first Republican primary debate, the self-proclaimed ā€œEducation Governorā€ suggested heā€™d take the war on public schools national, stating, ā€œWe need education in this country, not indoctrination in this country.ā€

ā€œRon DeSantis is undermining all the work that was done in these last 20 years to make Florida a destination for education,ā€ Fried told me. ā€œHeā€™ll be gone by the time that thereā€™s real repercussions to his actions. But they will have a ripple impact on higher education in Florida for generations to come.ā€