[analyse_image type=”featured” src=”https:\/\/www.artnews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/GettyImages-2232324213.jpg?w=1024″]<\/p>\n
\n\tThe legal battle between Fort Lauderdale and state officials over a recent crackdown on street art may conclude in May, when both parties may have a one-day final hearing.<\/p>\n
\n\tThe crackdown began in August 2025 under Governor Ron DeSantis, with roughly 100 public artworks across Florida slated for removal under his Safe Streets program in collaboration with the Florida Department of Transportation (FDOT).<\/p>\n
\n\tThe directive reportedly stems from an FDOT memo prohibiting painted pavement featuring \u201csocial, political or ideological messages\u201d\u2014itself issued following guidance from U.S. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy, who said last July that \u201croads are for safety, not political messages or artwork.\u201d Cities that oppose the removal risk losing millions of dollars in state and federal transportation funding.<\/p>\n
\n\tCritics of the program have framed it as a veiled attempt to scrub LGBTQ history from public view, as the majority of artworks deemed in violation of the directive are overwhelmingly Pride-themed. Approximately nine Florida cities launched legal challenges in response, largely to no avail; in August, Orlando\u2019s rainbow crosswalk honoring the 49 victims of the 2016 Pulse nightclub shooting was removed overnight. Three months later, on October 8, Miami Beach voluntarily dismissed its petition challenging the directive to remove its street art.<\/p>\n
\n\tA memo written by Fort Lauderdale Interim City Attorney D\u2019Wayne Spence and published in part by the South Florida Sun Sentinel<\/em> reads: \u201cThe city of Fort Lauderdale\u2019s petition is now, to my knowledge, the sole challenge to the rule before the Division of Administrative Hearings (DOAH).\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tFort Lauderdale Commissioner Steve Glassman told the Sentinel<\/em>, \u201cWe are the last man standing. This is an issue where you have to stand up for yourself. If we don\u2019t stand up now, when do we stand up?\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tThe legal dispute over Safe Streets unfolds amid an escalating nationwide ideological overhaul of arts, culture, and education, spearheaded by the Trump administration. Earlier this month, one of Texas\u2019s leading universities\u2014the University of North Texas (UNT)\u2014became embroiled in a censorship controversy after administrators abruptly shuttered an exhibition featuring anti-ICE messages at its College of Visual Arts and Design.<\/p>\n \n\tIn a leaked transcript of a faculty meeting, UNT Dean Karen Hutzel described the decision as an \u201cinstitutional directive\u201d and warned that the college could become a target of elected officials with the power to allocate\u2014or withhold\u2014state funding, as has recently been seen at the University of Texas at Austin and Texas A&M University.<\/p>\n \n\t\u201cSome of the pieces included what\u2019s deemed as anti-ICE messaging,\u201d Hutzel said. \u201cAnd so \u2026 that topic itself has entered a different space, and so it was that aspect of it that the university leadership became very concerned about \u2026 the political and public response [and] scrutiny across the spectrum.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n [analyse_source url=”https:\/\/www.artnews.com\/art-news\/news\/fort-lauderdale-still-fighting-removal-of-rainbow-crosswalks-we-are-the-last-man-standing-1234778180\/”]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" [analyse_image type=”featured” src=”https:\/\/www.artnews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/GettyImages-2232324213.jpg?w=1024″] The legal battle between Fort Lauderdale and state officials over a recent crackdown on street art may conclude in May, when both parties may have a one-day final hearing. The crackdown began in August 2025 under Governor Ron DeSantis, with roughly 100 public artworks across Florida slated for removal under his Safe […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[61,226],"class_list":["post-1835472","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics","tag-artnews-com","tag-crawlmanager"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1835472","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1835472"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1835472\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1835472"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1835472"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1835472"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}