Update: Thank you Batocchio for including this article on Crooks & Liars' Mike's Blog Round-Up this morning!
It's been noted before that Florida's current Governor Ron "Pander Away" DeSantis is waging a war against "Wokeness," the current catch-all phrase by Far Right wingnuts describing anything that exposes our nation's history of racism, sexism, and bad behavior by conservative elites.
DeSantis has escalated his efforts across every level of education our state can offer. Not only are the classrooms at our public schools been emptied of every book so that DeSantis' foot soldier censors can refuse whichever titles they fear, but DeSantis is happily plugging in conservative political hacks into leadership roles at every major state university (via Ian Hodgson, Divya Kumar, and Lane DeGregory at the Tampa Bay Times (paywall)):
Carrying signs and wearing stickers and buttons Tuesday, hundreds of students, faculty and alumni filled the courtyard outside the building where the six new trustees appointed by Gov. Ron DeSantis to New College’s board of trustees were to meet for the first time.
“Jesus would not have wanted this,” one sign said. Others declared: “Stop the Steal,” “Queer Lives are Welcome Here,” and “Are we too woke or do you need to wake up?”
They rallied to save their school from what New College President Patricia Okker later called a “hostile takeover” by the new conservative appointees. They didn’t know that a key decision had already been made.
State Rep. Anna Eskamani, an Orlando Democrat, told protestors she was “damn proud to stand with them,” and led a chant to “reject fascism and protect freedom.” Then she dropped a bomb: Okker was to be replaced by Richard Corcoran, the former education commissioner and Florida House speaker, who would serve as interim president...
It should be noted that Corcoran was rejected as a candidate for the Florida State University President opening a few years back, because the hiring committee considered him a straight-up political hack whose own educational background is dubious at best. This time around, DeSantis rigged the New College's board of directors first, and then got them to fire Okker to make room for Corcoran.
If any of this feels the same as the situation leading to University of Florida - a flagship institution that had become one of the top universities in the nation - hiring an unqualified political hack like Ben Sasse earlier this school year, don't be shocked.
This is essentially a hostile takeover, not just by DeSantis but also by Far Right Republicans obsessed with dismantling higher educational systems they fear are too liberal.
The six DeSantis-appointed trustees asserted their presence early, proposing to rid the school of its diversity office and talking about the “crisis” that needed to be solved. But confusion over procedural matters and their unfamiliarity with some issues took up more than an hour...
Earlier in the day, (Christopher) Rufo accompanied DeSantis at a news conference in Bradenton, just north of the New College campus. The governor pledged an infusion of $15 million at New College to be spent on hiring new faculty and scholarships for students, with an extra $10 million every year thereafter. As a part of a larger plan to reform higher education, he also denounced diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives at state colleges and universities, saying they would no longer be funded...
DeSantis is essentially saying that things like civil rights and Title IX protections won't be upheld at state universities. Segregation and racial discrimination, sexual harassment, hostile workplaces, hostile classrooms... all of this will become the norm in DeSantis' Florida.
This is all echoed in DeSantis' efforts to shut down ANY discussion of "Critical Race Theory" essentially meaning our state cannot teach one iota of Florida's history regarding racism, slavery, Jim Crow, Civil Rights marches, all because Republicans are terrified that White People's Feelings (tm) will be hurt if we teach the facts that Yes Goddammit racism happened and keeps happening. He's just making sure that college students will be kept ignorant as much as our K-12 students.
Rufo is, by the by, a wingnut conservative hack actively campaigning to shut down public education of any kind in an obsessive desire to privatize something for greed and racism. DeSantis, desperate to win over 2024 Republican primary voters, is giving Rufo the opportunity to wreak havoc on Florida's educational system.
Goddamn Rufo. Goddamn DeSantis. Goddamn this wingnut Culture War that's committing serious acts of censorship against our children's' collective right to a fair and informed education, and an assault on our state's ability to promote higher education at all.
If I were a student today, at University of Florida (Alum 1992) or University of South Florida (Alum 1994), I would be walking the fuck out. I do not want the value of my college degree to turn into shit, all because a partisan hack of a Governor is weakening the quality of my university so he can score cheap political points for a 2024 Presidential run.
I am calling on all Florida college students: Just walk the fuck away. Yes, many of you have college loans to pay off, but you can start GoFundMe campaigns to help pay those down. Apply to out-of-state universities that won't go Red-State apeshit on you. Empty out the classrooms across Florida so that DeSantis has to live with the embarrassment of having our state's high-quality institutions void of any students. I know in some respects DeSantis would revel in the images of empty classrooms - "Look," he will say to his rabid anti-education voting base, "They would rather quit than learn a Godly conservative education!" - but he is going to have to live with the reality that he oversaw the dismantling of a statewide university system, something that has never happened to any other governor before him.
At some point, the shame of killing off Florida's educational system from kindergarten to doctorate ought to slap DeSantis in the goddamn face.
3 comments:
When I was a junior in High School, we held a student strike to get rid of the dean of students, who had been hired in a panic to bring discipline to Eureka High after it was learned that some students were smoking marijuana there. Eureka is the county seat of Humboldt County. Yes, kids do smoke weed there. But this yahoo decided that searches of lockers and students' cars in the parking lot were just the beginning. Long lens photographs of kids at their own homes were taken and audio recordings of private conversations were made.
The morning of the strike, local TV crews set up on the front lawn to hear speeches from, among others, two girls who were both cheerleaders and honor students.
In other words, the dean didn't stand a chance and he was gone by the end of the week.
Direct action can work, but it needs a sympathetic public to be effective, and that might take some doing in Florida.
I guess my real question would be, does DeSantis have to resign to run for president?
-Doug in Sugar Pine
I'm going to assume that the Florida system will be on notice regarding their accreditation. Probation, ultimately to lose it?
Unfortunately, I assume it will take time for such action to be taken due to what point in their accreditation cycle they are.
Easy to tell the students to walk away. Unfortunately there will be too many who are in these schools because they are state schools. Making it less expensive and easier to attend.
I hope the rest of the nation is getting the message about DeSantis such that he doesn't stand a chance in a presidential run. Before the MSM washes away his history to make him the "reasonable" candidate.
Paul W
I know DeSantis is an excellent example of an ass. He wins the academy award this year for being such. Unfortunately, trump came in second this year. We all understand how bad DwSantis really is even though we may not live in Florida.
I am not high on a recommendation to Florida college students to abandon their Federal student Loans. Too many students who had to abandon them or could not find jobs after graduating are stuck with these loans as there is no forgiveness to them. Some have seen the loans double, triple, and quadruple. What started as five-digit loans are now six-digit loans. Our current president was instrumental in making it impossible to have them forgiven. There are Approximately six million holders of student who are fifty and older. Of that 6 million, 3 million are in their sixties of which some have had portions of their SS payments attached.
I write on these loans at Angry Bear and for Alan Collinge of Student Loan Justice. As much as you are right in your wanting t take down the schools, student should not abandon their loans until there is real forgiveness.
The Best Paul.
Bill (run75441)
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