Florida Responds to McMahon “Call to Action”

Public institutions in Florida have responded en masse to Education Secretary Linda McMahon’s call to answer questions about admissions, academic rigor, affordability and other matters.

Republican Governor Ron DeSantis announced Tuesday that the leaders of all 40 of the state’s public institutions have signed on to a joint statement responding to concerns McMahon raised in a letter to the sector earlier this month. Officials noted in a 30-page document that Florida has already addressed many of those questions.

Florida Commissioner of Education Henry Mack wrote that the state welcomed the “Call to Action” but said it has already enacted many of the changes the Trump administration is seeking.

“Florida is not beginning this work in response to your letter. For more than a decade, our state has deliberately built a public university and college system around academic excellence, affordability, accountability, free inquiry, merit, and economic relevance,” he wrote to McMahon.

The letter said the state’s institutions already emphasize merit in admissions processes, ongoing civil discourse initiatives, efforts to ensure syllabi are ideologically neutral or balanced, cost-cutting moves and other actions that correspond with the changes the Trump administration has demanded.

The Florida Department of Education also sent letters to private institutions asking them to respond to the questions posed by McMahon and post those answers online by Dec. 31. Though Mack cast compliance with his request as voluntary, his letters contradicted that notion. He wrote, “If voluntary compliance is not forthcoming,” the state will seek to compel it.

“Institutions that ignore Secretary McMahon’s call to action, or that offer only empty rhetoric, should not be surprised by additional statutory requirements, tighter performance expectations, heightened scrutiny of licensure conditions, or funding determinations calibrated to demonstrate seriousness,” Mack wrote, noting that the state is approaching an upcoming legislative session.

McMahon responded favorably to the statement in a post on X.

“This is the way,” she wrote. “Florida is setting a bold example in answering our call to action—committing to commonsense reforms that will usher in a new era of academic excellence and American leadership.”