The Stop WOKE Act Makes Florida Campuses Safe for Jews

Miami “A little learning is a dangerous thing,” warned English poet Alexander Pope, and America’s elite universities are proving it. Egged on by faculty who romanticize “resistance to occupation,” students are chanting “globalize the intifada” and “free Palestine” with little grasp of what those slogans mean—or of the antisemitic hatred they propagate.

The term “Palestinian” was long understood to include Jews. In the 20th century, Palestine Liberation Organization leader Yasser Arafat recast it to mean a non-Jewish inhabitant of Palestine, just as he redefined “occupation” to mean the existence of any Jewish community anywhere in Palestine. But most students will learn none of that. Instead they will be taught that even kibbutzim predating the establishment of the state of Israel are colonies founded by settlers and that the atrocities of Oct. 7, 2023, were acts of resistance. This is pure antisemitism, packaged to appeal to the young and impressionable.

Ending this dangerous brainwashing requires restoring universities as centers of learning rather than incubators of extremism. That means breaking the Marxist-Islamist stranglehold on academia.

Florida is doing it. Under Gov. Ron DeSantis and former Lt. Gov. Jeanette Nuñez, now president of Florida International University, the state has led the nation in fighting what Mr. DeSantis calls the “woke mind virus.” In 2022 he signed the Stop WOKE Act, banning critical race theory and other discriminatory ideology in public schools. In 2023 Florida struck at the funding pipeline, barring public education dollars from being spent on diversity, equity and inclusion programs or other political activism. “The whole experiment with DEI is coming to an end in the state of Florida,” Mr. DeSantis said.

After Oct. 7, as pro-Hamas activists overran campuses elsewhere, Florida moved fast to protect Jew--ish students. Mr. DeSantis directed public universities and colleges to facilitate transfers for students facing antisemitic persecution elsewhere and reinforced protections from kindergarten up. FIU now requires antisemitism education at orientation and earned an A from the Anti- Defamation

League for protecting Jewish students. Students are reminded that anti- Zionist speech denying the Jewish people any right to live in the land of their forefathers isn’t “critique,” it is antisemitism—subject to the same conduct rules that protect every other minority from discrimination.

In Florida, free speech doesn’t mean the right to shut down classes or menace classmates. In early 2024 Mr. DeSantis warned administrators that protests and intimidation won’t be tolerated at commencement. At FIU, multiple screenings of “Bearing Witness to the October 7th Massacre”— Hamas’s own footage of rape, torture, kidnapping and murder—went forward despite attempts to hijack the room.

Florida has protected viewpoint diversity against the woke wave while attacking the machinery of ideological control; DEI preferences in faculty hiring are out. Final hiring authority now rests with university presidents, and tenure comes with accountability: a fiveyear post-tenure review. The state has targeted administrative bloat— starting with the phalanx of DEI administrators— so families get a better return on investment. Florida has been the No. 1 state in the country for higher education for eight years running, according to U.S. News & World Report.

Progressives and their allies have long used accreditation to entrench control, with the federal Education Department manipulating accreditation rules on their behalf. Florida is attacking that bastion of extremism, too, working with five other Southern states to create the Commission for Public Higher Education, a new institutional accrediting organization. This is vital to breaking the federal education monopoly and restoring independence to the states and their universities.

The surest defense against extremism is a sound education. Florida is rebuilding a serious core— history, literature, civics, science and math—while trimming specious electives that elevate activism over learning. The goal is fewer freefloating electives and a heavier emphasis on American citizenship, Western civilization and the skills needed for a successful career.

Florida’s reforms show how universities can once again offer a rich foundation of knowledge—rather than just enough to make students dangerous.

Mr. Sarnoff is a partner at Shutts & Bowen LLP and vice chairman of the Florida International University board of trustees.

By Marc Sarnoff