Santa Ono is coming to The Swamp. Can he survive the conservative heat?
Is a career academic who not too long ago was championing “DEI 2.0” fit to lead Florida’s flagship university?
That’s the question facing the state university system’s Board of Governors at what is expected to be a highly contentious meeting Tuesday, when they vote on whether to confirm Santa J. Ono as the University of Florida’s next president — the final political checkpoint in a hiring process that has ignited a firestorm among conservatives nationwide.
Ono, who most recently led the University of Michigan, has been branded by right-wing critics as a closet progressive who only recently distanced himself from diversity, equity and inclusion efforts to appeal to Florida’s conservative leadership. That about-face has taken center stage in Ono’s campaign for the UF presidency, which began on May 4 when the university’s search committee recommended him as the sole finalist for the $3 million-a-year job.
Since then, Ono has spent much of his public-facing candidacy on the political defensive, repeatedly pledging fealty to Florida’s higher education reforms and renouncing DEI. At Michigan, Ono had once pushed for a “DEI 2.0” initiative and oversaw what was one of the nation’s most robust diversity offices. But in March, under mounting public scrutiny and pressure from the Trump administration, he eliminated DEI spending entirely.
During his public interview with UF’s Board of Trustees last week, Ono tackled the criticisms head on.
“What matters most, I think, is not what I said two to six years ago, but what I have done in the past year and a half,” he said.
As for DEI, Ono was unequivocal: “DEI will not return to the University of Florida,” he said.
Yet resistance has remained fierce. Ono has been the target of sustained opposition research, mental health smears and condemnations from prominent Republicans like U.S. Sen. Rick Scott. Donald Trump Jr. called him a “woke psycho” last week and urged the Board of Governors to reject him. U.S. Rep. Byron Donalds, an early front runner in the upcoming Florida governor’s race, said on Saturday that his team would monitor Ono “very, very closely.”
But one decisive voice has not joined the anti-Ono chorus: Gov. Ron DeSantis. While admitting to reporters on Thursday that some of the former Michigan president’s past statements made him “cringe,” he deferred final judgement to the Board of Governors — which is packed with DeSantis appointees. At the same time, the governor made his expectations clear: “We don’t want [UF] to be a fountain of activism or leftist indoctrination. If you go in that direction, then you will not have support to continue.”
UF Board of Trustees Chairman Mori Hosseini, who is a close DeSantis ally and a major Republican donor, has fiercely defended Ono as a “break from the progressive orthodoxy that has gripped too many elite campuses.” UF trustees unanimously backed Ono on Tuesday.
Ono’s candidacy is a striking example of how deeply Florida’s politics have seeped into the workings of its higher education landscape. Traditional academic decisions — appointing deans, safeguarding tenure, designing curricula, managing accreditation and permitting faculty testimony — have become ideological proxy wars. Now, the hiring of a college president has escalated into a national flashpoint. It raises questions about whether veteran academics can still thrive as university leaders in an environment where the Trump administration and state legislatures are aggressively reshaping higher education to align with political agendas.
Bernie Machen, who led UF as president from 2004 to late 2014, told the Miami Herald on Monday that he’s alarmed by the level of political interference in the state’s higher education system. If Ono’s appointment is derailed for political reasons, Machen warned, “I don’t think we would be able to get a viable candidate anymore.”
Machen, 81, also questioned the rigor of UF’s last presidential search, which led to the 2022 hiring of Ben Sasse, then a sitting U.S. senator with little higher-ed leadership experience. Sasse resigned in July after less than two years, following criticism over excessive spending and a management style widely seen as ill-suited to running a major research university.
“He didn’t appear to me to be a qualified candidate,” Machen said. “How he got it is beyond me — and the results speak for themselves.”
With Ono, Machen said, UF did things right: “I think you have every reason to think that the selection of Ono will be successful… we’ve done everything we were asked to do to find the right candidate.”
Academics first, politics second
Leading the charge against Ono is Christopher Rufo, a Washington State-based conservative activist who has closely advised on DeSantis’ overhaul of Florida’s higher-ed system and was among a slate of conservatives appointed in 2023 by DeSantis to the New College of Florida Board of Trustees.
From his perch on X, where he commands an audience of over 823,000, Rufo has circulated video clips meant to highlight Ono’s progressive record, including moments where Ono declares that “systemic racism is embedded in every corner of any institution,” endorses campus anti-racism efforts, promotes an “Indigenous strategic plan” and delivers an Indigenous land acknowledgment.
Rufo, who did not respond to requests for an interview, is now urging the Board of Governors to order a restart on UF’s presidential search, arguing that “it is better to proceed slowly and end with a solid conservative than to rush the process and end up with a standard-issue progressive.”
There’s some at UF who would counter that selecting a conservative for the big job didn’t work out well last time. Danaya Wright, a longtime UF law professor and two-time Faculty Senate chair, said while Sasse brought political connections, he lacked administrative chops necessary to lead one of the nation’s top research universities. She also pointed to New College, where, under Rufo’s watch and the leadership of former GOP lawmaker Richard Corcoran, the school has faced criticism over surging per-student costs and mismanagement of donor funds.
“The UF trustees are highly successful and dedicated leaders who know how to make an institution successful.,” Wright said. “Maybe Rufo should focus on getting his own house in order before telling UF’s leaders how to do theirs.”
In Wright’s view, Ono fits the centrist mold of past Florida presidents like Machen and Kent Fuchs, who returned as interim president in August. That’s a relief, she added, after the Sasse era, which many on campus saw as defined by ideology and inexperience.
“The right approach,” she said, “is to find someone who you think is a good administrator,and then cross your fingers that they can maneuver through the politics of the state, because just being a politician is not enough to run a $1 billion research institution.”
Passing the first test
Ono’s passed his first major political hurdle during his appearance before Florida’s trustees last Tuesday, which more closely resembled a Capitol Hill confirmation hearing than a job interview. For two hours, trustees drilled him on ideological topics. Virtually no time was spent discussing his vision for the university’s academic future.
Pressed repeatedly on antisemitism, Ono vowed to combat it and shut down any encampments that sprung up on campus under his leadership. He distanced himself from past land acknowledgments and climate change commentary, assuring the board he would avoid “politically or socially contested issues.” Ono, an immunologist, even framed his reversal on DEI through the lens of the scientific method, saying new evidence convinced him that DEI programs were stifling free speech.
Even Ono’s mental health history was dragged into the spotlight. Years ago, he publicly disclosed that he had twice attempted suicide in his youth — an effort to destigmatize mental illness on campus. An anonymous right-wing group, posting on X as CommiesOnCampus, has weaponized Ono’s past struggles with depression in attacks on his fitness for the role. When Rahul Patel, the vice chair of UF’s board who led the search committee, pressed Ono about his mental acuity on Tuesday, the candidate insisted that he has been “high functioning” for decades.
“I’m verging on almost 35 years,” Ono said, “Without medication, without counseling, without therapy.”
Trustees never explicitly questioned Ono on how he’d handle immigration — a hot topic on college campuses in Florida and across the nation — but alluded to his own background. Born in Canada to Japanese immigrants, he grew up in Baltimore and Philadelphia and is now a U.S. citizen, along with every other member of his family.
“I am a proud American,” Ono said. “I grew up in Baltimore. I love going to Fort McHenry. I sometimes still read the words of the Star Spangled Banner.”
Before trustees unanimously voted in Ono’s favor, Patel endorsed him as one of a “few people in the country who have both the conviction to lead this university in the direction Florida has set and the operational ability to actually deliver on that vision.” Trustee Daniel O’Keefe, one of the more skeptical board members, chimed in to say he was satisfied with Ono’s “truthful and heartfelt” answers.
“I think he can be in alignment on our vision for University of Florida,” he said.
‘Marching orders’
For Judith Wilde and James Finkelstein, a research duo at George Mason University who study college presidencies, the national outcry around Ono is unprecedented. As Finkelstein put it: “How many times do you see national figures and organizations urging a governing body not to approve the appointment of a university president? Never.”
(Trump publicly commented on the appointment of Sasse in 2022, posting on Truth Social that UF would “soon regret their decision to hire him.” Finkelstein dismissed the remark, saying Trump will “weigh in on anything.”)
Both Finkelstein and Wilde said that Ono’s credentials — three college presidencies, a former provostship and a lengthy research résumé — make him a top candidate for the UF presidency. Unlike Sasse, Finkelstein said, Ono isn’t “someone you have to put training wheels on.”
They also said it’s unlikely Ono would revive DEI at UF even if he wanted to. His draft contract includes performance incentives tied to enforcing DeSantis-backed reforms, including the state’s blanket ban on DEI spending.
“He’s got his marching orders,” Wilde said. “I think he fully believes that he will do whatever it takes to get the job, fully intends to do it.”
Still, the pair questioned whether Ono would be able to secure legitimacy among Florida’s roster of public university presidents, which has become increasingly crowded with former GOP politicians and DeSantis allies.
Finkelstein summed up the stakes bluntly: “Just because he’s qualified doesn’t mean he’s going to be successful in Florida.”
This story was originally published June 2, 2025 at 3:46 PM.
