The jury is still out on the wisdom of the Florida Board of Governors’ decision to reject former University of Michigan president Dr. Santa Ono to become UF’s next campus president, the first time in the board’s 22-year history that such a decision had been reached. All 10 voters in dissent had direct ties to Governor Ron DeSantis one way or another.
How could a university president who had so smoothly cooperated with the rampant DEI infrastructure built up in the university system so quickly turn on a pivot and renounce his past decisions? How could Ono, as a political chameleon, head the flagship institution in a state where leading legislators have taken every possible step to make clear that “woke” is not welcome?
However idealistic and lofty the goals of the UF search seem to be on paper, the Board of Governors of Florida made it clear— albeit in an unprecedented manner—that any education leader given the keys to the Florida kingdom must play by the rules of the DeSantis administration and go full stop on complying with the larger education infrastructure set in place by President Donald Trump’s administration. If not, they have no place, no matter the qualification.
As questions regarding antisemitism, federal funding, policing of speech, and institutional neutrality remain polarizing, promising to change one’s ways just isn’t enough to get a vote of confidence. It requires a track record and synchronicity with the anti-Woke way. This litmus test is one not ostensibly of character, or merit, but of political orthodoxy.
As a rule, the more conservative an academic is, the less likely they are to be the lead of a prestigious public institution. Though Ono has a past full of DEI initiatives and allegations that he failed to support the Jewish community in Ann Arbor, he is a presidential candidate both relatively conservative and relatively competent compared with other options.
In a state where the Governor has endeavored to take an active role in cultivating cohesive leadership, the need for transparency and experience runs up against the need for ideological congruency. As DeSantis exclaimed in a McCarthyan response to a bill hoping to repeal a 2022 law protecting the presidential search process from public scrutiny, “They bring some communist in to be the president of a university, and I’m just supposed to sit there and twiddle my thumbs? That’s not how I roll.”
STATE BOARD REJECTS UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA PICK
The Florida system faces a challenge. As a model for other states trying to aspire to do the same, Florida wields great responsibility in walking the delicate mixing of politics and education that characterizes the current administration. As recent events have demonstrated, the anvil can fall both ways, and public backlash could wreck credibility if taken too far.
The candidates must be sufficiently MAGA and experienced enough to garner the public trust needed to lead a prominent academic institution. As seen with Trump’s problematic appointees, this is not easily squared. If Florida wants to attract competent and compatible leaders, it will have to do more soul-searching than merely rest on its laurels as a haven of anti-Woke.
This article was originally published at www.washingtonexaminer.com
