Phil Dunlap spent seven years building a program to support Broward County arts organizations. He spent his last two months on the job watching it unravel.
Dunlap left his position as director of the Broward County Cultural Division in August, two months after a sweeping state law changed the way his county, and others across the state, issued grants.
The law bans cities and counties from funding offices or grants related to diversity, equity and inclusion. It defines DEI as giving preferential treatments based on a person’s race, sex, gender identity or sexual orientation.
The Broward County Cultural Division issued 167 cultural grants last fiscal year, totaling over $6 million. Arts and culture investment increased over Dunlap’s tenure, he said. Since beginning the role in 2019, he moved the division away from reimbursement-based funding. Instead, he fostered a system based on trust between artists and the county.
Now, beginning Jan. 1, groups ranging from the Island SPACE Caribbean Museum to the Gay Men’s Chorus of South Florida won’t be eligible to receive county funds again.
“We spent so much time trying to create something that welcomed as many people into the tent as possible,” Dunlap said. “And now it's the possibility of shrinking that opportunity, or having to create a system that doesn’t allow organizations and artists to be proud of who they are.”
Dunlap left Florida to take a position with the Phoenix city government in Arizona last month. The new law, he said, contributed to his departure, along with other personal reasons. During his final months in Broward, his department began reviewing previously funded groups to decide which would be affected, which wouldn’t and which fell into “gray areas,” Dunlap said.
The law’s impact transcends the arts. County attorneys are also recommending the commission eliminate its the Racial Equity Task Force, said Nan Rich, a Broward County commissioner. The 37-member group formed in 2020 to eliminate systemic racism.
As another example, the county-commissioned Status of Women Report, prepared every other year by Florida International University, may not take place after 2025, Rich said. The report examines women’s economic development, health, safety and education in Broward County.
Commissioners also updated the climate change section of the county comprehensive plan to remove references to initiatives that support DEI.
“I would say none of us want — none of the commissioners wanted to do this,” Rich said. “But you know, as I said, it was just something we had to do, because we're backed up against the wall when it comes to the state law.”
Susan Spragg is serving her second term on the Racial Equity Task Force. The retired financial worker said the entire task force met every other month. Five subcommittees in areas like healthcare and education met on the months when the entire group did not.
These committees held town halls and produced reports for the County Commission. Spragg’s housing subcommittee focused on increasing home ownership among racial minority groups. Meanwhile, the education subcommittee looked into boosting programs like after-school tutoring, she said.
During the task force’s September meeting, two assistant county administrators shared that the group’s name and mission wouldn’t comply with the DEI ban, Spragg said. Their best option would be to present a motion at the County Commission’s first October meeting to repeal the ordinance establishing the force.
With possible removal hanging over commissioners’ heads, Spragg said she’d be surprised if the commission didn’t agree to shut it down.
“I think we're at our end,” she said. “Our ending is not going to be a super important, earth-shattering event — but it's just a dimming of a light, and a bit of a silencing of what's going on.”
Funding losses follow trend
The bill’s supporters say it prevents cities and counties from funding divisive activities under the guise of DEI.
State Sen. Jason Pizzo, an independent whose jurisdiction includes parts of Broward County, voted in favor of the legislation. In a Senate Community Affairs committee, he said prioritizing people of certain races can squeeze out others.
“I do not want my children to be positioned differently, separately or for there to be some delineation because they are or are not something,” he said. “Some people might be surprised to know that places where they think that there should be DEI has overperformance of that.”
In a January report, the Florida Department of Government Efficiency criticized Broward County for “placing the organization’s commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion atop its list of qualities sought” when it came to cultural grant funding.
Calibe Thompson, the executive director of Island SPACE Caribbean Museum, said she “disagrees patently” with the premise that celebrating one group detracts from another. It was Broward County funding that helped her get the museum off the ground, she said.
The museum, located in Plantation, is the first and only pan-Caribbean heritage museum in the world, Thompson said. It offers exhibits on icons from Usain Bolt and Bob Marley and takes its culture out into the community with programs like the Mango Festival and Rum Cake Festival.
But maintaining those programs has grown difficult as funding has dried up at the national, state and now local levels, Thompson said.
First, Gov. Ron DeSantis vetoed more than $30 million in state budget grants, including to Island SPACE, in 2024. Thompson then learned the museum would also lose an Institute of Museum and Library Services African American Museums Grant. Now, county funding is gone, too.
“We've had to just rethink our entire existence,” Thompson said. “We are struggling.”
She’s not the only one experiencing deja vu. The Gay Men’s Chorus of South Florida, which formed in 2010 in an Oakland Park church hall, will lose about $90,000 from the local funding ban. It lost about the same amount in state funding two years ago.
Mark Kent, the group’s executive director, said laws like these pull the LGBTQ+ community backward. Recently, the county even had to consult with its attorneys before greenlighting the group’s performance at an art festival, he said.
READ MORE: Florida’s 'anti-DEI' bill casts shadow over Miami Beach Pride month plans
“We’re not going to let this destroy our spirit,” he said. “But we know what we’re looking at here. We know what hate looks like, and we respond.”
The change reduced the group's budget by about 8%, which Kent said mostly affects the production team. Concerts will go on with less musicians and lower-caliber production elements, he said.
The Gay Men’s Chorus performs three mainstage concerts each year, in addition to other small events and community sing-alongs. Members say the events foster connections between the LGBTQ+ community and local allies.
“My mom, who has had struggles with my gay identity, she gets it now,” said Jonathan Sanz, the chorus’ president. “Because she sees what we do on that stage, and she knows it's not a sexual thing, it's not a weird thing, it’s a community thing.”
Language sparks confusion
Broward Commissioner Steve Geller confirmed the Gay Men’s Chorus wouldn’t be funded under this law. Nor would Island SPACE, the Broward County Black Chamber of Commerce or the South Florida Greek Film Festival.
Because the law prohibits separation by gender, Florida Singing Sons, a 50-year-old nonprofit that brings arts education to grades second through 12th, would also be ineligible. So would Women in Music Ayo, a nonprofit dedicated to supporting emerging artists.
Even the U.S. Tennis Association and National Women’s Tennis Organization women’s intersectional team championships, which will be held in Plantation this year, wouldn’t meet the new funding criteria, Geller said.
Geller, an attorney by trade who has decades of experience in state and local government, said the bill was written broadly enough to make it impossible to tell where it applies.
For example, the Hallandale Section Cid-Unesco can still hold socials featuring Latin dance, because it’s a style of dance, rather than a cultural event. And Hued Songs can still present its Soulful Christmas concert, because the law carves out an exception for federally recognized holidays like Christmas.
As one of the few Democratic stronghold counties in the state, Broward has taken a cautious approach to the broadly written law, Geller said.
“It is almost impossible in many cases to tell what it applies to,” he said. “We in Broward have chosen to be on the conservative side, and one of the reasons is we know that the governor would love to remove elected officials in Broward County.”
As public funds dry up, private contributions are helping fill the gap. David Jobin, the president and CEO of South Florida philanthropic organization Our Fund Foundation, said more people have reached out to pledge money in their wills and estates since anti-DEI laws began passing in Florida.
In the last two and a half years, future gifts have grown from $200 million to over $300 million, Jobin said. He attributes the growth to public alarm over recent laws like Don’t Say Gay and the more recent DEI funding ban.
“We've seen an incredible uptick in the number of people who come to talk to us about their wills and estates, because they're reminded that history will keep repeating itself,” he said.
Leaders at Black LGBTQ+ Liberation, Inc, or BLINC, are already anticipating turning to the community and other foundations in lieu of government funding, said co-founder and executive director G Wright. The organization offers performance and visual art exhibitions, as well as health education and resources.
Now, BLINC hopes to find enough funding to continue issuing stipends to the visual artists who show work at their shows.
“If we don't get government funding for it, we will have to then turn to the community and other foundations,” Wright said. “So we would like to find that money in other places. We don't want to say no.”
