Daily Briefing

Good morning, and welcome to Monday, June 16. Brock Read wrote the top of today’s Briefing. Julia Piper compiled Transitions. Rick Seltzer wrote the rest. Get in touch: dailybriefing@chronicle.com.

Florida, man, revisited

Something much bigger than any one failed presidential search is unfolding in the Sunshine State.

Santa Ono’s downfall is a watershed for the public-college presidency. Nearly two weeks after the governing body of Florida’s university system shot down the sole finalist for the flagship University of Florida, new reporting from The Chronicle’s Jack Stripling and David Jesse shows how the case for Ono shriveled in the harsh light of the state’s politics.

Ono misread the room. One of the cardinal rules of politics: Nobody likes a flip-flopper. The candidate’s eagerness to disavow past positions that could be viewed as “woke” made him look like a quisling to the left without winning over enough supporters on the right. The spectacle of a respected immunologist dissembling when pressed about vaccine mandates seemed debasing to all parties involved.

• “It’s not a political thing,” said one governor who voted no on Ono. “It’s a candor thing.”

But this goes beyond one candidate’s tin ear. Ono and his staunchest backer, Morteza (Mori) Hosseini, the chair of UF’s Board of Trustees, seemed unprepared in the face of a media-savvy, digital-first counter-campaign led by people who want to bag scalps.

It all played out in the Board of Governors meeting that ended Ono’s presidential bid. In a punishing three-hour session, the candidate was barraged with questions about DEI, vaccine mandates, gender-affirming surgeries performed by the University of Michigan hospital, even his own mental health. As Jack and David write, the affair “closely resembled a partisan Senate confirmation hearing,” with a playbook to match:

• Laptop warriors set the terms. Christopher Rufo, a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute, reprised a social-media campaign that helped unseat Harvard University’s president, blasting Ono relentlessly. By the time the Board of Governors met, Donald Trump Jr. had weighed in.
• Opposition research proliferated. The candidate was made to answer for “a deluge of digital evidence.” Among the material Rufo posted on X: videos in which Ono, as Michigan president, effused about gender pronouns and Indigenous land acknowledgments.
• The campaign was well-coordinated. At least one Michigan regent shared intel with a member of Florida’s system board. The board members who grilled Ono before the vote seemed to have scripted who would ask which questions, a former UF administrator said.

To be clear: Florida remains an outlier, for now. Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis has been singularly aggressive in overhauling trustee appointments and seeing his allies take over public-college presidencies. But the tools deployed in the state can be — and in fact already have been — nationalized. A quick scan of Florida’s many leadership messes brings cautionary tales for public universities and boards elsewhere:

• A new breed of leaders steps in: UF still needs a president, and it’s unclear where the university will turn — or who’d want the job. Ono’s rejection will make traditional candidates even warier. Some search firms are saying they won’t do business in the state. Nakedly partisan hiring is old hat on governing boards, but moves like this clear the way for more politicians as presidents.
• Trust frays: Take the case of Manny Diaz Jr., DeSantis’s commissioner of education, who was appointed interim president of the University of West Florida in May. Diaz’s $643,000 salary, which comes with perks like a $15,000 country-club membership, sparked debate on the university’s board. When the university president seems to be hand-picked by the governor, big spending can certainly feel more like graft.
• Transparency is threatened: In a statement decrying “political interference” in several presidential hires, three Democratic lawmakers in Florida argued that Florida A&M University’s appointment of Marva Johnson, a DeSantis-backed lobbyist, “appears to have been orchestrated behind closed doors,” with “no regard for student or alumni opinion.”

The bigger question: Can higher ed’s old guard adapt its tactics to the brave new world of college leadership as a political blood sport? Prospective presidents and shared-governance proponents will have to coordinate better, message sharper, and show more backbone if they don’t want to cede the floor to political machines and the online activists.

📱 Read the full story: He Wanted a Presidency. He Became a Pariah.

Federal news

• Alternative to overhead cap pitched: A group of 10 organizations that represent research institutions has drawn up two alternatives to the sharp caps on indirect-cost reimbursements that Republicans have been seeking. The first would have overhead payments vary depending on institution type and grant type. The second would have each grant proposal document, line by line, administrative and faculty costs. (STAT)
• Stanford preps for big losses: Leaders warned that policy changes are likely to force spending cuts. If Republicans successfully cut research overhead-reimbursement rates to 15 percent and add a top bracket of 21 percent to the endowment tax, the university would lose an estimated $637 million per year. (Stanford University)
• Harvard, Trump haggle over injunction: U.S. District Judge Allison Burroughs wants to build upon temporary restraining orders she’s issued that stop the government from blocking Harvard from enrolling international students while the university challenges the move in court. But the university says the administration has balked at terms it’s proposed for a preliminary injunction. The administration doesn’t want a ban on any “categorical restriction” on Harvard’s foreign students or a requirement that it give 30 days’ notice before it kicks Harvard out of the government’s student-visa system, Harvard told the judge, complaining that the administration is still trying to take away student visas through “creative relabeling.” (Politico)
• Penn preps for borrowing: The University of Pennsylvania disclosed three separate agreements that would allow it to borrow a total of $500 million, becoming the latest wealthy research university to line up financing in the face of disruptions to federal funding. The Trump administration has frozen $175 million to Penn over allegations that the university violated gender-equity protections by allowing a transgender swimmer to participate on its women’s team in 2022. (Bloomberg, The Chronicle)

Quick hits

• U. of Arizona touts balanced budget: The university expects to break even for the upcoming 2026 fiscal year, its chief financial officer told the Arizona Board of Regents last week. That means the institution has put in place enough cuts — including layoffs — to eliminate a $177-million deficit that cost top leaders their jobs shortly after the financial crisis was uncovered in 2023. But the institution still has work ahead to rebuild its cash reserves to meet state requirements. (KNXV, The Chronicle)
• Indiana U. softens protest restriction: Trustees last week ended a controversial ban on protesting overnight about a year after they added it in the wake of pro-Palestinian protests. The change came two weeks after a federal judge blocked the policy, finding that it likely violated the First Amendment. Protesters are still required to get approval before they erect structures, and camping remains against university policy. (Indianapolis Star, The Chronicle, Indiana Public Media)
• Layoffs in Washington State: Whatcom Community College has started cutting employees under a budget plan that will have it slashing $1.5 million in staffing expenses in the face of a budget deficit estimated at more than $3 million. The institution already slashed $500,000 from payrolls this year. Leaders blame state budget cuts, rising costs, and enrollment problems. (Cascadia Daily News)
• Michigan lawmakers soften university cuts: House Republicans softened a plan to cut roughly half of direct state funding for Michigan’s public universities, passing a revision that would divert spending from Michigan State University and the University of Michigan to the state’s other 13 public universities. Republicans continued to try to withhold money from institutions that run diversity, equity, and inclusion programs, but they dropped demands that institutions check whether their students are legal U.S. residents and that they bar transgender athletes from playing on women’s sports teams. The House must agree on a budget with the Senate, where Democrats in the majority have sharply criticized proposals to cut higher-ed support. (MLive)

Sports report

• Internal loan for beefed-up facilities: The University of Kentucky is poised to lend its athletics department $110 million in the coming years to finance renovations and other capital improvements intended to eventually generate more revenue. Such attempts at money-making investments are expected to proliferate as institutions try to drum up more cash to pay current and past athletes under the $2.8-billion antitrust settlement that’s rewriting college sports. (Louisville Courier Journal, Sports Business Journal, The Chronicle)
• Can NIL clearinghouse hold up? It’s not clear that the “NIL Go” name, image, and likeness registration platform will be able to stand up to legal challenges, criticisms that it could artificially limit athlete pay, or a college recruiting landscape with a long tradition of evading regulation. It has a big job: seeking to make sure NIL deals for players are for a valid business purpose and within fair market value. But its backers argue it will have quasi-subpoena powers, bringing evidence to potentially messy disputes involving third-party payments to athletes. (Associated Press, Yahoo Sports)
• Female athletes challenge settlement: Eight athletes who appealed the landmark settlement last week argue women aren’t going to receive a fair share of the $2.8-billion settlement, which is mostly due to flow to football and basketball players. They say the deal violates Title IX, the federal gender-equity law. But a law firm representing settlement plaintiffs argued the judge already addressed that issue. (Associated Press)

Transitions

• Elizabeth G. Loboa, provost and senior vice president for academic affairs at Southern Methodist University, has been named provost and executive vice chancellor at the University of Denver.
• April Broussard has been named vice president for business affairs at McNeese State University, after serving in the interim role since July 2024.
• John Harris, dean of the College of Engineering and Science at Florida Institute of Technology, has been named provost and executive vice chancellor for academic affairs at Missouri University of Science and Technology.

To submit a new-hire announcement, email people@chronicle.com. You can also find Transitions online here.

Footnote

Readers have no doubt been waiting for the hood to come off of the names given to two peregrine falcon chicks that hatched at the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor’s North Quad. The public could submit ideas, creating the possibility that all sorts of delicious fun would ensue.

Unfortunately, the Daily Briefing’s Footnote did not inform the ultimate selections. Even more unfortunately, the powers that be discarded colorful submissions from the public that would have been truly memorable monikers: Feather Locklear, Stephen Squawking, Zinger Man, and Miss Kim.

The winning names, plucked from about 1,400 suggestions, were … “Victoria” and “Valiant.”

Multiple people suggested “Victoria,” according to the university. If that sounds defensive to you, it’s probably because naming a falcon “Valiant” is about as creative as naming a dog “Fido” or “Rover.”

But our hearts shouldn’t dive too far in disappointment. Nor should we raise too much of a flap about this lack of originality fouling the day. Remember that the falcons are traditionally christened to reference the university or its home city.

These new names are, in fact, references to the University of Michigan’s fight song, in which “hail to the victors valiant” is a refrain. Hail to Victoria, indeed.