The legal battle between Fort Lauderdale and state officials over a recent crackdown on street art could end in May, when both sides could hold a final, day-long hearing.
The crackdown began in August 2025 under Gov. Ron DeSantis, with about 100 pieces of public art scheduled to be removed across Florida under his Safe Streets program in partnership with the Florida Department of Transportation (FDOT).
The directive reportedly stems from an FDOT memo banning “social, political, or ideological messages” from being painted on pavements—the memo itself was issued at the direction of U.S. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy, who said last July that “roads are for safety, not political messages or artwork.” Cities that oppose demolition risk losing millions of dollars in state and federal transportation funding.
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Critics of the plan see it as a veiled attempt to erase LGBTQ history from public view, as most of the artwork deemed to violate the directive is overwhelmingly Pride-themed. About nine Florida cities responded with legal challenges, but they were largely ineffective; in August, Orlando’s rainbow crosswalks commemorating the 49 victims of the 2016 Pulse nightclub shooting were removed overnight. Three months later, on October 8, Miami Beach voluntarily dismissed its petition challenging the directive to remove street art.
Written in part by Fort Lauderdale Interim City Attorney D’Wayne Spence south florida sun sentinel “To my knowledge, the City of Fort Lauderdale’s petition is now the only challenge to the rule before the Department of Administrative Hearings (DOAH),” wrote.
Fort Lauderdale Commissioner Steve Glassman told sentinel“We are the last ones standing. It’s a question you have to stand up for yourself. If we don’t stand up now, when will we stand up?”
The legal battle over safe streets comes amid an escalating ideological overhaul of arts, culture and education across the country spearheaded by the Trump administration. Earlier this month, one of Texas’ top universities, the University of North Texas (UNT), was embroiled in a censorship controversy after administrators abruptly shut down an anti-ICE message exhibit at its School of Visual Arts and Design.
In a leaked transcript of a faculty meeting, UNT Dean Karen Hutzel described the decision as an “institutional directive” and warned that the college could become a target for elected officials with the power to allocate or withhold state funds, as seen recently at the University of Texas at Austin and Texas A&M University.
“Some of this content contains information that is considered anti-ICE,” Hazel said. “So … the topic itself has moved into a different realm, so university leadership is very concerned about … the political and public response (and) scrutiny across the board.”
