Since Governor Ron DeSantis engineered the hostile takeover of Florida’s progressive New College, the interim president was Richard Corcoran. Corcoran was a hard-right Speaker of the House of Representatives and Dtate Commissiober of Education, in which role he led the state’s attacks on public schools and the expansion of charter schools and vouchers. His wife founded a charter school and is now associated with the Hillsdale College Barney charter schools.

After a few months of deliberation, the hand-picked, stacked board decided to hire Corcoran as the permanent president of New College.

To be clear, he has no academic or scholarly credentials to be a college president.

He dropped out of the University of Florida and enrolled in St. Leo University, a Catholic college. After graduating, he received his law degree from Regent University, a private Christian university.

He has no previous experience as a professor, a college administrator, or a scholar. He is uniquely unqualified for a college presidency. Since he took charge of New College, one-third of the faculty has resigned, faculty have been denied tenure without reason, and students have protested the decisions of the board.

He has been successful in rightwing politics.

The original New College was founded as a school for creative, free thinkers, educated by faculty who were highly credentialed. The new DeSantis board intends to turn New College into the Hilllsdale of the South.

Corcoran claims to have boosted enrollment, which he did by recruiting athletes, not aesthetes or free thinkers.