Black lawmakers oppose Uthmeier's decision not to enforce Florida's anti-discrimination laws

Jeffrey Schweers, Orlando Sentinel on Jan 23, 2026

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TALLAHASSEE, Fla. — Florida’s Black Democratic lawmakers spoke with one voice Thursday against Attorney General James Uthmeier’s decision — announced on the federal holiday that honors Martin Luther King Jr. — that he won’t enforce about 80 state laws that he claims are unconstitutionally race-based.

Saying his action would undermine gains in equality and inclusion made by Blacks over the past several decades and drag the state back to pre-integration standards, some even called for Gov. Ron DeSantis to remove Uthmeier from office.

The Democratic lawmakers also vowed to fight legislation filed this session in the Republican-controlled Legislature that would codify Uthmeier’s opinion as law and undo protections against discrimination that he labeled as creating race-based preferences and quotas.

In his 14-page opinion, Uthmeier listed 83 examples of laws he said he would no longer enforce because they were “race-based discrimination laws… in the form of race-based classifications, preferences or quotas.”

The U.S. Supreme Court instructed states to eliminate such laws because they violate the 14th Amendment Equal Protection clause, Uthmeier wrote, relying mainly on a 2023 decision that struck down race-based affirmative action admissions policies at Harvard University.

Uthmeier’s opinion is “an attack on the idea that history matters, that policy can be a tool to correct past and ongoing harm,’ Sen. Darryl Rouson of St. Petersburg, chair of the Black Democratic Caucus, said at a news conference at the Capitol Thursday.

Surrounded by about two dozen Black lawmakers and some white and Hispanic allies, Rouson said the opinion fails to recognize the “realities of current and past discrimination that have deprived certain people of equal opportunity.”

The laws Uthmeier targeted include support for minority scholarships, consideration of minorities on state boards and commissions, the existence of the state’s Minority Health Office, the Minority Business Enterprise office and other established programs. These initiatives have opened contracting opportunities for minority business owners, set recruiting levels for minority physicians, and created housing and community programs that have made it easier to get loans.

Uthmeier wants to end dozens of initiatives designed to create a level playing field and remedy the wrongs of the past, Rouson added.

Sen. Mack Bernard of Palm Beach County took the criticism a step further, calling on DeSantis to remove Uthmeier from the post he was appointed to last February “for not following the laws of the state.”

His call was met with loud cheers from several of the two dozen lawmakers gathered around him at the podium.

Bernard’s comment was a shot at DeSantis’ decision several years ago to remove Orange-Osceola State Attorney Monique Worrell and Hillsborough State Attorney Andrew Warren for allegedly choosing which state laws they would enforce. Worrell was reelected and has been a target of Uthmeier’s criticism ever since she reclaimed the office last January.

Uthmeier’s opinion was unusual because it was an answer to a question he asked himself. Usually, attorney general opinions are issued at the request of other state or local officials.

Sen. LaVon Bracy Davis of Orlando said the timing of Uthmeier’s opinion felt deliberate. “With a single document more than 80 protections built upon decades, nearly half a century of work, were placed on the chopping block,” Bracy Davis said.

What the attorney general calls preferences are in fact protections against documented problems, she said.

“These did not appear out of thin air,” she said. “They were responses to real barriers and real discrimination. These laws exist because discrimination exists.”

Using the attorney general’s logic, she said, we can have disparities but we just can’t acknowledge them. “These actions could take us back to pre-integration standards,” she said.

“It doesn’t make Florida fair, it makes Florida quiet about inequality.”

House Democratic Leader Fentrice Driskell, an attorney from Tampa, said it’s clear that Uthmeier, who is white, “doesn’t have our lived experience, but I wish he would listen when we explain the reality of our lives and what people go through in our communities.”

She said civil rights laws are about protecting against discrimination, not creating preferences.

“This is about leveling the playing field, making sure that Floridians who look like us, and Floridians who look like the attorney general, have the same opportunities.”

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