HILLSDALE, Mich. (Michigan News Source)-After spending almost an entire day in Michigan on Thursday, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis stopped at Hillsdale College to speak on education reform in his state, as well as Florida’s status during his second term in office. 

Gov. DeSantis took to the podium in Hillsdale College’s Searle Center Thursday evening to speak before the largest crowd hosted in the space – more than 800 people –  including donors, students, and professors. 

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“This greatest experiment in equality and liberty is in peril right now as if it were 1850,” Hillsdale College President Larry Arnn said. “Our speaker understands all that.” 

During his first election in 2018 to office, he said that he was voted in by a margin of 32,000 votes, however in the second election he won by the largest margin of victory the state has seen in 40 years. 

“I’ve also said I am not taking polls as governor of Florida,” Gov. DeSantis said, “First of all, I can take the poll of this room and ask the question a different way and get a different result, because it’s dependent on the wording.  Because a poll is a static analysis of what people may think at a given time.” 

“What a poll doesn’t tell you is what the result would be if a leader sets out a vision, executes on that vision, and then delivers results, because if you do that, you can move people in your direction,” he continued. 

According to the twice-elected governor, the election basically realigned Florida from “the nation’s biggest, most expensive, most important swing state,” into a red state.  

During his roughly half hour speech, Gov. DeSantis highlighted how the state has changed education policy to give parents more rights in their students’ education. 

“We are also protecting parents and students against the left’s views on education not just in K-12 but also in higher education. We believe parents have the right to be active in their children’s education,” he said, “We’ve banned concepts like Critical Race Theory.” 

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The state isn’t going to teach kids to hate each other according to Gov. Desantis, rather to be judged as individuals and that it is the “content of their character that matters not the color of their skin.” 

Similarly, he boasted that Florida is leading the country in promoting American Civics to their students, in part because of a 50 hour training program that’s available for teachers. 

“[Teachers] are actually learning all the intellectual foundations of the American Republic in a way that I don’t think any other state has done in modern history, and when the teachers go through that they get a $3,000 bonus for doing so,” Gov. DeSantis said. 

The state has also “drawn a line in the sand” and parents have the right to send their children to a classroom where the teacher would not tell them they could “change their gender” or “pick different pronouns.” 

“Gender ideology should not be taught in our K-12 schools, and I don’t care if Disney feels otherwise, we’re going to make sure we’re standing with parents and we’re standing with students,” Gov. DeSantis said. 

Additionally,  Gov. DeSantis highlighted the state is taking a new approach to higher education, highlighting the revision of the New College of Florida back to its original mission of a classical education. 

Something new that Florida will be implementing for higher education includes a mandatory review process every five years for tenured professors that could result in their job termination. 

Protecting the people of Florida against the politically left’s “delusional” views on criminal justice and law-in-order also have been issues during the Governor’s time in office. 

“When we saw the riots in Minneapolis and started seeing it spread to New York City – and other places – I mobilized the national guard in Florida,” Gov. DeSantis said, “I had state law enforcement stationed in urban areas when we said very clearly ‘you’re not burning down our cities’ and guess what it didn’t happen because we knew they knew we would hold them accountable.” 

After his remarks, Gov. DeSantis and Hillsdale President Arnn sat down for a brief Q & A which included discussion of politics, Florida’s approach to Disney, and the Presidency. 

“So what could a president do to help with all this?,” Arnn asked. 

Gov. DeSantis did not respond directly to the question, but instead spoke about how he inherited the most “liberal state supreme court in the country,” but was able to elect three new judges making Florida’s Supreme Court the most “conservative” state supreme court in the country. 

Dr. Arnn inquired about the state’s approach to Disney, which had advocated for gender ideology in kindergarten according to the governor. 

“[Disney got] into this issue of the sexualization of the child programming, and getting involved in our education bill, and we just had to look at this and say okay do they have a ‘first amendment right to be advocating for gender ideology in kindergarten?’” Gov. DeSantis said, “Yeah I guess. Is that honestly faithful to their fiduciary duty to their shareholders? I don’t think so, but that’s not really in my wheelhouse as governor.” 

“But what I can tell you is under no circumstances should the state of Florida be subsidizing woke activism by allowing them to have their own government, so we took it away,” he continued. 

The morning began with a speech at the Midland County Republican Party Breakfast in Midland, Michigan, where the Florida Governor addressed several hundred beginning his remarks by expressing his surprise that there were not more protestors outside of the event.