What’s dying in Florida: Free speech protections | Letters to the editor

“Woke” went to die because progressives realized it was sophomoric and destined to torment educators and students.

What Gov. Ron DeSantis has sent to die in Florida are First Amendment protections for freedom of speech, opposed by those who think the only part worth keeping is freedom of religion (theirs, not yours.) Consider the canceling (there’s no better word) of Prof. Samuel Joeckel by Palm Beach Atlantic University (PBAU) for crossing our governor’s Mason-Dixon Line. It’s a bad look for a Christian school.

Dr. Manning Dauer, whose name graces a University of Florida building, helped me become the first Gator to pass the postwar Foreign Service Exam. Dauer made us study the Southern White Primary, an inquiry DeSantis’s see-no-evil approach would block from Florida campuses. In contrast, UF, which dragged its heels on court-ordered desegregation, did not fire Dauer for teaching about segregation’s devilish mechanisms decades ago.

DeSantis wants to mandate a course on communism. In my day, two professors, Dauer and Alfred Diamant, who escaped the Holocaust to later parachute into Normandy as an intelligence officer, did just that by combining study of Leninism with an examination of Fascism, the 20th Century’s other great malignancy.

I’m curious: Would DeSantis approve a course on 20th Century totalitarians? Or is that too tough for his thin-skinned backers?

Ambassador Frank McNeil (ret.), Boca Raton

The writer was U.S. ambassador to Costa Rica under Presidents Carter and Reagan.

On March 3, 1845, Florida became a state, a place where everyone was welcome regardless of political affiliation.

A place where the sun shines almost everyday, where taxes are reasonable and people were free. Fast forward 178 years to March 3, 2023: We are only as free as our governor defines “freedom.”

The Sun Sentinel editorial of March 1 provided a long list of DeSantis actions that are anything but freedoms and in essence take away more freedom than they provide. Many are downright dangerous, have endangered the learning process for Florida students and ignore the Democratic process in favor of his political agenda.

DeSantis is so afraid of criticism that he didn’t invite the press to a recent book signing event just as he has uninvited the press to many other events. To my knowledge, he has not publicly condemned the overt antisemitic activity in Florida. He’s dangerous. He is leading us down a path that demagogues in Europe used to control millions of people a century ago. Democracy be damned — it’s his way or no way.

Ed Rubin, Boynton Beach

Our governor is pressing President Biden to grant a waiver to tennis star Novak Djokovic, who can’t enter the U.S. due to his refusal to get vaccinated. The governor says to put pandemic politics aside so Djokovic can play in the upcoming Miami Open.

Serbia's Novak Djokovic returns the ball to Daniil Medvedev during their semi final match of the Dubai Duty Free Tennis Championships in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, Friday, March 2, 2023. (AP Photo/Kamran Jebreili) (Kamran Jebreili/AP)

I like it. If I were Biden I would grant the waiver, on the condition that schools in South Florida that don’t approve of DeSantis’s crusade against CRT can get a waiver from that. Maybe teachers can get a waiver from being told what to say about LGBTQ-related topics, and our public universities can get a waiver from DeSantis’s targeting of diversity initiatives. Maybe women can get some waivers from this attempt to ban abortion after 15 weeks.

Maybe businesses that put on drag shows for years before his weird crackdowns can get a waiver. Maybe people seeking asylum in this country can get waivers from being flown up north as a stunt. I say let Ron have his little tennis match, and let’s grant waivers all around.

Boris Bastidas, Coral Springs

Big Tobacco loves Florida taxpayers. It spends 12 times as much money in Florida marketing tobacco and nicotine than is spent on the state’s so-called “truth” campaign about the dangers of smoking and vaping.

Tobacco marketing targets young people so they will get hooked and become lifelong consumers of these most addictive and lethal products. Tobacco companies and their deadly marketing is not pro-life, it’s pro-death. It makes Big Tobacco richer, and it makes Floridians poorer and dead.

Sheila Jaffe, Boca Raton