Florida Republicans on Wednesday passed bills to ban diversity programs at colleges and prevent students and teachers from having to use pronouns that don’t match a person’s gender, building on the Republican government’s top priorities. Ron DeSantis.

The two proposals received final approval from the Republican supermajorities in the House and Senate. DeSantis is expected to sign the bills.

DeSantis, who is expected to announce a presidential campaign in the coming weeks, has been riding hard

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line conservative agenda as he tries to bolster Republican primary voter support ahead of his run in the White House.

The state’s legislative session, which ends this week, was dominated by diverse cultural issues, with DeSantis’ Republican allies passing his priority bills on sexual orientation, gender identity, race and education, which are expected to aid the governor in his presidential bid.

The Senate voted to extend it on Wednesday

the law on parental rights in education

Legal critics call Don’t Say Gay

,

an important business card from DeSantis, with a sweeping bill that prevents school staff or students from being required to refer to people with pronouns that don’t match the person’s gender.

Florida Republicans pass bill allowing DeSantis to run for president while governor

It also prohibits classroom instruction on gender identity and sexual orientation up to the

8th eighth

grade, legally strengthening a decision by the DeSantis administration to ban such classes in all grades. In addition, the bill strengthens the system for people to challenge textbooks, another DeSantis initiative that has seen the removal of material he and his supporters say are inappropriate for children.

Think about what we were doing, honestly. Think about how this will affect families that aren’t like yours, Senator Tracie said

Davis, a Democrat. “They’re still families. They’re families from Florida. But they treated them like outsiders and told them we don’t want them here.

Republicans said the bill is designed to protect children from sexualized content and to emphasize that teachers must adhere to existing state curricula.

You see society coming at our kids in a culture war that has an agenda to confuse them,” said Republican Senator Erin Grall. We deprive children of the opportunity to figure out who they are when we push an agenda, a sexualized agenda, down on children.

Separately, Republicans in the House recently passed a DeSantis priority bill that would prohibit colleges from using state or federal funding for diversity, equity, and inclusion programs.

Such initiatives, known as DEI, have drawn increasing criticism from Republicans who claim the programs are racially divisive.

On DeSantis’ turf, Newsom denounces the conservative education push

Republican legislators in at least a dozen states have introduced more than 30 bills this year aimed at diversity, equity and inclusion in higher education, an Associated Press analysis using billing software Plural found.

They want to firmly believe in the same thing. They say they want inclusion, but they won’t unless you believe what they believe,” says Rep. Randy Fine, a Republican. These programs are used all over the country. Imagine how great our universities will be if we’re the only ones who aren’t.

The House also passed a proposal to ban people from entering bathrooms who do not match their gender, a bill targeting transgender bathroom use.

DeSantis is expected to formally announce his presidential candidacy after the end of the legislative session. He has spent much of his time in recent months traveling to battlefield states and elsewhere to promote his conservative agenda and proclaim his policies on race, gender and education.

In the state House, Democrats, who lack the power to stop Republican legislation, are increasingly venting about the right-wing shift in policy

coming from the GOP

.

The message that has resonated from this room in recent years is one of hatred and exclusion and punishment, Democratic Senator Jason Pizzo said. There is very little grace and very little compassion.

Izaguirre writes for the Associated Press. Associated Press writer Curt Anderson in St. Petersburg, Florida, contributed to this report.