Rick Scott blasts UF president search, money for Uthmeier and interim president

A heavyweight Republican lawmaker is once again blasting the University of Florida’s presidential search process, accusing the state’s flagship university of operating “in the dark” and naming a sole finalist without public input from students and faculty.

In a searing letter on Tuesday to the Florida university system’s top official, U.S. Sen. Rick Scott questioned the secretive search process that resulted in former University of Alabama President Stuart Bell emerging as the only known candidate for the UF’s top job.

“While I don’t know Dr. Bell, it is clear to me that once again, UF has engaged in a search process that lacked any transparency or public input and failed to interview three candidates as mandated under Florida law,” Scott wrote to State University System Chancellor Ray Rodrigues.

Scott noted that he was not endorsing either Landry or Bell, arguing that the lack of public vetting made it impossible to properly evaluate candidates.

“Frankly, how could I?” Scott wrote. “No one really knows anything about either of these people, or any other potential candidate, because there was no public search or vetting process.”

A UF spokesperson declined to comment. Rodrigues did not immediately respond to a text message asking whether he had responded to Scott’s letter.

Scott’s letter is notable not only for its broadsides against Florida’s flagship university — but also for what it doesn’t critique.

Unlike last year’s failed presidential search involving former University of Michigan leader Santa Ono, Scott did not attack Bell over diversity, equity and inclusion policies or ideological concerns.

Instead, Scott’s letter focuses almost entirely on what he described as UF’s lack of transparency, weak oversight and questionable spending practices

The former governor vented about a multimillion-dollar provision in Interim President Donald Landry’s contract that will pay him $2 million after he was passed over for the permanent job, writing that he was “not aware of any public discussion on whether a payout of this size has any merit.”

(Landry’s interim contract has been available to the public since September, and was approved by the university system’s Board of Governors that same month.)

Swiping at a fellow Republican, Scott also scolded UF for awarding Attorney General James Uthmeier a $100,000-a-year adjunct professorship to “teach a few hours a week, while similarly situated professors make $5,000.”

“I don’t know the Attorney General, but that is frankly bizarre and if true, demonstrates a pattern of malfeasance in UF’s hiring and contracting processes,” he wrote. “Does that mean all Florida law schools need to retain the Attorney General.”

“Frankly, what is occurring at UF sounds like something we would see coming out of states like California and New York, not the free state of Florida,” he later added.

Uthmeier’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Scott didn’t pin all the responsibility on UF. Instead, he called upon the Legislature and Gov. Ron DeSantis’ successor to “bring back transparency and stop these contracts that circumvent public review and discussion.”

Scott’s list of demands included a request for all public university employment agreements for elected officials or their families, as well as peer compensation figures. He also urged the Legislature to repeal a 2022 state law shielding college president searches from public view, which has resulted in most searches yielding one finalist.

“I’m frankly tired of hearing “there is only one sole finalist because no one else was willing to do a public interview,” Scott wrote. “That is BS.”

The Florida House last year approved legislation that would have required universities to disclose all applicants and open presidential searches to greater public review. But the proposal died in the Senate after opposition from university leaders and warnings from DeSantis that he would likely veto the measure.