"A MATTER OF LIFE AND DEATH FOR US"

ily in 2022 and just last week, on May 24, he announced his candidacy for president.

Alhough most early polling still has Donald Trump leading the Republican primary field, Dream Defenders does not want to take any chances.

"Governor DeSantis has the high potential of being a national issue," Morrissette said. "We want to do all we can to show people that he is not the answer to this country's problems."

The reasons Dream Defenders oppose DeSantis are many, but Morrissette narrowed her opposition down to one bill: HB 999. "This bill ["Post-Secondary Institutions"] radically overhauls Florida's university system, eliminating any courses related to gender studies, critical race theory or intersectionality, and effectively bans the tenure system and its academic freedom," said Morrissette.

"I just witnessed our governor refer to DEI [Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion] as 'Discrimination, Exclusion and Indoctrination," Morrissette said. "This is an attempt to marginalize people even further."

Ruminating about the attacks on academia, and the recent banning of high-school African American studies courses, the Pensacola native said she was deeply concerned.

"Unfortunately, this will trickle into being an issue of heightened discrimination in schools," Morrissette said. "Black children are already arrested from their schools at record rates for doing things that kids do. With the expansion of the attack going into higher institutions, we will possibly see an increase in less empathetic workers in care fields. This is definitely deeper than we know."

Issues Worth Defending

Another local among the Dream Defenders who traveled to the state capitol to protest in May was Karoline Nova. Nova is a college student who holds a leadership position in the Pensacola chapter, known in Dream Defender's jargon as a "SquaDD." Nova said that her main opposition to DeSantis was the far-reaching immigration bill SB 1718.

this small booklet, are several artistically designed collages with multiple areas of focus— from education and immigration to environmental racism and prison. Others center on a "free, flourishing, democracy" and another on "freedom from poverty."

When paging through Dream Defenders' "Freedom Papers," the opening page is a personalized political section called "Freedom to Be." One line reads, "By virtue of being born, each of us has the absolute right to become our greatest potential."

Based on that declaration, it's easy to see how much of the legislation passed this session goes against the Dream Defenders' broader stated community positions. These positions include what critics describe as anti-immigrant and racist legislation, but also new legislation that directly impacts Florida's queer communities.

When discussing the anti-LGTBQ+ bills, Morrissette spoke straight to the point. "We are against it."

They continued, "As an organization that deeply is attached to 'Freedom to Be,' we want freedom from the institutional violence that is being passed off as legislation."

"Dream Defenders has a good amount of people who identify with being queer," Nova said, citing it is another reason the organization is leading protests against the governor and his party's legislation.

"We are more than standing in solidarity," Morrissette said. "We are an organization full of queer and trans folks. This is a matter of life and death for us."

Working in partnership with other social justice organizations, Dream Defenders used the legislative session to return to its roots during the capitol protests. Since the legislation session ended, diverse groups including the NAACP, League of United Latin American Citizens, Equality Florida and the Human Rights Campaign have issued travel warnings to Florida as a result of the bills passed by the Florida legislature.

unprecedented results for Floridians this Legislative Session."

Among the legislation were bills to severely limit abortion and transgender rights, while making the carrying of firearms easier and expanding the death penalty to non-capital crimes. Other bills have focused on immigration, while others have attacked public employee unions.

These are just a few of the bills that came from this session alone, many of which were championed by the governor himself.

For those Floridians who oppose these bills, several groups have organized to stop the governor's agenda, including a large organization that has taken their fight right into the governor's office—Dream Defenders.

Capitol Protest

As Florida's legislature was debating the final bills May 3, Dream Defenders were rallying outside rested, were wearing shirts with the Dream Defenders logo emblazoned on the front with the phrase "Stay Woke" on the back.

Local community organizer Hale Morrissette is a regional organizer with the Dream Defenders and was in attendance at the May 3 rally at the capitol. Morrissette said that the goal of the protest was to "demand a meeting with DeSantis to force him to face the people whose lives he was destroying."

Morrissette was not one of the Dream Defenders arrested, but instead was monitoring the situation inside the governor's office for the organization.

In the 2018 gubernatorial race, DeSantis made the organization a household name in Florida by linking the Black-led social justice organization with Andrew Gillum's campaign. Though the 2018 election was close enough to trigger a recount, DeSantis won re-election hand-

Coming from a family of immigrants, Nova said that SB 1718 "targets and could possibly impact my family specifically."

Born in New York to Spanish-speaking Dominican parents, Nova has lived and in Florida for years, where she now goes to school.

"I believe that the legislature is focused on immigration issues because of how racist this state is," Nova said. "A lot of immigrants come to the state of Florida, and this [legislation] just proves that time and time again how this state is not run through or for our people."

Founded in 2012 after the murder of Trayvon Martin, Dream Defenders gained worldwide recognition for occupying then-Governor Rick Scott's office in 2013 and demanding a repeal of stand-your-ground laws. During that action, members of Dream Defenders occupied the governor's office for 31 days.

Ten years later, Dream Defenders is a much larger organization with a broader outlook, rooted in the organization's "Freedom Papers." In

For these reasons, and many others, the Florida-based Dream Defenders returned to the governor's office.

"After 10 years we went back to the capitol to take it over, because it's not just affecting one group of people; it is affecting all of us," Nova said. "It is inhuman and not right to create such laws that are harmful and hateful."

On the local level, Dream Defenders is working on a "safer streets" campaign to curb violence within the community, but also moving to the national stage as the governor does.

"Be ready for the next election cycle," Morrissette said. "We aren't happy." {in}

To learn more about Dream Defenders, visit dreamdefenders.org. You can also keep up with the local chapter on facebook.com/ dreamdefenderspensacola or by following @pcolasquadd on Instagram.

*Requests for comments by the governor's office were not returned.