The Florida Roundup - Faith and politics, settlement over parental rights law, Black student-athletes urged to avoid Florida and environmental news

Episode Date: March 15, 2024

This week on The Florida Roundup, we were joined by NPR’s Sarah McCammon to discuss her new book, “The Exvangelicals: Loving, Living, and Leaving the White Evangelical Church” (02:50). Then, we spoke about the settlement reached this week in a case against Florida’s Parental Rights in Education Law with the attorneys who represented the plaintiffs (20:42). Plus, we heard from Dr. Ashley L. White with the NAACP about their advisory to student-athletes considering Florida public universities (29:12). And later, a collection of environmental news from around the state (37:18).

This is the Florida Roundup. I'm Tom Hudson. Thanks for being along with us this week. When Donald Trump first ran for re-election, he started in Florida. We had such luck in Orlando. We love being in Orlando. Thank you. That was June 2019. 2020 began with the then current president visiting an evangelical church in Miami-Dade County, where a group of pastors gathered around him to pray. I want you to stretch your hands to over him, please. This is Guillermo Maldonado. Father, in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, we come before you, Lord. We present our president. He's head pastor at the King Jesus International Ministry.

Father, I pray for my president and our president. I pray for you to give him boldness. He called this event Evangelicals for Trump. Challenge giants in the world and defy and challenge the enemies in this nation. The now former president is counting on and explicitly courting the evangelical vote in his bid to regain the White House. And we ask God to guide us, give us strength and watch. This was his message on Christmas Eve last year. With his help, by this time next year, we will be well on our way to making America safer,

stronger, greater and more prosperous than ever before. Now, Joe Biden has not shied away from talking about his religious faith through his decades in politics, including running for the presidency. I have the great advantage of my faith, Catholic social doctrine, and my political views are coincide. It's about now faith has been considered one of the third rails of politics, but over the past few decades, really, it has moved into a central line for some candidates and their supporters. With early voting now underway in Florida's primary, how has your faith influenced your politics? What do you think is an appropriate role of faith when it comes to public office? We want to hear from you now, live, on this Friday, 305-995-1800 is our phone number, 305-995-1800. Or you can email us your

thoughts. We're monitoring our inbox. You'll find us at radio at thefloridaroundup.org, radio at thefloridaroundup.org. Sue from Jacksonville sent us this note writing, if people choose to use religion in order to make their choices for their lives about what type of person they will be and their priorities, that is fine and dandy. However, people who are representing us should not be using their religion to guide decisions that relate to our state and to all citizens regardless of beliefs. 305-995-1800, our phone number, or radio at thefloridaroundup.org is our email. Sarah McCammon is with us now, national political correspondent for NPR. She's

written a new book called The Exvangelicals, Loving, Living, and Leaving the White Evangelical Church. Sarah, welcome to our program. Describe who is a white evangelical today. Sarah, welcome to our program. Describe who is a white evangelical today. Well, evangelicalism has been a contested term for a long time, and it's kind of a squishy term, a term that demographers and academics and sociologists debate. But it's loosely come to mean conservative Protestants. And increasingly in recent decades, certainly in my lifetime, there's a strong association with the political project in addition to a theological or spiritual one. You know, at the peak, the white evangelical movement around the early 90s was about one in four people, close to one in four people identified as evangelical or born again, and

even more if you consider evangelicals of color. Today, that number, according to figures from the Public Religion Research Institute, is down to more like 14 percent. So it's a declining movement. So I want to ask you about that declining movement in terms of proportion of population, but yet perhaps more vocal or more present, certainly, in our politics. But what are some of the evangelical political tentpoles in terms of policies? Well, I want to say, first of all, that not all evangelicals are the same. You know, evangelicalism is a huge movement that's made up of, you know, a number of different sort of strands and streams and subsects.

And so anything I say, you could find a counterpoint to it. We always commit the sin of monolithic conversations when talking about any kind of demographic and politics, right? For sure. And that's part of why this group has been so hard to define. But if you look at historically the ways that evangelicals have voted, they have prioritized issues like same-sex marriage. Many evangelicals oppose same-sex marriage and oppose abortion rights to a large degree. And in the last two elections in 2016 and 2020, about eight in 10 white evangelicals supported Donald Trump. So the reason we talk about white evangelicals is distinct from others. And sometimes people push back against that is that really the

voting patterns are quite different. So what about this push and pull between theology and politics? Is it your experience, both through the evangelical church as you were growing up and as a national political correspondent, that the faith is leading evangelicals to their political positions, generally speaking, or is it the policies that they think of in terms of politics that are leading them to evangelicalism? Well, I think that evangelicals, if you ask them, would say that their faith informs every area of their life. Certainly the people I grew up around would say that, and they would say that it drives their political

views. But, you know, it can't be ignored that there are also prominent leaders, thinkers, writers who have helped to shape those political views. And I'm not a historian, I'm a journalist, but historians like Randall Balmer and Kristen Kope as you may and others have done a really good job of documenting the history of the rise of evangelical power and the way that groups like the Moral Majority led by people like Jerry Falwell Sr. and others, you know, in the late starting roughly in the late 70s, began to mobilize white evangelical Christians around a political project that, you know, in part appeared to be a response to the integration of schools. We saw the Christian school movement arise around that time. And also,

of course, abortion, opposition to abortion has been a mobilizing factor. You know, as those historians and others have documented, evangelical positions on abortion have evolved, and they didn't always stand exactly where they tend to stand today. But I think that if you talk to rank and file evangelicals, they'll very much say that their faith and their beliefs and values about morality and about human beings and about God's creation inform every aspect of their lives. And they tend to see their voting habits as an extension of that. You mentioned certainly some of those names that have been prominent in this intersection between evangelical faith and politics over the past generation and a half or so. Republican candidates have been

supported by evangelicals for a long time. That's not new. But the proportion, as you mentioned earlier, the proportion of the country identifying as white evangelical is falling. So how would you describe the political influence today in 2024 with this election year? I think the best word is outsized. White evangelicals, conservative white evangelicals, wield an outsized amount of power compared to their percentage of the population. And people like Robert P. Jones, who's a writer and pollster, founder of the Public Religion Research Institute,

and others have argued that there's a relationship here, that as the population of the, as white Christianity really as a whole and white evangelicalism as a subset of the American population has shrunk, that has motivated a sense of urgency, a sense of loss, a sense of losing something that was once theirs, and has motivated the political movement that's become aligned with evangelicalism throughout the last several decades. You know, we have a number of different trends occurring. The country is becoming more diverse, so less white. It's also becoming less religious, and particularly white Christianity is on the decline. I want to be clear, I'm not saying that those two trends are connected. In

fact, much of the growth in Christianity is in the Latino church, for example. But white Christianity as a percentage of the population has been declining for a long time. And a number of scholars have argued that there was a growing awareness of that about 40, 50 years ago that started to prompt this deepening alliance between the religious movement that was evangelicalism and this Christian right political project. So draw this into a state like Florida with a substantial Latino voting population and the growth of the evangelical movement in the Latino population. How is that and how has that had political consequences in 2016, 2020, both state and national races?

I think this is a fascinating area to watch. I mean, I think that Democrats for a long time have often assumed that the non-white vote was primarily theirs. And that has largely been the case. Black Americans and also Latinos vote, a majority vote for Democrats. But I think that there are questions about, particularly among Latino voters, how long that will be the case and to what extent. about, particularly among Latino voters, how long that will be the case and to what extent. We saw in 2020, I think it was about a third of Latinos, I believe in Florida and also nationwide, I'd have to double check the exact numbers, but it was about one in three Latinos voted Republican. And there have been efforts by Republicans to grow their support among non-white voters.

You know, there are interesting intersections there. Of course, the Latino population is growing in the United States. There's been a lot of overlap and sort of cross-pollination between American evangelicalism and evangelical missionary work in places like Latin America. And I think, you know, you see those movements influencing one another. What that means in terms of voting, I think, is not totally clear. But it's a fascinating question. And it's one that I'm watching, as I think many others are as well. Sarah McCammon is with us, national political correspondent for NPR. Her new book is The Exvangelicals, Loving, Living, and Leaving the White Evangelical Church. 305-995-1800 is our phone number live on this Friday. Radio at thefloridaroundup.org.

Hugh in Cedar Key has been listening in, Sarah. Hugh writes, the influence of faith in politics should be zero. Hugh says, although most of my friends and peers are atheists, one is evangelical. He despises Trump and thinks about 20 percent of them believe as he does. That's what Hugh and Cedar Key says. Joe has been listening in to our conversation from Tampa. Joe, you are on the radio. Go ahead.

Thank you for taking my call. And I'm inclined to agree with her. Actually, first perspective, I'm an African-American evangelical Christian who was a Republican until 2000, where I left the party, become a Democrat after I saw what happened with the Bush-Gore race and Catherine Harris overturning the hanging Chad and all that stuff. Well, since then, I've started to deception or a targeted movement within the Republican Party to cross the lines of church and state. They're targeting certain things. As you can see what's going on here in Florida, the court overturning many of DeSantis' throw-it-up-against-the-wall type of of DeSantis is the DeSantis, you know, throw it up against the wall type of litigation, where he's tried this and that and this, crossing many lines and seeing what sticks.

And then the courts are reversing a lot of that. But it's the fact that they are attempting to do this. Texas follows suit, many of the other red states. Texas follows suit, many of the other red states, and now it seems to be like a political stance where these people are touting what they're going to do against our Constitution. You know, it's like that's a badge of honor now, where a lot of these policies that they're trying to instill aren't Christian-based at all. You know, remember, Jesus was a Jew, and their party just really isn't, you know, for, you know, it's kind of nowadays, racism has infiltrated their party, and then doing the right things, feeding the hungry, the poor, the homeless,

all those things. Joe, I really appreciate you sharing that perspective from Tampa. We want to hear from others. But really interesting perspective there, Joe. And I want to put it back to Sarah. Joe began describing himself as an African-American evangelical former Republican. He ended there, Sarah, talking about race. What is that intersection of race and evangelical faith and how that plays out in politics.

You know, I wrote a chapter in the book called Leave Loud about a movement among black Christians that kind of sprang up a couple of years after the election of Donald Trump in 2016 and also sort of grew to some degree out of the response to the death, the killing of George Floyd by a police officer in Minneapolis in 2020. And this movement, largely an online movement led by black Christian thinkers, including Dr. Jamar Tisby, who's a historian and podcaster and writer, writer, was calling on black Christians to leave churches publicly that were not responding adequately to racial injustice and that many felt were promoting political goals that went contrary to the well-being, the best interests of their black Christian brothers and sisters. And I think that that speaks to the fact that people's lived experience shapes not only their theology, but also their, of course, their political point of view and their values and what they prioritize. And you do see that in voting patterns. You see

that black and white Christians who may share very similar theological beliefs, at least on paper, often, if you look at them as an aggregate, prioritize different things politically. I thought it was interesting, the caller's experience of sort of going through his own political shift. This is a time of, I think, a lot of political shifts for many people, you know, with the increasing polarization of the country and the rise of, he alluded to Christian nationalist rhetoric, you know, not just people saying my faith informs my voting, which I think is something that many people would understand, but saying explicitly we're seeing some Republican leaders explicitly endorsing Christian nationalistic ideas, which feels like something new. Sarah, let's hear from Robert, who's been listening in in Palm Beach. Robert, go ahead. You are on the radio. There we go. Hello, Robert. Hey, good afternoon. I think that worldview is what determines.

So if you have a humanistic worldview and you think there's no God and everything's random chance and you just make up what God, find the God in you, and that it's everybody, then you're going to look at the world one way and vote one way. But this country, the Constitution didn't come from that. It came from the Jews' God and the Bible, and the people who were oppressed and never found freedom in Europe came here with those beliefs and formed the Constitution through it, and now I guess the humanists just think they can take it over and call it theirs and try to make it better. They're going to rewrite the

Constitution and everything. Robert, thanks for sharing that thought there from Palm Beach. I want to get one more call in, Robert, so apologies for interrupting there. Christine is listening in from the palm coast christine you're on the radio go ahead hi good afternoon um tim alberta i'm sure your guest has heard of him yes a reporter for atlantic uh magazine and other places yeah political and uh he just came out with a book called the Kingdom, the Power, and the Glory, and it's American Evidence. Evangelical. Well, the ism.

In an Age of Extremism. And this book is written in prose. It reads like a novel, And this book is written in prose. It reads like a novel, and I just recommend mandatory readings for high school, college. Christine, I appreciate that. I'll push also Sarah's book as a recommendation there, looking at ex-evangelical folks that have left the evangelical church. Sarah, as we just have like about a minute or so left, I'm wondering how, as a national political correspondent and someone who has you, yourself, personal experience in the evangelical

church and leaving the church, how does something like this play out here in Florida in this 2024 election cycle? I think we may not know for quite a number of years more, you know, beyond 2024, but I think what we're starting to see is we're seeing a massive religious shift in this country away from organized religion. That's clear. And some of that is happening in the evangelical church, but it's not exclusive to evangelicalism. Recent Pew data released earlier this year suggests that there are now more people who identify as nuns, N-O-N-E-S, or nothing at all, then identify as white evangelicals. And that, I think, considering the outsized influence of white evangelicalism that we've discussed,

will likely have an impact on our politics going forward. How soon it will show up, I don't know, but it's certainly a time of a lot of change. And that's really what I wrote about in the book, is that process of change that many ex-evangelicals have gone through and continue to go through. Seismic shifts in society and our politics. Sarah McCammon is tracing all of it as the national political correspondent for NPR. And her new book is The Ex-Evangelicals, Loving, Living, and Leaving the White Evangelical Church. Sarah, thanks for taking the time and congratulations on the book. Yeah, thank you so much. More to come here on the Florida Roundup,

including a big settlement announced this week in a very controversial Florida law. This is the Florida Roundup. I'm Tom Hudson. Some big news this week about one of the more controversial Florida laws passed in recent years. I think the last couple years have really revealed to parents that they are being ignored increasingly across our country when it comes to their kids' education. It was almost two years ago when Governor Ron DeSantis signed into law the Parental Rights in Education Bill. Among other things, it banned public school teachers from classroom instruction on, quote, sexual orientation or gender identity for kindergarten through third graders, or in a manner that is not age appropriate. That phrase, age appropriate, was among the language

in the law critics complained was too vague. Richard Corcoran was the education commissioner two years ago, and here's how he explained it on the day the legislation was signed. I mean, age appropriate, I think people know what age appropriate is. We wouldn't be here having this discussion if, generally speaking, there wasn't a real issue or a real problem. But there were other complaints that the law has a chilling effect on just conversations about sexual orientation. That's how the bill got its nickname by opponents, Don't Say Gay. Well, two years and one lawsuit later, the state has clarified what the law does and does not regulate. Equality Florida and other LGBTQ plus advocates brought the lawsuit that led to the settlement that was announced earlier this week.

Roberta Kaplan and John Quinn are with us now from Kaplan, Hecker, and Fink. The attorney is representing Equality Florida and the other plaintiffs who sued. Robbie and John, welcome to our program. Robbie, what does this settlement do in effect for your clients? So one of the many problems with this law, but probably the biggest problem was that after it was passed, it had the impact that we think its drafters wanted. And that impact was to sow fear, confusion, and anxiety among kids, among parents, and among teachers throughout Florida schools. And what I mean by that is that the law was so vague, the wording of the law was so vague, that people thought it applied to all kinds of situations that were incredibly upsetting,

incredibly dangerous for kids. So to give you an example, did the law as written prohibit schools from enforcing anti-bullying measures as they relate to gay students? Could a kindergartner come into school and when asked to draw a picture of his family, if he had two moms or two dads, could he draw his family as they really were? Questions like that, I just, there are an infinite number of questions like that that came up. People were petrified, and school districts were petrified that they had to, that all of this would be enforced and they should take the most conservative view or the most risk adverse view. So to interpret the statute very, very broadly.

Well, Governor DeSantis, when he signed the legislation, he began to address kind of just this question. He described what the law did by using a legal theory expression. Let's listen. What's not on the page is not what's going to be done. We are textualists, so we follow the law. So textualists, interpreting the ordinary meaning of the language, plain meaning, right? The plain meaning. With all respect to Governor DeSantis, that's not how any student, teacher, PTA member, or school district board member in the state of Florida interpreted the law. And he knew that's not how they would interpret the law. So what this week's settlement does is it makes it clear that none of those things I mentioned and none of a whole bunch of other potential really damaging things to kids and their parents

are governed by the law. The law doesn't stop safe space stickers from being hung in school properties. The law doesn't prevent a kid stickers from being hung in school properties the law doesn't prevent a kid from talking about their family a teacher from talking about their spouse etc etc robbie let me bring your colleague john quinn into the conversation here john this settlement does make clear the difference explicitly between classroom instruction that that phrase which is in the law and discussion classroom instruction on sexual identity and gender orientation banned, but not what the settlement says is,

quote, typical classroom participation or schoolwork. And I suspect that you're satisfied with that distinction, yes? That's right, very satisfied. In fact, we're thrilled with it. They're clear that instruction refers only to the formal act of teaching. So what we're talking about really are lesson plans,

the curriculum, and the state has wide authority there, which we always recognized. The problem, as Ravi emphasized, was that in reality the statute was casting a shadow far beyond that, and the settlement puts an end to that, narrows the law back solely to curriculum and to teaching, and very importantly, even there, commits the state to equality

and to non-discriminatory treatment. It just says we're taking these subjects off the table as explicit subjects that are going to be taught in certain grades. But even in doing that, we're doing that in an equal and nondiscriminatory fashion. Exactly. And let's be clear about what we mean there and what the settlement means there. It's clear that the law does not, quote, target sexual orientations and gender identities that differ from heterosexual identities. Tell us about how you landed on that language for the settlement, that clarification. Well, part of the process for the whole settlement here was taking the arguments that the state's lawyers had already made in their briefs, where they were telling the court that the law is and will be much

narrower than what the reality on the ground was. And we took all those concessions that they made about how narrow the law was and put them into a document and made them real and gave them real force. So that language, I think, came from the state's own legal arguments in the case. And this settlement now makes that concrete and actionable for districts throughout Florida. Robby, both the state and your plaintiffs have called this settlement a win. This settlement does not change any of the language of the law. No words are changed. There's no judge that has declared any part of the law unconstitutional or otherwise has required

any change. And so what's the practical effect of this settlement for the rest of this school year and on into the next several school years? So the important practical effect is that all the dangerous ways in which this law was being cited and threatened and used within Florida schools are now off limits. No one can sue a Florida school district or Florida school today and say that a teacher who had a picture of their spouse on their desk was violating Florida law. That doesn't violate Florida law. Regardless of the sexuality of that relationship. Correct. No one can say that a five-year-old who comes into school and wants to talk about his two mommies or his two dads is doing anything wrong. And that kid cannot be disciplined for that. All those various ways are

now off limits. There's clarity where there was confusion. Hopefully there's security where there was fear. And we're already hearing this from our clients. They have many of them have young kids and those young kids already immediately feel better about going to school each day and knowing that they will be respected for who they are and their families will be respected let's talk a little bit about implementation here because the state is required to essentially share this settlement with all school districts it seems like some of the complaint that your plaintiffs had was of course how the law was being interpreted and implemented originally.

What confidence do you have that the communication of this settlement and the implementation of this settlement will settle some of these issues and practices? So let me start, and John will correct me if I get it wrong, but the state of Florida, as part of the settlement, has agreed to send to all school districts within the state that this is the official interpretation by the state of Florida. This is the official position by the state of Florida of what the law means. So we can't stop, I sure don't have to tell you this, we can't stop crazy people from bringing frivolous lawsuits. But if they do bring those lawsuits, those lawsuits will lose. They will be deemed frivolous and they won't be able to recover their attorney's fees, which is one of the things the law put into place to kind of encourage,

I would say, irresponsible behavior. I would just add, too, that our plaintiffs, including Equality Florida, Family Equality, these folks are on the ground. They will continue advocating, pushing, monitoring, and ensuring that the districts do comply with this now narrowed version of the law. So we have great confidence in them. Let me ask you, John, this question here regarding the expansion of the parental rights in education law, which happened a year later. Your settlement refers to the original piece of legislation, and it says the settlement says that the statute does not target sexual orientations and gender identities that differ from heterosexual identities. There's a measure that expanded the original parental rights law that then prohibits the use of gender affirming pronouns and honorifics in schools.

So how is this discrepancy going to be navigated, do you think? So how is this discrepancy going to be navigated, do you think? So the principal amendment that's relevant here had to do with changing the grade level at which this prohibition went from being categorical to one tied to this age-appropriate standard. And what this settlement does is define the underlying term about what classroom instruction means and how narrow that term is. So whether the prohibition is categorical or qualified by a standard, this narrowing and clarification applies. I mean, put simply, in any grade where the law applies, so too does this narrowing settlement.

John and Robbie, thank you for your time today. John Quinn and Robbie Kaplan, attorneys with Kaplan, Hecker, and Fink. They were representing Equality Florida and others who sued the state of Florida over the 2022 parental rights in education legislation. To Robbie and John, thanks so much for your time. The NAACP thinks Black student-athletes should reconsider going to most colleges and universities

in Florida. The National Civil Rights Organization wrote a letter this week to NCAA members saying Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, quote, has made no effort to conceal his administration's devaluation of black America. Now, the letter comes as public universities have closed their diversity, equity, and inclusion offices after a law bans using state funds for DEI programs. NAACP's Education Fellow for Equity, Access, and Opportunity is Ashley L. White. What is the NAACP exactly asking of student athletes with this letter to the NCAA released

this week? Ashley L. White We are asking for student athletes, particularly Black student athletes and other student athletes of color, but also all student athletes who are in allyship with student athletes of color, to reconsider and think critically about the institutions that they sign on to. Because we unfortunately are now living in a time where education has become so politicized that the needs of students has been forgotten. And it is particularly important for Black student-athletes, given the historical nature of their contribution to predominantly white institutions and to sports within those institutions that really are responsible for the bulk of the revenue, revenue that supports the other sports at those institutions and other programs and activities.

You're specifically asking those student-athletes who may be considering a college education or a student-athlete career in Florida to reconsider, though, correct? It's that state that you've identified with this organization in this letter. That state was the impetus for the letter, but the NAACP does acknowledge that certainly Florida is not the only state where these issues are occurring and where Black student-athletes and other student-athletes as well are being exploited without the consideration of their academic and other needs. What is the message to Black student-athletes or any student-athlete who may have a scholarship

to attend one of these schools? The NAACP is clear about the fact that we do not mandate the choices of student-athletes, right? To mandate the choices of Black student athletes and student athletes of color and in general would be equally, could be considered equally as oppressive. We recognize that these are difficult choices and certainly do not encourage student athletes to give up their scholarships and their opportunities that may cause detriment to them, not only their athletic and academic future, but their livelihood as well. The NAACP request for student athletes to rethink

attending a predominantly white institution, particularly in Florida, in this request, what colleges or universities are not included in that description in Florida? Specifically, Florida A&M University. Historically, Black, student of color, white, or otherwise from attending because their orientation is definitely inclusive and completely different from that of public predominantly white institutions. Of note, HBCUs have always been inclusive institutions. Unlike predominantly public white institutions, HBCUs have never had an exclusionary clause. And so that's worth considering when we

take a look at this from a holistic perspective. Let me just remind folks that this is the Florida Roundup from your Florida Public Radio station. The letter says this is not about politics. It says it's not simply about sports. You mentioned the revenue component that major, particularly Division I college athletics means for a college or university, especially men's basketball, women's basketball, and football. Those are the three big programs that tend to be revenue positive for colleges and universities. How does the NAACP hope to leverage that income produced by competitive college athletes and Black student athletes? I think, to be fair, that income is already being leveraged. We have the introduction of NIL. Name image likeness

that allow the athlete to be able to profit off of their athleticism in college. So there are spaces and places to leverage this already. I want to emphasize that when you talk about leverage of revenue, that revenue should be used to support the other needs of the student athletes that we are discussing, equity, and inclusion programs, then quite frankly, you are not using that revenue in an honorable way. And you are not using it to support the needs of Black student-athletes, Black students, period, diverse students. Let's not forget that diversity, equity, and inclusion, unfortunately, has been named as specifically related to race and ethnicity, and that absolutely is not true. So there are many other programs that need to be considered, specifically programs for post-secondary students with disabilities, students who are a part of the LGBTQIA plus community. All of that falls under diversity, equity, and inclusion. And so when you are not using that revenue responsibly, you are not supporting the needs of any of your students.

In May of last year, the organization issued a travel advisory for Florida, warning that the state is, quote, openly hostile toward African-Americans, people of color, and LGBTQ plus individuals. What does the NAACP hope to accomplish with these public positions, this travel advisory, and now this recommendation regarding student athletes or this request for reconsideration for student athletes? Knowledge and awareness. Of what?

Knowledge and awareness of the way that, unfortunately, the governor of Florida has capitalized off of the sociopolitical climate during COVID, post-COVID, and the way that he is weaponizing inclusionary practices to disenfranchise Black, other people of color, and other diverse peoples as well. Knowledge and awareness. People need to know so that they are endowed with all of the information that they need to make equitable choices, including deciding about where they will spend their funding, where they will spend their hard-earned money. And it is counterintuitive to spend your money in places and spaces where you are not welcomed and where you are not supported. Ashley White is a professor and the NAACP's Education Fellow for Equity, Access and Opportunity.

We should also point out a Florida State graduate, right? Absolutely. And a proud one. Professor White, thank you so much for creating the time this afternoon. We appreciate it. Thank you. Still to come on our program, fish, bats and sea turtles. Just some of the wildlife in the week that was here in Florida. I'm Tom Hudson. You are listening to the Florida Roundup from your Florida Public Radio station. This is the Florida Roundup. I'm Tom Hudson. Thanks for being with us this week.

We have some tough news about wildlife around Florida and a couple of stories of hope. tough news about wildlife around Florida and a couple of stories of hope. Let's start with the tough news. Beginning in the Florida Keys, it's a fish mystery. Sick fish are turning up in waters at the lower end of the chain of islands. Some are dying. The dead have included 20 very rare and endangered sawfish that state and federal wildlife scientists have spent the last two decades trying to save. So far, scientists simply don't know what's poisoning the fish. Jenny Stoletovich is the environment editor at our partner station WLRN in South Florida. She went to see for herself. Two years ago, Greg Furstenworth moved back to the Lower Keys,

where he'd grown up and spent his childhood diving among colorful beds of flowering corals, sponges, and a menagerie of fish. He wanted to share that underwater wonderland with his wife, Shaley Crawford. You can see the little patches of coral that are there. They're not very big. Yeah, they're not very big. Not right here. Instead, the pair are now documenting a bewildering event. fish all around the lower keys are turning up sick and in distress some are spinning furiously literally spinning like a top

in the water while others can't seem to get themselves oriented and stay upright usually the baby pinfish will hide in the grasses oh there's there's one right there. You see it? Oh yeah. Wow. You see it spinning over there? Uh-huh. And then it just... There's another one right there. I met First and Worth and Crawford at their townhouse on Little Torch Key. It faces a wide channel that separates the Gulf of Mexico from the Atlantic Ocean. I mean, that can't be fun for them. I mean, I've never seen a fish do that, and I feel like I've spent a fair amount of time on the water. Yeah, and then it just stops and sits on the bottom right there.

Wow. That's violent, isn't it? Yes, yes. For how small that fish is. The couple, along with fishing guides around the Lower Keys, began spotting the odd behavior in early November. Guides started reporting it Keys began spotting the odd behavior in early November. Guides started reporting it to state wildlife officials.

For two months, state officials kept the mysterious fish kill mostly under wraps. While some fish died, there weren't huge numbers littering the water or beaches. But then something more dramatic happened. I knew right away something was not right. Joyce Mullelly is a nurse and paddleboard tour guide on Geiger Key. It's about 20 miles west of Little Torch. Late in January, she was leading a tour out past a small mangrove island. At first, before I realized what it was, I said to the paddlers, I said, everybody stay back a minute. We have a large shark here.

It wasn't a shark. It was an endangered small-toothed sawfish, as big as her paddleboard. He had pulled up and kind of under the edge of this island. And then when he passed away, he was at the opposite end. He pulled up and low tide, the tide was falling, and then he was stuck and perished. She led me down the dock and showed me the island that sits just beyond the paddleboard launch. A lot of islands, a lot of shallows, a lot of baby fish schools, and our water is usually clear, so it's easy to see it all. You can hear it, too.

Right. usually clear so it's easy to see it all. You can hear it too. Right. So yes, this is where it all started was in this shallow area. Over the next month, more than four dozen more sightings of sick or dead sawfish were reported. State wildlife officials have found 20 and collected samples for testing. Having so many turn up dead has alarmed fish ecologists. Florida State University biologist Dean Grubbs is part of a federal recovery team with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. For it to be so concentrated in that area of the lower Florida Keys is obviously very concerning, so I want to know the answer as much as you do.

The shark-like fish have what looks like a chainsaw for a snout and is among the rarest in the world. The small-toothed sawfish is the only one found in U.S. waters. It was added to the endangered species list in 2003 after it nearly vanished in the 1950s because their toothy snouts easily get caught in nets. Too much development and pollution also hurt the estuaries where sawfish birth and raise their pups. It's also alarming that so many different species of fish are being affected in the Lower Keys. They include pinfish and mullet,

and bigger game fish like tarpon and snook also raise. The system that's impacted here in the Lower Keys, you know, it is a very resilient ecosystem that has been, I wouldn't say stable, but it has endured a lot of change. Martin Grosselle is a fish ecologist at the University of Miami Rosensteel School who specializes in how fish work and the toxins that harm them. But at some point, you know, the cumulative stresses, not just the heat from last summer, but, you know, heat waves over decades, nutrients and other stresses that we're adding to this environment,

eventually may reach a threshold where now this balance is perturbed and you start seeing things that you haven't seen before and things that we have a hard time explaining. That heat wave he mentioned was an unprecedented ocean heat wave that drove up water temperatures around South Florida about five degrees above normal. It bleached coral across the Keys, and scientists worried that other impacts would follow, especially as conditions in South Florida waters have gotten worse with leaky septic tanks, stormwater runoff, and pollution from ships. You know, unfortunately, we don't know. And that's, that I think really is

the most terrifying part about all this is that, you know, because if we don't know what it is, it's going to be very hard to act on it. In January, the non-profit Bonefish Tarpon Trust, along with the Lower Keys Guides Association, put together a study group that includes two scientists who investigate harmful algae blooms. They've collected more than 100 fish and identified multiple toxins in them, but determining which one is making fish sick and killing sawfish is complicated. Mike Parsons is one of the algae experts at Florida Gulf Coast University. You know, we ran this first set of samples.

Nothing obvious. We didn't find a smoking gun. Doesn't mean it's not buried somewhere in that noise. But it's not as easy as some of us were hoping it would be. And while they look, Keys residents are getting anxious for answers and wondering why they're not hearing more from state wildlife officials. Here's Greg Furstenworth again. I tell people that the ocean doesn't give up its secrets easy. I mean, I was one year old when the diadema died. Those are sea urchins. They didn't figure out what it was until this year in February. So that's 41 years. 41 years to figure out what killed all those urchins. Is it going to take 41 years to figure out what's doing this? I don't think it has 41 years. I mean, like, that's a scary thought. I'm Jenny Stiletovic on Little Torch Key. Along the Gulf Coast, a sperm whale became stranded on a sandbar near Venice on Monday

and died. It was an adult male, 44 feet long, and even at 70,000 pounds, it was emaciated. So that tells us the whale probably hadn't eaten in quite some time. And so clearly it wasn't doing well. It hasn't eaten. That's the most obvious thing that we see right now. That's Laura Ingleby. She's the chief of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Marine Mammal Branch. A necropsy was performed to determine why the whale died. South of Venice, on Sanibel Island, it's not fauna but flora that's the concern after Hurricane Ian. Invasive species

can move in quickly to take root and crowd out the native vegetation after a big storm. WGCU's senior environmental reporter Tom Bayiss reports now that folks on the barrier island hope Ian has not wiped away years of work to get rid of non-native plants. Sanibel residents have been working for decadesaking it of the native vegetation and leaving clean spots for small invasives and their seeds to land. Rachel Rainbolt, a biologist with the city, said invasive species arrived even before rescuers after the stormwaters receded. Invasive exotic vegetation tends to be some of the first plants to arise following these extreme weather events. One of the more common examples of invasive exotic vegetation that we've seen arise post-hurricane is Brazilian pepper in particular. In 1989,

residents removed the last known Melaleuca tree on the island. In 2012 and 2013, Sanibel residents collected more than a half ton of air potatoes as part of that city's Air Potato Exchange Day. It's not back to the starting line after Hurricane Ian, but the big storm did set Sanibel's invasive eradication efforts back a bit. In Fort Myers, I'm Tom Bayless. I'm Tom Hudson, and you're listening to the Florida Ronda Premier Florida Public Radio Station. Okay, some better Florida wildlife news now. The Florida bonneted bat has been granted over a million acres of critical habitat in 13 Florida counties.

Jessica Mizaros has more from our partner station WUSF in Tampa. The endangered bonneted bat isn't found anywhere else on Earth, and it's the rarest bat in the country, with fewer than a thousand still alive. Reagan Whitlock with the Center for Biological Diversity says it took several lawsuits to compel these critical habitat designations from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. The service did not, however, designate unoccupied critical habitat as critical for the bat moving forward. And as we know with climate change and sea level rise, these species will move inland and is important to protect areas that they could move into as well as the areas in which they are right now.

The largest population of bonded bats is in Miami-Dade County next to the zoo, but they're also found in other locations like Polk, DeSoto, and Collier counties. I'm Jessica Mazaros in Tampa. And finally on the Roundup, watch where you're walking on the sand. What ends with this begins now. That was the sound of sea turtles making their way to the ocean last year. In order for that to happen in several months, nesting season is underway for sea turtles and shorebirds now. Both lay their eggs right there in the sand. So give them room, walk around their nests, stay away from the areas when they're roped off, give them some privacy, and turn off your

lights if you're around the beach at night. Last year was a record-breaking year for the sea turtles. 212,000 nests were found around the state. That is our program for today. The Florida Roundup is produced by WLRN Public Media in Miami and WUSF Public Media in Tampa by Bridget O'Brien and Grayson Docter. WLRN's Vice President of Radio and the program's technical director is Peter Mertz. Engineering help each and every week from Doug Peterson, Charles Michaels, and Jackson Hart. Richard Ives answers our phones. Our theme music is provided by Miami jazz guitarist Aaron Leibos at aaronleibos.com. If you missed any of today's program or you want to share it with someone, you can download it, listen to past programs by going to wlrn.org slash podcasts. Thanks for listening, calling, emailing, and above all, supporting

public media here in the Sunshine State. I'm Tom Hudson. Have a terrific weekend.