Florida, under the thumb of its rightwing extremist Governor Ron DeSantis, has had a hard time hiring a new president for its state university.

Last year, the search committee selected Santo Ono, the president of the University of Michigan, as its candidate. However, the university’s Board of Governors voted against the nomination of Ono because of his work to diversify the University of Michigan, which was contrary to the anti-DEI policies that DeSantis championed.

Now the search committee has selected Stuart Bell, the president of the University of Alabama, to be the president of the University of Florida.

The Chronicle of Higher Education reported that rightwingers are outraged by the choice of Bell. They contend that Bell is a proponent of DEI.

Under Bell’s decade-long tenure at the University of Alabama, Black and Latino enrollment doubled after he launched an aggressive diversity campaign in response to a series of racist incidents…

Opposition to Stuart Bell’s nomination to be president of the University of Florida grew this week with several prominent conservative activists, a Trump appointee, and a U.S. senator weighing in.

Activists from the Manhattan Institute argued that Bell is an ideologue who during his tenure as president of the University of Alabama discriminated against white people in his efforts to diversify the student body and faculty.

Even the Secretary of Education Linda McMahon suggested that the University of Florida should pick a different president, not Bell, tainted by DEI.