Originally published August 3, 2023 1:57 pm PDT
“The district’s DEI committee will be dissolved and any DEI job duties will be eliminated,” a press release reads.
QUICK FACTS:
- The district board overseeing Florida’s Disney World has abolished the area’s Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) programs and board.
- Prior to the Florida board’s February creation, the district was self-governing and had tax exemptions.
- District Administrator Glenton Gilzean announced the abolition of all DEI programs at the Central Florida Tourism Oversight District.
- “The announcement comes after an internal investigation into the district’s policies,” a press release reads. “The district’s DEI committee will be dissolved and any DEI job duties will be eliminated. CFTOD staff will also no longer be permitted to use any staff time to pursue DEI initiatives.”
- “The so-called diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives were advanced during the tenure of the previous board and they were illegal and simply unamerican,” Gilzean stated.
- “Our district will no longer participate in any attempt to divide us by race or advance the notion that we are not created equal,” he continued. “As the former head of the Central Florida Urban League, a civil rights organization, I can say definitively that our community thrives only when we work together despite our differences.”
REEDY CREEK’S FORMER DEI INITIATIVES:
- The Reedy Creek Improvement District “routinely awarded contracts based on racially and gender-driven goals to businesses on the basis of their owners’ race and gender,” the press release asserts.
- “Through the program, the Reedy Creek Improvement District instituted gender and racial quotas to ensure that contractors met a certain threshold of diversity,” the statement continued, noting that the district “had to pay millions of dollars more in order to find businesses who could comply.”
- Reedy Creek employees then “aggressively monitored contractor’s racial and gender practices, wasting taxpayer dollars.”
- “Previous contracts threatened contractors who did not keep up with racial or gender quotes with nonpayment and disqualification from future bidding,” the statement concluded.
BACKGROUND:
- Florida State Senator Linda Stewart (D) responded to the elimination of the district’s DEI programs by saying in a press release, “When government attempts a hostile takeover of a business to enforce a political agenda and puts a rogue oversight board in place like we’re seeing here with Disney, it not only jeopardizes public safety, but the job security of our police offers and the skilled workers that keep our community safe and thriving.”
- “We know the important role the presence of law enforcement plays at major tourist destinations,” describing that the DeSantis-appointed board proposed defunding the district’s police presence by $8 million.
- The press release then voiced concerns about what may occur if “major funding and policy changes like this continue to happen.”
