Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis wants to reshape New College of Florida into a “classics” college and a “Hillsdale of the South” that rejects “trendy” political views — sparking opposition from some students and alumni who worry that the public liberal-arts institution will no longer be welcoming to a diverse student body.
DeSantis announced on Friday the appointments of six new members to New College’s Board of Trustees, including conservative activist Christopher Rufo, who has led a campaign against critical race theory and diversity initiatives in education.
The governor’s press secretary said the revamped New College “will be refocused on its founding mission of providing a world-class quality education with an exceptional focus on the classics.” In a statement, DeSantis’s chief of staff cited Hillsdale College, a private Christian institution that embraces conservative stances, as the inspiration for New College’s future. Larry P. Arnn, Hillsdale’s president, is an ally of former president Donald J. Trump and has endorsed the idea of “patriotic education” that promotes America’s strengths and not its shortcomings.
In a tweet shortly after his appointment was announced, Rufo said: “Left-wing radicals have spent the past fifty years on a ‘long march through the institutions.’ We are going to reverse that process, starting now. Gov. DeSantis has laid out a vision for recapturing the institutions and restoring them to American principles.”
Rufo also said in a different tweet that he wants to abolish the college’s diversity, equity, and inclusion policies, create a new core curriculum centered around a “classical liberal arts model,” restructure the college’s administration, and hire new faculty members with expertise in “constitutionalism, free enterprise, civic virtue, family life, religious freedom, and American principles.”
The news has prompted concern from some New College alumni and led to the creation of a student group that says it’ll challenge DeSantis’s plans. The United Faculty of Florida union, which includes a chapter at New College, has expressed support for the students’ efforts. The Chronicle didn’t receive comment from either group in time for publication.
Alumni are worried that faculty members will leave and that many students won’t want to attend the college.
“Some of these people are openly showing animosity towards the idea of New College, when they don’t really know that much about it. They’ve just heard it’s a ‘woke’ college,” said Blair Sapp, a New College graduate and a senior strategist at America Votes, a progressive organization.
New College is a public institution with more than 700 students that serves as the State University System of Florida’s liberal-arts honors college. It is known for not using a traditional grading system — students are given personalized evaluations by their professors in each class — and it has churned out Fulbright scholars in the past. DeSantis’s press secretary said the college had “low student enrollment and other financial stresses,” which he blamed on “its skewed focus and impractical course offerings.” The college said its fall 2022 incoming class was its largest since 2016.
DeSantis’s office has stressed transforming New College into a “classics college,” Sapp said, despite the fact that the institution already has a sizable classics program. “What they’re trying to turn it into isn’t a classical education,” Sapp said. “It’s just teaching people how to be Republicans.”
DeSantis has criticized diversity education and critical race theory — singling out “trendy ideology” in higher education during his inaugural address last week — and appears keenly interested in higher-ed reform. Shortly after DeSantis was sworn into his second term as governor, The Chronicle broke the news that his office had requested a detailed report from Florida’s 29 state colleges and 12 universities on “all staff, programs, and campus activities related to diversity, equity, and inclusion, and critical race theory,” with a deadline of this week. The request also asked for the number of positions required for these programs and the cost of funding them.
Matthew Spalding, dean of the Van Andel Graduate School of Government at Hillsdale’s D.C. campus, was also added to the New College Board of Trustees, along with Emory University professor Mark Bauerlein, an outspoken Trump supporter; Claremont McKenna College professor Charles Kesler, who’s closely involved with the Claremont Institute, a conservative think tank; Debra Jenks, a Florida attorney; and Jason “Eddie” Speir, co-founder of Inspiration Academy, a private Christian school.
New College officials issued statements that didn’t address the strong assertions about reshaping the institution. “I welcome each of the six new members to the New College of Florida Board of Trustees and I look forward to working with them to chart the future of New College,” said Ronald A. Christaldi, the board’s vice chair.
“New College has a long history of embracing change, all while being true to our mission of academic excellence,” said Patricia Okker, New College’s president, in a statement to The Chronicle. She added: “I believe that last week’s announcement is a signal that our state’s leaders want to invest in the future of New College. As I see it, our current discussion is so much more positive and focused on how to ensure a strong New College.”
R. Derek Black, a New College graduate who is known for renouncing his white-nationalist views while attending the institution, was surprised to see that New College was “being used as a national political football.” When he tells people where he went to college, many haven’t heard of it, he said.
Now that DeSantis has forced New College onto the national stage, Black said he is most concerned about how the changes might affect the student body — especially the “comfortable and safe space” the college has created for students with diverse identities and religious backgrounds to have difficult conversations.
“Even just denouncing the school in such a political way takes a little bit of the safety and privacy those kinds of conversations need away from the students,” said Black, who’s pursuing a Ph.D. in history at the University of Chicago.
When Black, who is now 33, was at New College, he said it was primarily other students who challenged his white-nationalist views. They helped him realize that his stances were harmful to other people, he said.
“I don’t think that would have happened at a much larger school or even another liberal-arts school,” Black said, “that didn’t have that community of bright, misfit, oddball kids who wanted to make an ideal space for each other.”
