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Higher education, long dominated by Democrats, is shifting rightward in Florida under Gov. Ron DeSantis as conservative politicians become presidents at public universities.
Last year, the Florida Board of Governors hired former Republican state Sen. Ray Rodrigues as chancellor of the State University System of Florida from a pool of eight applicants. The board appoints trustees at the state’s 40 public colleges and universities, which over the past six months have considered five GOP lawmakers to lead schools.
Two of the lawmakers have started work as college presidents, one is expected to assume the role next month, one has downplayed his candidacy and one was narrowly rejected last month after complaints of interference from state officials.
“The selection of a president is up to the college’s trustees. Of course, we support selecting a qualified individual committed to truth and academics and not trendy ideological agendas,” Jeremy Redfern, Mr. DeSantis’ press secretary, told The Washington Times.
Officially, trustees at each institution select a chief executive without input from Mr. DeSantis’ office. Unofficially, conservatives say trustees are wise to hire Republicans with political connections to lobby for funds in the GOP-trending Sunshine State, as Democrats have done in deep-blue states for years.
“In blue states, it is routine for college presidencies to go to blue state politicians and politically connected individuals,” said Peter Wood, president of the conservative National Association of Scholars and a former associate provost at Boston University. “There are far more blue state politicians heading up public colleges than red state politicians.”
In Florida, left-leaning professors worry that the new trustees and presidents support Mr. DeSantis’ agenda to end woke higher education. They say that infringes on their academic freedom to speak freely about race, gender and other hot-button issues in class.
Faculty especially reject language in several recent DeSantis-backed laws that claim higher education is indoctrinating students in leftist ideology, said Meera Sitharam, a tenured computer science professor at the flagship University of Florida. She said some newer trustees have parroted this language.
“They don’t really seem to care whether this would callously destroy a public higher education system painstakingly built over decades,” said Ms. Sitharam, president of the UF chapter of United Faculty of Florida, a statewide professors’ union.
She added: “After such a destruction, Plan B appears to be decentralization and privatization of education, much espoused by donors who are open about their God-given wealth [and right] to impose their God’s kingdom on society.”
Once a blue and then a swing state in national politics, Florida has trended deep red in recent years, delivering its electoral votes to former President Donald Trump in 2016 and 2020. In last November’s midterm, Mr. DeSantis cruised to a second term as governor in a double-digit landslide.
