New College has made headlines since January 2023, when the rightwing governor, Ron DeSantis, vowed to transform it from a university known for liberal values into a conservative institution, and installed a new board of trustees including the rightwing culture warrior Christopher Rufo. That board in turn appointed DeSantis’s “close ally” Richard Corcoran as the new college president, in which role he makes a $699,000 salary.
DeSantis’s lieutenants’ actions at New College – like abolishing disciplines, removing bathroom signage and denying professors tenure – have seen the departure of more than a third of the faculty, and given rise to myriad legal actions.
I saw a Vice (I think) piece about this. Basically Desantis really took an interest in this one random college and has steamrolled all over it. They interviewed students who thought they were going to one school, but everything changed not long after they got there.
But it’s so fucking weird that he’s focusing all this energy on this small school. I don’t want to go full tinfoil hat, but this is so random.
I think the one buddy of his getting a $699,000 salary as the new school president speaks for itself. The rest is just theatrics while his allies grift public money.
It's not so random. It was one of the most progressive schools in the country with a very left-wing student body. This was a targeted attack on what DeSantis viewed as an indoctrination school.
My brother went to New College. Other than being in Florida, it was a great school that DeSantis has destroyed.
Oh wow, that’s interesting insight, thanks for the details. I’m in Texas and it’s like a pissing contest between Abbott & Desantis to be the most shitty state.
You don't have to go tinfoil hat... they just opened up am "austin university" in TX that's supposed to be a conservative speaking university... whatever the fuck that means in the actual education since (which I fully assume is not what they care about)
New College has the double whammy of being Florida’s most liberal public college, and also by far its smallest. It didn’t have nearly the cultural insulation to survive DeSantis even as well as The larger schools who have alumni scattered across various levels of business ands government. More’s the pity. New College was something special.
UF for instance slow played everything its imported, uselessly-conservative president Ben Sasse thought he might want to do until he got bored of spending the school’s money on his friends in Washington — as in they literally got jobs with UF but never moved to Gainesville — and finally quit.
What does it mean to be the "most liberal college" in florida? Is this in the actual college administration? As my understanding and experince indicates that colligate student bodies trend liberally to begin with, and I've seen nothing to indicate that would change even in the hellhole that is florida. (Yeah rich coming from Tennessee, I know, but I'm genuinely curious)
"MAGA is eating out" - this is happening to the colleges in N. Idaho as well, possibly all of ID. Schools losing accreditation, admin and faculty bailing, students unable to xfer credits... a big shit-show that fucks over students but makes the local Fascists think that they're "taking back education". Got kids? Send 'em to FL or ID and they can get an unaccredited PhD in Ignorance Studies in a year or less.