National Organization for Women

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Florida NOW Demands Accountability After Bombing of Girls’ School in Iran

For Immediate Release: March 3rd, 2026  President Julie Kent, Florida NOW, president@flnow.org

Orlando, FL — March 3, 2026 — The Florida National Organization for Women (Florida NOW) issues a forceful condemnation of the bombing that struck a girls’ school in Minab during ongoing military operations in Iran.

Whether this school was deliberately targeted or destroyed as part of a broader strike, the result is the same: children are dead, families are devastated, and a place of learning has been turned into rubble. “Intent does not absolve responsibility,” said Julie Kent, President of Florida NOW. “When bombs fall on classrooms, there has been a catastrophic moral and operational failure. Girls pursuing their education are not combatants. They are not strategic assets. They are children.”

“Let us be absolutely clear,” said Debbie Deland, Vice President of Florida NOW. “When bombs fall on a girls’ school, it is a moral failure of the highest order. If this was deliberate, it is an atrocity. If it was ‘unintended,’ it represents reckless disregard for civilian life. Either way, it demands accountability.”

Global Pattern of Negligence and Indifference

This tragedy is part of a devastating global pattern in which schools become casualties of armed conflict.

In Ukraine, thousands of educational facilities have been damaged or destroyed since the escalation of Russia’s invasion in 2022. In May 2022, the Bilohorivka school was struck while civilians were sheltering inside, killing dozens. Across Ukraine, children have been forced into underground classrooms or displaced entirely as schools became battle-damaged ruins.

In Nigeria, the world watched in horror when 276 girls were abducted from the Government Girls Secondary School, Chibok in 2014. Yet kidnappings and violent assaults on schools have continued in the years since, targeting girls specifically to intimidate families and halt female education. These attacks are calculated efforts to erase opportunity and enforce fear.

From Chibok to Bilohorivka to Minab, the pattern is unmistakable: when conflict escalates, girls’ lives and education is treated as expendable. The reason behind the military strikes is ultimately irrelevant to the families burying their daughters. Classrooms full of children have been reduced to rubble. Young girls seeking education — not conflict — are dead or wounded. That is indefensible.

Florida NOW calls on:

  • The President of the United States and Congress to demand a full, transparent, and independent international investigation into the Minab school bombing.
  • The U.S. Department of Defense and allied military partners to publicly review and strengthen civilian protection protocols to ensure schools are never struck — intentionally or through negligence.
  • The United Nations and international bodies to enforce existing protections for educational institutions under international humanitarian law, including consequences for violations.
  • All parties to the conflict to commit immediately to de-escalation and the protection of civilian infrastructure, especially schools.

Military power does not excuse civilian deaths. Precision weapons do not absolve imprecision in judgment. And rhetoric about “collateral damage” cannot mask the reality of children killed at their desks.

“When girls are denied education through violence,” Kent concluded, “we are not just losing classrooms — we are losing futures, leadership, and equality. Every government engaged in conflict must answer for what happens when a bomb lands on a school.”

Florida NOW stands in solidarity with the families in Minab and with communities worldwide fighting to protect girls’ right to learn in safety.

Media Contact: Debbie Deland, 407 234-6408, dcdeland@att.net

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FL NOW Condemns Trump’s Executive Order Gutting EPA Protections and Endangering Public Health

For Immediate Release: February 16, 2026  President Julie Kent, Florida NOW

Florida NOW strongly condemns President Donald Trump’s latest executive order directing federal agencies to dismantle core Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) rules that protect clean air, clean water, and public health. This sweeping order forces agencies to suspend or weaken environmental safeguards, fast-track fossil‑fuel projects, and block states from enforcing stronger pollution standards.

Trump’s directive is part of a broader pattern of rolling back environmental protections, concentrating power in the executive branch, and prioritizing corporate polluters over the health and safety of families. These actions disproportionately harm women, children, low-income communities, and communities of color—groups already facing higher exposure to toxic air and water.

“Environmental justice is gender justice,” said Florida NOW President Julie Kent. “When a president orders agencies to ignore science, silence experts, and weaken protections that keep our communities safe, women and families pay the price. Florida is already on the front lines of climate change, toxic algae blooms, and extreme heat. We cannot afford a federal government that abandons its responsibility to protect public health.”

The order threatens to:

  • Undermine clean‑air standards that reduce asthma and respiratory illness
  • Weaken clean‑water protections that safeguard drinking water
  • Accelerate fossil‑fuel extraction and industrial pollution
  • Strip states of the ability to enforce stricter environmental rules
  • Silence scientific review and public input in environmental decisions

These rollbacks will hit Florida especially hard. Our coastal communities, agricultural regions, and urban centers already face severe environmental stress. Weakening EPA rules will worsen health disparities, increase toxic exposure, and place an even greater burden on women, who are often primary caregivers and frontline workers in health, education, and service sectors.

“Floridians deserve clean air, clean water, and a government that protects them—not one that hands the keys to polluters,” Debbie Deland, VP FL NOW said. “The days of denying climate change are over! Calling climate change a hoax is contrary to all science and irresponsible. We call on Congress, state leaders, and every community organization to oppose this reckless order and defend the environmental protections that keep our families safe.”

Florida NOW will continue working with environmental‑justice partners, public‑health advocates, and community leaders to resist these rollbacks and demand accountability for the health and well-being of marginalized communities.

### Media Contact: Debbie Deland, 407 234-6408, vp@flnow.org

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FL NOW Rejects the Project 2025 “250 Year Plan” to Reshape America and Roll Back Women’s Rights

For Immediate Release: February 16, 2026  President Julie Kent, Florida NOW

Florida NOW forcefully rejects the Heritage Foundation’s recently released 250‑Year Plan, a companion ideological framework to Project 2025, which outlines a long-term strategy to restructure American society by restricting women’s autonomy, limiting educational and economic opportunity, and imposing a narrow vision of family life on the entire nation.

The plan claims to “save America,” but its proposals would dismantle decades of progress for women and girls. According to the document, this vision requires:

  • Pushing women out of college by discouraging higher education and promoting early marriage instead
  • Pushing women out of leadership by redefining public life as a male domain
  • Pushing women out of the workforce through policies that pressure women back into unpaid domestic roles
  • Restricting contraception and undermining access to modern reproductive health care
  • Rolling back no‑fault divorce, trapping women—especially survivors of abuse—in unsafe marriages
  • Marrying girls and women younger, framing early marriage as a national priority
  • Forcing more births by limiting reproductive freedom and expanding state control over pregnancy

“These proposals are about controlling women,” said Florida NOW President Julie Kent. “The 250‑Year Plan lays out a blueprint for shrinking women’s rights, women’s choices, women’s autonomy, and women’s futures. Florida NOW will not tolerate any agenda that seeks to push women out of public life and back into the 19th century.”

The plan’s recommendations would have profound consequences for Florida, where women are already facing extreme restrictions on reproductive health care, attacks on academic freedom, and efforts to limit economic opportunity. Florida NOW warns that adopting these policies would deepen inequality, increase poverty, and undermine the safety and autonomy of women and girls across the state.

“Women built this country, and we are not going anywhere,” Debbie Deland, VP FL NOW said. “We will continue to organize, educate, and mobilize to ensure that Florida—and the nation—moves forward, not backward. This abuse of power and of women will not be accepted or supported. This lack of support for women’s rights is outrageous.
This white male supremacist vision is out of sync with what women need. Women are not to going to have more children because white men say so!”

Florida NOW calls on elected officials, community partners, and the public to reject the Project 2025–aligned 250‑Year Plan and to stand firmly for equality, freedom, and self‑determination for all.

### Media Contact: Debbie Deland, 407 234-6408, vp@flnow.org