GAINESVILLE, Fla.—College students left their classes on Feb. 23 to oppose Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’s actions against left-wing ideological education.

DeSantis promised to remove all funding from school programs that teach Critical Race Theory (CRT) and Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI).

The governor added he wanted to remove ideological loyalty oaths as hiring qualifications and shift hiring authorities to university presidents.

“Our institutions will be graduating students with degrees that will actually be useful,” DeSantis said. “We will be eliminating all DEI and CRT bureaucracies in Florida. It will wither on the vine.”

At the University of Florida, the protests were small but passionate. Across the state, overall turnout was paltry.

The Florida walkout had more than 1,000 students signed on to leave schools, according to its GroupMe chat.

Florida College Democrats and Dream Defenders led the walkouts.

“We demand the DeSantis administration restore DEI initiatives, stop its attack on LGBT students, and end his abuse of power,” a Google page for the walkouts reads.

Dream Defenders is a socialist group in favor of abolishing “prisons, policing, surveillance, and punishment,” decriminalizing marijuana, and “black feminism,” their website states.

“Like many revolutionary organizations, we believe that it is not enough to simply oppose capitalism or to fight for freedom within it, but that we must be actively fighting for a new alternative. We believe that socialism is this alternative,” their website reads.

By 10 minutes after the planned start time at noon, organizers decided the crowd had grown as much as it would.

About 100 students stood in clusters in the breezeway outside the Marston Science Library and a campus Starbucks coffee shop.

A few held signs: “Trans Healthcare is a Right, Not a Political Pawn,” and “Don’t Sleuth on Trans Youth.”

Nearby, pairs of university police officers leaned against squad cars and chatted, or strolled together around the building. And workers from the institution’s Student Life office were posted along the group’s outer edges “just to be sure everyone stays safe,” one told an Epoch Times reporter.

Sabrina Briceno eagerly told The Epoch Times, “So we’re here, really walking out and demonstrating real anger towards the DeSantis administration here in Florida trying to control and put a heavy hand on our higher education, threatening to ban DEI, threatening to ban LGBT studies or anything like that.”

She spoke quickly, often using buzzwords.

“Any sort of freedom of thought, he is trying to stomp on, and that’s really why we’re all here.”

When asked about students who say conservative viewpoints aren’t tolerated on campus and that they, too, seek the freedom to share their ideas without retribution, Briceno spun on her heel and addressed the crowd.

“We’re organizing statewide,” she shouted. “UF isn’t the only university out here. We have UCF [University of Central Florida] FSU [Florida State University], FAU [Florida Atlantic University], Florida Polytechnic [University], FSU, USF [University of South Florida].

“We’re organizing statewide to let Ron DeSantis know that we will not tolerate his attack on our education. Our education is ours! Ours to learn; ours to grow from!” she shouted over cheers.

“And really, we’re obviously here with the power in numbers, but also super-important to learn about the history he’s trying to ban,” she said, indicating they’d be moving inside the building to hear from UF faculty members “so we can actually learn about the risks that this puts on our education.”

“We have power in numbers, especially with conservative media like I have right next to me, where they’re trying to divide us and turn the vision against us,” she said, pointing to an Epoch Times reporter.

“We are pro-DEI. We are pro the inclusion of everyone. Academic freedom is at the core of this movement. So you have to be with us if you’re for freedom. This is a Stand for Freedom Florida protest, and we’re here supporting our cause!”

How Florida college students learn will impact a vast number of students.

In 2022, Florida had 97 public colleges and 331 private schools, according to the university statistics website UnivStats.

Together, these schools serve more than 1 million students, making Florida the state with the fourth-largest number of college students, college ranking site Best Colleges said.

Three of America’s top colleges are in Florida.

In a time when free speech on campus has become a pressing issue, Florida schools do reasonably well at encouraging viewpoint variety, a 2022 Florida government survey suggested.

About 82 percent of Florida students agreed they can express their political viewpoints without fear of negative consequences.

Compared to students nationwide, this number is impressively high. A 2020 Gallup and Knight Foundation report found that only 59 percent of college students believe free speech rights are secure. This number marks a decrease since 2016.

The Epoch Times reached out to DeSantis’s office, but a spokesman provided no new comment. Instead, he pointed to the governor’s legislative priorities.

A current bill in the Florida legislature, Senate Bill 958, requires Florida College System schools to perform annual viewpoint diversity assessments, host debates on current topics, ban political loyalty tests and ban ideologies that support biased treatment based on race.

DeSantis has taken decisive actions against the left-wing ideologies that often have major influence within colleges, as previously reported.

Henry Mack, Chancellor of the Florida Department of Education overseeing the Division of Career, Technical, and Adult Education, had no comment about the walkout when asked about it by The Epoch Times.

The Epoch Times reached out to Florida College Democrats and Dream Defenders, but neither group responded by press time.

The Epoch Times also reached out to the Florida Department of Education and the Florida State University System, but neither replied.