Earlier this month, on January 6, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis made six new appointments to the New College of Florida Board of Trustees. Last year in March 2022, the governor signed the \u201cDon\u2019t Say Gay\u201d bill into law, a law which bans public school teachers in Florida from holding classroom instruction about sexual orientation or gender identity. DeSantis continues his crusade against so-called \u201cwokeness\u201d as he attempts \u2013 once again \u2013 to clamp down on progressive left ideologies in schools, colleges, and other institutions through legislation. The appointees will be added to the now 13-member board at the college in hopes of overhauling the historically progressive college and reshaping it into a conservative image that fits DeSantis\u2019s education restructuring plans. By Leila Wickliffe Earlier this month, on January 6, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis made six new appointments to the New College of Florida Board of Trustees. Last year in March 2022, the governor signed the \u201cDon\u2019t Say Gay\u201d bill…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":5475,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"pgc_meta":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[219,38,127,305],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/pvhstiburon.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/02\/Wickliffe_New-College.jpeg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pvhstiburon.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5474"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pvhstiburon.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pvhstiburon.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pvhstiburon.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pvhstiburon.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5474"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/pvhstiburon.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5474\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5477,"href":"https:\/\/pvhstiburon.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5474\/revisions\/5477"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pvhstiburon.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5475"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pvhstiburon.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5474"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pvhstiburon.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5474"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pvhstiburon.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5474"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
The New College of Florida was first established in 1960 in Sarasota, Florida. According to US News and World Report, New College is number five on public national liberal arts college rankings. Additionally, New College ranks third in The Princeton Review\u2019s ranking of the best colleges \u201cmaking an impact\u201d which is measured by student engagement and community service. It was the first college to have an open admissions policy that pledges to not to discriminate against any student and also first in the country to establish a program in environmental studies.
Chris Rufo, is one of the appointees. In recent years, Rufo has been known as a conservative activist and commentator, as he has led the fight against critical race theory in American institutions. Another appointee is Matthew Spalding, a professor and dean at the conservative Christian Hillsdale College. DeSantis\u2019s administration did mention that Hillsdale College could be a model for what New College could become. This concerned Karen Stack whose son currently attends New College. She said, \u201cWe are very concerned that the freedom of education is going to be suppressed.\u201d Though DeSantis did not announce the new board\u2019s agenda, Rufo took to Twitter and hinted at the laundry list of tasks he wants to tackle, including replacing the diversity, equity, and inclusion programming with a small equality, merit, and colorblindness department. \u201cWe want to provide an alternative for conservative families in the state of Florida to say there is a public university that reflects your values,\u201d he told the New York Times.
These appointments have raised concerns amongst students and faculty. They fear that the new trustees will target courses related to gender and diversity especially after Mark Bauerlein, an incoming trustee and an emeritus professor of English at Emory University, said, \u201cI would get rid of gender studies if it had an outspokenly political aim.\u201d New College\u2019s policies give trustees a significant amount of power to shape and regulate student life. Any changes that the new board would desire could be achieved due to the new right-wing majority amongst the trustees.
In recent weeks, the Republican-controlled Florida Senate confirmed the appointees, and they have officially been added to the board. Rufo and Jason \u2018Eddie\u2019 Speir, co-founder of a Bradenton, Florida school, attended a forum and met with students and staff on January 25. Tensions were running high since the appointees were announced at the beginning of January, and the new trustees were met with mixed reactions and a certain amount of skepticism from the crowd. Rufo claimed that the dwindling numbers of enrollment and recruitment were due to the school\u2019s liberal reputation. \u201cWe\u2019re going to liberate the campus,\u201d he told reporters. \u201cWe\u2019re going to liberate administrators. We\u2019re going to liberate faculty from the cultural hostage-takers.\u201d Diego Villada, an assistant professor of theatre and performance studies, wore a pride flag on his shoulder to show solidarity with the LGBTQ community at the school. He claimed that he didn\u2019t necessarily agree with what Rufo and Speir were alleging about the school, but he appreciated the two trustees for coming out and meeting with the community. \u201cYou are showing your face,\u201d he said. \u201cYou are here, you are talking to us and you are letting us talk, which is what I appreciate.\u201d
The threat that this trend could continue to other public universities. In October 2022, the University of Florida\u2019s presidential search committee announced that they had tapped Nebraska\u2019s Republican Senator Ben Sasse to be the sole finalist in their search for the school\u2019s 13th<\/sup> president. Though this appointment does not have the aim as the appointments to New College, the concerns that faculty voiced were similar due to Sasse\u2019s opposition to abortion and LGBTQ rights. Rufo told The New York Times if the restructuring of New College was a success he hopes that other conservative legislators would be motivated to do the same with other public institutions and said, \u201cIf we can take this high-risk, high-reward gambit and turn it into a victory, we\u2019re going to see conservative state legislators starting to reconquer public institutions all over the United States.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"