Meanwhile, In DeSantisVille: The TearDown of a Public College

 

New College of Florida, situated on the shores of the Gulf of Mexico, a few miles north of downtown Sarasota, has a number of standout features. Its curriculum is unusually self-directed: it gives out no letter grades, and has an academic research project built around independent study in partnership with professors. Two-thirds of its seven hundred students are women, and there is a prominent queer community; in the past, New College ranked among the most “gay-friendly” campuses in the country. Those attributes make it seem like a progressive northern liberal-arts college, to which alumni often compare it, but New College is a public school, which means that in-state tuition costs under seven thousand dollars annually—a bargain—and also that it is subject to the influence of Florida’s state politics.

--Benjamin Wallace-Wells, The New Yorker

So you might remember that Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida, in his crusade to make himself over as The Second Coming of Trump, "has sought to suspend the Walt Disney Corporation’s tax breaks because the company opposed his Don’t Say Gay bill; has moved to limit what teachers can say in public school classrooms about race and gender, and what books can be available in libraries; has encouraged state police to arrest and prosecute ex-felons for voting; and has flown migrants to Martha’s Vineyard as a political stunt."

As part of his makeover, he also declared war on New College and took over the Board of Trustees with a phalanx of activist conservatives, which included Chris Rufo, "the ideological entrepreneur who made critical race theory a Republican boogeyman," and who said publicly that he wanted to turn New College into a Southern version of Hillsdale, the notorious conservative Christian school in Michigan.

When they got to campus, those new DeSantis trustees met with some outright hostility from both faculty and students, but Matthew Lepinski, a computer science professor and the faculty representative on the board of trustees, made nice in the classic naive hope of middle-of-the-road citizens everywhere that the faculty and the trustees could "find a way to work together," and as president of the faculty assembly, he urged the school community to give the new guys a chance.

The new guys bent only toward teardown: "The new trustees fired the school’s president, replacing her with Richard Corcoran, the Republican former speaker of the Florida House. They fired its chief diversity officer and dismantled the diversity, equity and inclusion office. They ordered the gender-neutral signage on school bathrooms scraped off."

Matthew Lepinski walks out of trustees
meeting and resigns

The last straw for Lepinski came when the new trustees overrode the normal process and denied tenure to seven new faculty members, who after five years on the job were eligible for tenure. At the most recent trustee meeting... 

Fifty-four people registered to speak. All but one of them either implored the trustees to grant the professors tenure or lambasted them for their designs on the school. Parents were particularly impassioned; many of them had been profoundly relieved to find an affordable school where their eccentric kids could thrive. Some tried to speak the language of conservatism: “You’re violating my parental rights regarding our school choice,” said Pam Pare, the mother of a biology major. One student, a second-year wrapped in a pink and blue trans flag, was escorted out of the meeting after cursing at Corcoran [the new college president], but most tried to earnestly and calmly convey how much the professors up for tenure had taught them. [NYTimes]

When the trustees defiantly voted "no" on all the applicants, Matthew Lepinski walked out of the meeting, which drew attention since he's the president of the faculty, and he immediately resigned both his position and his faculty salary as well. “Some faculty members have started to leave already, and obviously some students are thinking about what their future looks like,” Lepinski said right after quitting. A few days later, we spoke again. “There’s a grieving process for the New College that was, which is passing away,” he said. “I really loved the New College that was, but I am at peace that it’s gone now.”

What's happening to higher education in Florida is a warning, especially for North Carolina, where the Berger/Moore troops show every indication of DeSantis envy.

Enemies of Caesar Who Write Negative Opinions Will Have To Register With the State of Florida

Am I potentially breaking a proposed new law in Florida?

[The Hill, March 2, 10:04 p.m.] A bill proposed this week by a Republican state senator in Florida would require bloggers who write about Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-Fla.), his Cabinet officers and members of the Florida legislature to register with the state.

Yikes. No distinction I see between bloggers in Florida and bloggers in, say, North Carolina. But wait. There's this important provision:

Would apply only to bloggers who receive compensation for a given online post about an elected state officer. 

That lets me out, since I make nothing from shooting off my mouth except a sore throat. 

I realize it was not the would-be dictator of Florida himself who introduced this law, but rather one of his eager minions in the Florida state lege, who evidently wanted to please the bush-league Mussolini. "You-must-register-with-the-state-if-you're-making-money-while-also-making-fun" should become one of those essential landmarks markingv Florida's slippage into the vast dark.

How They Run: Pat McCrory, Chameleon

 

Here are some recent campaign themes from Pat McCrory's social media (Facebook and Twitter, mirror images of one another):

Still needing the Trumpists --Trump publicly pissed in his face -- the ex-governor knows the odds against him in the primary if the conservatives coalesce, so he puts out paint-by-numbers conservative boilerplate, like stringing together "Joe Biden, Kamala Harris, and George Soros" in the same sentence, alleging they're the trio spending "MILLIONS" to propagate the "radical liberal agenda." (What? No "Socialism"?) Your standard wall-papering over the "moderate" Republican candidate's lack of passion for the culture wars.

Fighting to stay relevant after the Trump diss, McCrory has challenged his two Republican rivals to three debates before the primary. Mark Walker immediately agreed, but Ted Budd, the Trump honoree, hasn't, and McCrory is obliged to spread that news.

Most interesting (cause Pat McCrory ain't at heart no mean man), he tries going "full Ron DeSantis," scapegoating immigrants on the Southern border as the real causes of disease. McCrory shared a Fox News posting: "WH dodges question on why vaccinated Americans must wear masks while infected migrants [are] released into Texas town." That's inflammatory, guaranteed to raise the race temperature of Trumpists, where it's always burned hot.

In fact, the Southern border constitutes a "National Security Crisis." McCrory currently harps most on that meme: "President Biden and Vice President Harris, get to the border - we can't keep ignoring this National Security Crisis!" he said in a video posted yesterday. In a separate post he returned to the theme, naming the main three Democratic candidates as sharing in blame: "There is a crisis on our Southern Border - and Joe Biden and Kamala Harris refuse to admit it. Why won't Erica Smith, Jeff Jackson, or Cheri Beasley speak out about this National Security Disaster?!"

What is the disaster, exactly? Could it be no more complicated than brown people weaponized as a threat to white supremacy and a distraction to the real facts of the case, that it's anti-VAX and anti-mask Americans who are spreading disease willy-nilly across the landscape?

Also recently, McCrory tested "Joe Biden's inflation" as a thing, a hobby-horse he might ride like other Republican candidates -- the high price of gas as a sign of Biden's failed administration. It's bogus, and anyway, it's a weak punch that lands like overcooked pasta. McCrory nevertheless has learned to throw in the Democrats to share in the blame: "Why won't Jeff Jackson, Erica Smith, or Cheri Beasley speak out on this?!"

Bless his heart, McCrory's trying! But the impression remains that he doesn't have actual passions for policy positions. He has a passion for pleasing, especially the country-club one percent. 

Democrats: Beware of Ron DeSantis

 

Jeffrey Billman has done a comprehensive assessment of Florida Gov. Ron DeDSantis and his race to become the Trumpiest Republican governor and a leading contender to become the Republican nominee for president in 2024. Because DeSantis is several clicks smarter than Trump, he's also a leading contender to actually accomplish the authoritarian overthrow of democratic norms that Trump botched.

Some of Billman's list of DeSantis accomplishments:

On June 22, DeSantis signed a bill requiring public colleges and universities to survey students and faculty about their beliefs and viewpoints. The Orwellian-ness of the state collecting a database of its employees’ and students’ political positions aside, the authoritarian kicker is what DeSantis plans to do with the results: defund education if he thinks universities are “intellectually repressive”—i.e., too liberal—which he will. The results will also provide a weapon for the unsubtle threat DeSantis is sending to academics: Piss me off, and you’ll pay.

In April, DeSantis signed a bill that all but bans protesting: three or more people engaged in “tumultuous activity” is a riot; blocking roadways or vandalizing monuments is a felony; arrested protesters must spend the night in jail. (Also, DeSantis gets veto power over local police-funding decisions.)

Florida cracked down on absentee voting—DeSantis allowed only Fox News to witness the bill-signing....