Florida’s ‘Don’t Say Gay’ law stripped of ‘most dangerous and discriminatory’ impacts under lawsuit settlement

A signature policy under Florida Governor Ron DeSantis that saw national copycat legislation can’t be used to restrict speech in schools about gender identity and sexual orientation.

Two years after a group of Florida families and LGBT+ civil rights groups sued the state over what opponents have called the “Don’t Say Gay” law, the DeSantis administration reached a settlement on Monday that strips the law’s “most dangerous and discriminatory” impacts, according to plaintiffs.

The settlement requires the state’s Board of Education to instruct every school district that the Parental Rights in Education Act does not block students and teachers from discussing LGBT+ people and issues, nor can the law be used to try to block anti-bullying rules designed to protect LGBT+ people on campus, nor can it be used to break up LGBT+ campus groups.

The terms of the settlement mean that teachers and students can identify themselves as LGBT+, hang Pride flags or post rainbow stickers in classrooms, and discuss LGBT+ people, families, events and topics in school settings without facing threats of legal action.

The law also cannot be applied to library books, as long as those books are not being used in classrooms for “instruction” of subjects sexual orientation or gender identity.

“This settlement not only reaffirms the rights of LGBT+ students and educators to live and speak openly but also marks a significant step towards rectifying the damage inflicted” by the law, according to Nadine Smith, executive director of Equality Florida, among the plaintiffs in the lawsuit.

The settlement “ensures that conversations about LGBT+ identities are not banned from the classroom, promoting a much-needed culture of empathy and acceptance,” according