by Ziv Golan ’26

Recently, Ron Desantis, the Governor of Florida, and Disney have been in a heated back and forth after Disney publicly objected to the Desantis-backed so-called, “Don’t Say Gay Bill” last year. This bill would discourage teachers from discussing their sexual orientation in class. Desantis responded to Disney by attempting to effectively take over the Disney World property, which has special administrative status, along with replacing the Disney World board in charge of the property with his own appointed board. Disney thwarted this attempt by invoking an obscure property law that still gave Disney a large amount of control and effectively rendered the Desantis-backed board useless. With the fight still brewing, Disney sued Desantis in April alleging the Governor was involved in, “a targeted campaign of government retaliation” against Disney as punishment for the company speaking out. Desatis responded with a counter-lawsuit targeting Disney’s arrangement to try to thwart his takeover.

Disney took the completely appropriate and necessary action to file this lawsuit against Desantis as it is not right to target a company because they do not agree with you politically. This is something you would see in Russia with Putin targeting his critics. Desantis cannot attack anyone, including corporations, that don’t like his policies. Seeing something like this happen in the United States is extremely unnerving, especially when the perpetrator is expected to run as a Republican presidential candidate. 

Desantis went on a complete tirade on Disney and is engaged in a firing match against one of the largest companies in his state. Many Floridians are employed by Disney, and its theme parks are central to the identity of Florida. Desantis does not care at all for the citizens of Florida or their jobs; he is just interested in starting culture wars and getting himself into the national spotlight. Companies like Disney have a right to speak out and no one should be able to take that right away. Desantis and other Republicans constantly boast about protecting Second Amendment rights but they apparently are not interested in protecting First Amendment rights if they are being attacked or even questioned about their policies. It is time for Desantis to face some kind of legal consequences for what he did and hopefully, the Disney lawsuit helps him understand the difference between being a governor and a wanna-be dictator.