Professors’ union sanctions Florida college over ‘political’ DeSantis takeover

A national university professors union has voted to sanction New College of Florida, the former liberal arts school where Ron DeSantis orchestrated an unprecedented “aggressively ideological and politically motivated” takeover by a group of ultra-conservative cronies.

The vote to sanction New College came after an investigation by the American Association of University Professors (AAUP), which has placed only 12 other universities on its sanctioned list since 1995.

The AAUP created a special committee to investigate the “apparent pattern of politically, racially, and ideologically motivated attacks on public higher education” by DeSantis, the far-right Florida governor who waged war on so-called “wokeness” at schools and colleges after his resounding re-election in 2022.

The investigation was launched in January 2023 after DeSantis appointed six allies to the school’s board of trustees, which at breakneck speed restructured academic courses without meaningful faculty involvement, eliminated the gender studies major, and cancelled a slew of diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) initiatives, including canceling meals during Ramadan, the holy month of daytime fasting for Muslims.

The new board imposed the sweeping reforms after ousting the president and inserting a confidant of DeSantis – at double the predecessor’s previous annual salary.

AAUP sanctions have no regulatory consequence, but they are published on the union’s website “for the purpose of informing association members, the profession at large, and the public that unsatisfactory conditions of academic government exist at the institutions in question”. Sanctions can also be removed.

In a statement to the Tampa Bay Times, a New College spokesperson, Nathan March, said