The Central Florida Tourism Oversight District has announced that it has abolished all Diversity & Inclusion programs, calling the initiatives “illegal” and “unamerican”, according to District Administrator Glenton Gilzean. Gilzean and the Board of Supervisors were hand-selected by Florida Governor Ron DeSantis as part of his takeover of the former Reedy Creek Improvement District. Here’s the announcement:
Today, District Administrator, Glenton Gilzean announced the abolition of all DEI programs at the Central Florida Tourism Oversight District. The announcement comes after the Reedy Creek Improvement District implemented hiring and contracting programs that discriminated against Americans based on gender and race, costing taxpayers millions of dollars.
The announcement comes after an internal investigation into the district’s policies. 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,” said Administrator Gilzean. “Our district will no longer participate in any attempt to divide us by race or advance the notion that we are not created equal. 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.”
Under its Minority/ Women Business Enterprise and Disadvantaged Business Enterprise programs, 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. Through the program, the Reedy Creek Improvement District instituted gender and racial quotas to ensure that contractors met a certain threshold of diversity. In order to meet these quotas, it is estimated that the district had to pay millions of dollars more in order to find businesses who could comply.
After entering into a contract, Reedy Creek employees 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.
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Another victory for Florida
Ah what an empty statement with nothing but an estimation as evidence. Bravo kings! Can’t wait for the south to rise again!
I think this new board is going to discriminate against transgender and gay people. They are not as inclusive as they say. Which other special businesses is the Governor seeking to change Florida has over 2000 businesses with the same operation as Disney.
Man Florida’s really becoming a dump
How is he so racist while pretending racism doesn’t exist…at the same time? Florida is Nazi territory
That’s fine. So long as Desantis is more concerned with pandering to news entertainment fearmongering than fixing actual problems, I’ll just spend my vacation somewhere other than Florida.
Keeps mentioning tax payer money but….. Wasn’t Disney paying for Reddy Creek itself???
You are correct: Disney is the taxpayer in Reedy Creek, which was the entire idea behind the district.
The only residents in Reedy Creek are Disney executives. They voted for what was a county board that would carry out Disney’s policy. In effect, Disney elected a board that set a high tax rate, collected the money, and provided Disney with a high level of infrastructure and services (police, fire, emergency medical).
Basically, Disney was running the district like a Scandinavian country: high taxes with equally high government services.
DeSantis did away with the old elected board, and replaced it with one appointed by him.
So, the diversity programs that the new board did away with only apply to government employees in the district, not Disney itself.
The working man definitely needs a tax break so i can see that angle. Making things laws certainly doesn’t stop people who are prejudiced. Now companies use recruiters to avoid posting jobs so they can legally discriminate. Instead of punishing organizations there should have been incentives to encourage diversity and inclusion.
This is a blatant attempt at discrimination without admitting discrimination is the issue. They will simply not hire because they choose to so the backlash can’t be justified using DEI. This is the tactic of racist bigot leaders taking protections out. People who are let go or not hired can’t call out discrimination if they don’t have policies in place that recognize it exists. That’s what is happening. It’s whitewashing without saying it’s whitewashing.
Ah, so now they can thrive by hiring white-power contractors with Confederate-flag-waving crews and working together despite their differences. Groups like this often have tokens as their public face to make it look like they’re not racist.
Republicans: “We can’t make gay wedding websites, we have 1st amendment rights!”
Also Republicans: “You don’t have 1st amendment rights if they don’t align to our views!”