(June 19, 2025): Southeastern Legal Foundation (SLF) VP of Legal Initiatives Cece O’Leary joins the Ed Dean Morning Show to discuss woke gender policies at three Florida universities–FIU, UNF, UWF–and the legal action SLF is taking to protect students’ First Amendment rights on those campuses.

SLF explains that despite Governor DeSantis’s tremendous efforts to rid Florida colleges of woke DEI programs and policies that harm students rather than protect them, some colleges still maintain policies that essentially make it a crime to offend someone based on how they identify. SLF is putting those colleges, as well as Florida leadership, on notice that their policies put students at risk and violate their freedom of speech.

For example, UNF’s Title IX policy bans harassment on the basis of “gender identity, sexual orientation, and gender expression.” It even bans “intentionally misgendering” another student, meaning that students must refer to other students by their “preferred pronouns,” even if they are not biologically correct. SLF explains how this not only scares students into silence but also compels their speech because they must accept that someone can switch genders or that there are infinite genders.

SLF sent these letters to the university presidents, as well as Governor DeSantis and Attorney General Uthmeier.

“Whether these are just oversights by these colleges or perhaps intentional defiance because we have seen colleges in Florida rebranding their DEI offices, trying to rename them and fly under the radar…it requires calling these schools out, calling attention to it, and we have no doubt that the Florida leadership will intervene and do the right thing here.”

Listen to the full interview at WBOB.com.