Ben Sasse’s appointment as president of the University of Florida in late 2022 was hailed by his supporters as an opportunity to remake a flagship institution. Less than two years later, he is stepping down before having time to meaningfully influence the university’s direction.
Sasse announced his resignation late on Thursday with a social-media post on X (formerly Twitter) explaining that he needed to spend more time helping his wife, Melissa, deal with the ongoing effects of an aneurysm she suffered in 2007.
“In recent months, Melissa has been diagnosed with epilepsy and has been struggling with a new batch of memory issues. It’s been hard, but we’ve faced it together,” Sasse wrote. The demands of caring for his wife and three children are now at odds with the demands of running a university, Sasse said, and he had to make a choice.
Sasse’s appointment was controversial largely because of his opposition to gay marriage and abortion — stances he took as a Republican U.S. senator from Nebraska. Many faculty members were also upset that the process of picking a president was highly confidential, and Sasse was identified as a sole finalist for the position. That stemmed from a Republican-backed change in state law that allowed public colleges to keep the names of candidates secret until they were named as finalists.
But some on campus also viewed Sasse, who has a Ph.D. in history from Yale University and was president of a small, private college in Nebraska, as a potential buffer from the far-right politics of Gov. Ron DeSantis, a frequent critic of higher education. DeSantis and his allies have sought to restrict how topics related to race, sexuality, and gender are taught in the state’s classrooms and manufactured an ideological takeover of the state’s public liberal-arts institution, New College of Florida.
When Sasse took the Florida job, he said he was taking a vow of “political celibacy” and declined to discuss his past stances.
As his presidency began in early February 2023, Sasse’s tenure was relatively quiet. Student leaders said he wasn’t visible on campus. A spokesperson told the Tampa Bay Times a year ago that he usually went on early morning runs through campus before arriving at his office around 5 a.m., and that he typically took calls and meetings while walking an additional 10 to 12 miles a day.
Sasse did follow through on one important measure, helping to create the Hamilton Center for Classical and Civic Education, an academic unit created at the urging of DeSantis’s allies and devoted to “research and teaching on Western civilization and the principles of a free society.” The initial plans for the center were seen as a way to counter “cancel culture and uniformity of opinion on campus.” But many faculty members saw it as a way to establish a foothold for conservative ideology at the university.
Sasse stepped into the national spotlight after Hamas’s attacks on Israel in October. He proclaimed himself, along with the university, as a champion of Zionism and issued harsh critiques of college leaders who sought to balance students’ free-speech rights with the physical safety of Jews and others on campus.
In a column Sasse wrote for The Atlantic, for example, he slammed the congressional testimony of three university presidents at a hearing on how they were responding to reported antisemitism, describing the leaders as evasive and lacking moral clarity. He compared their remarks to those of tobacco-company executives in the 1990s, who sought to deceive the public about the health dangers of smoking cigarettes.
Aligning with DeSantis’s stance on student pro-Palestinian activism, Sasse took a strict approach to handling protests at Florida. Shortly after October 7, he issued a statement to Jewish students and alumni in support of Israel. He promised to safeguard students from any “anti-Israel” protests and bashed other university leaders and faculty members for not publicly condemning Hamas. He also spoke at a campus vigil for victims of the Hamas attack and was interviewed on Fox News.
This month the university suspended six students for three to four years after they were arrested at an April 29 campus demonstration. Florida’s punishments are among the harshest that colleges have handed down so far to students who participated in a nationwide surge of pro-Palestinian activism at the end of the spring term.
In a written statement on Friday, the departing chair of the university’s Faculty Senate praised Sasse’s work ethic but also hinted at reservations about his policy goals and the need for more faculty involvement in the next leadership search.
“I believe the faculty really appreciated all of his hard work and transformative ideas and they are looking forward to continuing the momentum where appropriate,” Danaya C. Wright, professor of constitutional law, wrote in an email. “They are also eager to participate in the next phase of UF’s rise,” she added.
While Sasse is stepping aside as president, he is not leaving the university but will continue to teach. His contract allows him to serve as a full-time faculty member, after approval by the university’s Board of Trustees, though without the benefit of tenure.
In the short term, Sasse’s resignation means a return to a familiar face: Kent Fuchs, his immediate predecessor, is expected to be named interim president, according to a social media post from The Alligator, the university’s student newspaper.
Ultimately, the opening presents another opportunity for the state’s conservative leaders to push for the appointment of someone who shares their goals for public higher education.
The overhaul of New College by DeSantis’s allies has made headlines nationally as an overt effort to reshape the faculty and curriculum. Other presidential searches in the state have also been affected by the political winds, including at Florida Atlantic University, where the search for its next president was called off last year amid charges of political favoritism. Now the university is trying again, and an influential Republican lawyer with ties to DeSantis has been added to the search committee.
Amanda Friedman contributed reporting to this story.
