The NAACP is taking Florida’s woke war to sports. Will unintended casualties follow?
Emmitt Smith is the exceptional Florida man. The pride of Pensacola, Smith racked up the second-most running yards in US high school history and smashed a haul of records at the University of Florida before leading the Dallas Cowboys to three Super Bowl titles in the 1990s and retiring in 2004 as the NFL’s all-time leading rusher. Now 54, Smith is hurtling head-first into the goalline stand that is Ron DeSantis’s war on wokeness.
Last year the Florida governor ratified a law prohibiting the state’s public universities and four-year community colleges from spending on diversity, equity and inclusion programs, as Texas and a handful of other states have taken aim at university DEI programs. In response the University of Florida eliminated 28 DEI positions earlier this month, vowing to shift the savings from those cuts – some $5m – into a faculty retirement fund. The school put on a diplomatic face after the fact; “we will continue to foster a community of trust and respect,” read the official statement. But DeSantis’s tone rang far more true. “Florida is where DEI goes to die,” he wrote in a triumphant social media post.
The next day Smith hit back with a post of his own, an iOS press release. “I’m utterly disgusted by UF’s decision and the precedent it sets,” he wrote. “We cannot continue to believe and trust that a team of leaders all made of the same background will make the right decision when it comes to equity and diversity. History has proven that is not the case.” Most notably, Smith called on the “MANY minority athletes at UF” to join in publicly registering their concern while challenging the forthcoming class of student-athletes to join the scrap or risk being “complicit in supporting systemic issues”. The NAACP, which hasn’t hesitated to fight DeSantis’s woke war in the past, took it a step further – urging Black athletes around