“We’re standing with parents and we’re standing with students,” Gov. Ron DeSantis said last week on campus.

Conservative leaders need to do more than just play defense against the left — especially in education — said Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis in a speech at Hillsdale’s Searle Center last week.

“We’ve drawn a line in the sand and said that parents in Florida have a right to send their kids to school without having a teacher telling their kids that they can change their gender or that they can pick different pronouns,” he said. “Gender ideology should not be taught in our K-12 schools. And I don’t care if Disney feels otherwise — we’re going to make sure we’re standing with parents and we’re standing with students.”

DeSantis, a Republican who won re-election in November, spoke on campus at “An Evening with Special Guest Ron DeSantis” last Thursday, April 6. His speech was followed by a Q&A session with College President Larry Arnn.

“I’ve known him a while, and I’ve followed him well because we do charter schools in Florida. We do them in several states and, not meaning any invidious distinctions, Florida is the best,” Arnn said. “They know what they’re doing. When you work with them, they keep their word, they make things happen. I finally noticed that — you don’t expect that from government these days — and I began to pay more attention to Florida, and then I found our speaker.”

The governor said he has used his position to fight for the interests of his constituents and to set an example for other conservative leaders.

“There’s some Republicans that think their job is to cut taxes and not do anything else. That is not how we conceive of our job,” DeSantis said.

He called Florida “the freest state in the United States” and said achieving that status has required a combination of limiting government intervention in private lives as well as fighting against the active infiltration of leftist ideas in public institutions.

“I think in modern times we’ve seen the left get into so many different arteries of our society,” DeSantis said. “So yes, you have to limit government and its involvement with you, but you also have to contest the left and all these other institutions. So when I say ‘the Free State of Florida,’ I mean not only limited government but I also mean I have a responsibility to protect my citizens from having the pathologies of the left imposed upon them by all these other institutions in our society.”

Though he frequently faces fire from the media for his policies concerning education and other issues, he said he doesn’t let it get to him.

“You can’t let media criticism prevent you from doing the right thing,” he said.

Arnn said he thinks DeSantis has a grasp on what it means to be a leader under the constitution. In a historical sense, he said, governmental power needs to make and enforce laws, but common people also need to have a way to control the people in charge.

“The greatest instrument for doing that, in history, is the constitution of the United States and it is disappearing,” Arnn said. “It means that we live in a time when we may see despotism, we are seeing despotism among us. We see people carrying guns — using the force to which they are entrusted — for partisan purposes. What are we going to do about that? Because, you know, this greatest experiment in equality and liberty, it’s in peril right now as if it were 1850. Our speaker understands all that.”

DeSantis said navigating the framework of the constitution is an important job of an executive.

“It’s a responsibility, but it’s one in Florida that we welcome,” DeSantis said. “It’s a responsibility that we believe we have no other choice but to meet. We affirm the basic creed of our country: that our rights do not come from government, but they come from the hand of Almighty God.”

Taking a constitutional approach to government is rare these days, he said.

“I think we need a revival of true American constitutional principles, which you really need the restoration of accountability over these agencies and over the administrative state,” DeSantis said.

Senior Madison Pyhel, a resident of Florida, attended the talk and said she was impressed with what the governor had to say.

“It was such an awesome opportunity to attend the DeSantis talk and hear about all of the incredible things he has been doing for our state,” Pyhel said.