Ron DeSantis seized control of the state’s smallest public institution of higher education. New College was created as a progressive outpost. The governor named six new trustees to the 13-member board and added the controlling vote when a political ally replaced a seventh member. The majority is packed with rightwing ideologues. They immediately sacked the president, an English professor, and replaced her with a Republican hack, Richard Corcoran, former Speaker of the House and former State Commissioner of Education. He was previously passed over when he applied for the presidency of the University of Florida because of his lack of academic credentials. He has been promised compensation of $900,000 a year. DeSantis takes care of his friends.
The Miami Herald reported:
New College of Florida leaders voted Tuesday to eliminate diversity, equity and inclusion “bureaucracies” at the Sarasota honors college, the State University System’s smallest campus.
The school’s board of trustees — including six conservative members appointed by Gov. Ron DeSantis in January — banned mandatory diversity trainings and ended “political coercion” in the form of diversity statements. They also prohibited “identity-based preferences” in admissions, hiring and promotions.
The school will disband the Office of Outreach and Inclusive Excellence, which is responsible for diversity initiatives. The office’s four staff members will be moved to other new or unfilled administrative positions, saving the school an estimated $250,000 per year.
It was the first trustees meeting for Richard Corcoran, the former education commissioner and Florida House speaker who became New College’s interim president on Monday.
The vote came as DeSantis and Republican lawmakers are pushing to remove diversity, equity and inclusion offices throughout the state college and university systems. Legislators have already begun to file bills to accomplish that aim during the session that begins March 7…
The school’s new policy will not affect the funding of academic instruction, research or student organizations, said Bradley Theissen, a top New College official who briefly served as interim president before Corcoran arrived.
The school’s general counsel will be responsible for overseeing diversity initiatives required by the state as well as the school’s compliance with federal non-discrimination laws “The objective [was] to remove the parts [of school policy and trainings] that we find to be discriminatory,” said trustee Matthew Spalding, a fellow at the conservative think tank the Claremont Institute….
Also Tuesday, board members addressed a wrinkle that developed late last week over Corcoran’s contract, which will pay him a base salary of $699,000, plus more than $200,000 in added benefits.
Most of that amount was intended to come from the New College Foundation, but the foundation’s finance chairperson noted that most of its funds are earmarked for other expenses.
The revelation raised questions about the foundation’s ability to help with Corcoran’s salary, but trustees said Tuesday they expected foundation members to “cooperate.”
Read more at: https://www.miamiherald.com/news/local/education/article272628795.html#storylink=cpy
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Disgusting. Shameless.
Keep it up, Ron. Pretty soon higher education in Florida will mean, “WTF? Are those people freaking high?”
Just another racist homophobic move by Nazi DeSantis to turn Florida into a Fascist state. This is just a practice round for DeSantis should be happen to become President to United States.
I disagree with a lot of what’s happening in Florida lately, but not with stopping colleges from requiring applicants for professorships to submit “diversity statements” that demonstrate their understanding of issues relating to diversity and equity and explain how their work will furthers diversity and equity.
Why?
I was unaware that professors were required to submit a “diversity statement.” Not in my experience.
Diversity statements are commonly required for employment in higher education. Here is a rubric for assessing diversity statements at UC Irvine: https://www.equity.socsci.uci.edu/files/docs/faculty-diversity-statements.pdf
Here is Penn’s advice on applying for a faculty job: https://careerservices.upenn.edu/application-materials-for-the-faculty-job-search/diversity-statements-for-faculty-job-applications/
Interesting. I never encountered such a statement at NYU.
Here is an Inside Higher Ed article about University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign requiring a diversity statement for tenure: https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2022/04/01/u-illinois-require-diversity-statements-tenure
A diversity statement is similar to a teaching statement (and perhaps people object to colleges requiring those, too!).
Even back in 2016, Inside Higher Education had a column on how to write an effective diversity statement.
I loved this line:
“(Note that if you do not care about diversity and equity and do not want to be in a department that does, don’t waste your time crafting a strong diversity statement — and you need not read any farther in this essay.)”
I assume the same goes for the teaching statement. If you don’t care about good teaching and don’t want to be in a department that does, don’t bother crafting a good one. Look for a university that values research and does not care about teaching where you will find like-minded colleagues.
It is clear that diversity statements came about after long decades of colleges giving lip service to this while their students of color experienced exactly the same treatment they always had. I assume that’s also why teaching statements started — after decades of too many academics who did not care about teaching students.
It isn’t a solution. But it is a first step. Hiring a lot more female professors committed to equity changed the landscape for women students. I recall a relative at a top ivy league college in the mid 1970s being treated obnoxiously by a highly respected male professor in the sciences who didn’t like that she got top grades — a male student who got top grades would have been mentored, not condescended to. That happened ALL THE TIME. Those microaggressions that are belittled as nothing by white men who never experience them. Meanwhile, the same snowflake white men claim to suffer great mental distress if anyone other than a very rich white privileged kid with lower test scores and a mediocre academic record is admitted over them or their coddled child. (They don’t seem at all bothered when a rich white student with lower test scores like Jared Kushner takes a seat that could have gone to a higher performing white student, but they are very upset if that seat goes to a URM with lower test scores because somehow being given the best education and tutoring money can buy means you have to meet a lower standard than having 13 years of an underfunded education with none of those advantages.)
Diversity statements alone won’t make a difference. But hiring faculty who understand that teaching is no longer just about helping the students you feel most comfortable helping is a start.
Thank you for the links, TE. I was unaware of this and found them to be very interesting. I can definitely see the merit in it and really my only objection to it had I to do one would be more about the frustration of filling out another form.
What strikes me is that “doing something” to address inequalities always seems to rile up a certain group of people who, on the one hand, agree racism is bad and there’s an abstract history of it, and on the other, view any kind of attempt at reform like a vampire does a cross or garlic. Also, since when has being required to express yourself in writing about some issue for employment or admission to anything ever been a problem?
It’s like reparations. Anyone who is somewhat well read on the consequences of enslaving Africans and their descendants and then disenfranchising them with laws, terror or death knows some remedy must be fashioned out of public policy. As Bob has pointed out, the essential means toward generational wealth enjoyed my many Americans is the passing of home ownership to next generations. That has historically been blocked off for Black Americans until the very recent past, and too many cases of the status quo and worse exist. Those who go apoplectic about the idea dishonestly distill it to “checks for Blacks” or “reverse discrimination” because they and their offspring might actually have to compete on a level playing field some day, something they have likely never been asked to do, because real competition is something they’ve never had to face in their lives. A large portion of the population never gets the chance to take the field. For that reason alone, those DEI statement requirements make sense to me.
Economists have to sign an inversity statement to get tenure, to verify that everything they say is the inverse of truth ( contradicts reality.)
TE just violated the oath because (quite out of character) he actually reported something that was true.
He’ll probably be fired.
Poets have to sign a “versity statement” to ensure that at least 50% of what they write is in verse.
Not “inverse”, “in verse”. There is a world of difference.
There is also a word of difference.
I think there is only one difference between Putin and DeSantis. DeSantis doesn’t have people tossed out of 20 story windows. poisoned, or shot in the back of the head.
Maybe if he succeeds in his goals to be the first king, emperor, or dictator for life in the United States, DeSantis will get around to using these fear methods to control the population.
DeSantis doesn’t have people tossed out of 20 story windows. poisoned, or shot in the back of the head.”
Not that we have been apprised of, anyway. ( Some journalist might want to look into it, if they dare)
But he does employ heavily armed SWAT teams who point their guns at female state data scientists and their families in order to intimidate them.
Bullying demonstrations of power are his means to an end.
And most of the voters of Florida just love it. They are essentially a bunch of scared children who desire a strongman father to protect them from the evil blacks, gays and wokees.
And from the evil immigrants out to steal their jobs.
Can’t forget them.
The wokees stalk the land, and DeFascist will kill every last one of them. As he said, “Florida is where woke goes to die.”
I read in a Texas magazine yesterday that Gov Gregg Abbott is insanely jealous of DeFascist. Why is Florida man getting so much media attention? Abbott says he did it first. Expect more flamboyant displays of bigotry from Abbott.
Correction:
““The objective [was] to remove the parts [of school policy and trainings] that we find to be ANTI-WHITE SUPREMACIST,” said trustee Matthew Spalding, a fellow at the conservative think tank the Claremont Institute….”
I have no doubt that there were lots and lots of white male professors in the early 1980s who were incredibly resentful – and extremely angry – because they believed their “freedom of speech” was being infringed. By golly how dare some university administrator object if he wanted to refer to all the women in his class as “girls” and call them “Miss Jones” and “Miss Smith”. Don’t you dare ask him to use that outrageously ridiculous word “Ms” that only “politically correct” (i.e. “woke”) fem-nazis use, and how dare anyone question his right to publicly humiliate any of the “girls” in his class who are “brainwashed” by some politically correct administrator into believing that they should be called “Ms” instead of the PROPER (according to the professor) word, “Miss”. And to top it off, those same politically correct administrators are saying he can’t keep referring to the Asian students as “Orientals” and publicly belittling students who object.
No doubt the college professors and their supporters among the Rush Limbaugh crowd would have loved to have the support of someone powerful like Governor DeSantis who can tell those people to shut up and stop infringing on his “freedoms”. Who would threaten the job of anyone who even suggested that a white male professor – or anyone else – should ever be expected to refrain from using words and doing things that are perfectly fine because they are perfectly fine for them!
Today, the Rush Limbaugh crowd have become mainstream, and that has been helped by having supposedly “thoughtful” people – some are even here – who seem just as upset at the idea that an applicant would have to write a diversity statement as those folks back in the 80s were that they couldn’t use terms like “Oriental” anymore. Or couldn’t refer to the girls in their graduate school as “Miss” because their right to do so should always trump the student’s right to object to it.
Those people whose privilege has convinced them that everything that is okay with them is always objectively okay have always been around. The fact that they have gained legitimacy is not surprising given that the media have legitimized far right John Birch Society democracy-haters as “respectable lawmakers”. Not only are they not marginalized, they are normalized.
If that was the case in the 1980s, all those old terms would still be used.
Richard Corcoran, former Speaker of the House and former State Commissioner of Education. He was previously passed over when he applied for the presidency of the University of Florida because of his lack of academic credentials. He has been promised compensation of $900,000 a year. DeSantis takes care of his friends.,”
People like DeSantis claim that consideration of diversity in hiring is the antithesis of meritocracy, but nonetheless regularly appoint their unqualified friends to the highest positions.
In some cases, athletes with subpar high school GPAs and test scores are admitted because of their athletic ability.
One has to wonder whether Yale’s interest in having a diverse student body that includes athletes had any role in their admitting DeSantis, who played baseball at Yale.
Did DeSantis beat out other applicants with better academic credentials because he played baseball?
Diane,
On NBC today the follow item that may or may to affect you and other bloggers who post on your blog. Below is only part of the article by Dareh Gregorian but I am sure you can find the rest of it in case you are interested.
“A Republican state senator in Florida has introduced a bill that, if passed, would require bloggers who write about Gov. Ron DeSantis, his Cabinet or state legislators to register with the state.
Sen. Jason Brodeur’s bill, titled “Information Dissemination,” would also require bloggers to disclose who’s paying them for their posts about certain elected officials and how much.
“If a blogger posts to a blog about an elected state officer and receives, or will receive, compensation for that post, the blogger must register” with the appropriate office within five days of the post, the legislation says.
It defines “elected state officer” as “the Governor, the Lieutenant Governor, a Cabinet officer, or any member of the Legislature.”
Failing to register would result in a fine of $25 a day, and the penalty would be capped at $2,500 per posting, NBC affiliate WFLA of Tampa reported.”
I doubt that this bill will hold up in court but it just another example of how far DeSantis and his minions will go to stifle freedom of speech and how thin skinned this people really are.
I saw that DeSantis wants bloggers to register—but not gun owners!
Since I don’t live, work, or blog in Florida, I think I’m safe.
I will continue to call him #DeFascist and Florida’s Mussolini. If he doesn’t like it, he can take me to court in New York State.
No more concealed blog carrying in Florida, eh?
DeSantis might be a Harvard genius (forgive the redumbdancy) but his policies are the very definition of dumb.
Florida: where thinking goes to die.
My brother in Florida warned me that I will have to register because I blog about DeSantis. However, as I understand this fascist proposal, it is only paid bloggers who have to register. I am not paid. He will have to write the law more broadly, say, anyone who criticizes him in any forum must register with the state of Florida. I wonder how the courts will respond.
‘i’m Ron DeSantis. I’m a genius. I played with balls in college”