One thing is clear after UF’s vote: Florida universities are officially political bodies | Opinion

Almost a decade ago, state lawmakers set out to make Florida more competitive against the nation’s best-ranked public universities by injecting millions of taxpayer dollars into the state’s universities. Their mission was to boost the reputation of Florida as a place to get a first-class college education.

On Tuesday, the state university system’s Board of Governors solidified Florida’s new reputation in higher education: The state higher education system is now a place where, to use Gov. Ron DeSantis’ motto, woke goes to die. The Board rejected the appointment of Santa J. Ono to be the president of the University of Florida, overturning his selection by UF’s own trustees.

Ono’s rejection is the result of a well orchestrated campaign by activists who engaged in a conservative version of cancel culture by attacking Ono for his previous support for DEI (diversity, equity and inclusion) programs when he led the University of Michigan. (Ono disbanded those programs in March.) UF has long tried to surpass Michigan in national rankings, which would have made his hiring in Florida quite a feat.

As the Miami Herald reported, there were barely any discussions or inquiries into Ono’s academic vision for UF during the grilling — er, hearing — he got before the university system’s Board of Governors. Board members were more concerned about Ono possibly being a “left-wing ideologue who would jeopardize Florida’s reputation as the place ‘where woke goes to die,’” as conservative activist Christopher Rufo wrote on X. The Board also probed him about his response to pro-Palestinian encampments on Michigan’s campus.

Florida is certainly known as the anti-woke state, but it would be much better served if it held onto the reputation it has long worked to create for strong academic programs that attract students who otherwise might attend top-notch state universities elsewhere. How many business majors, future CEOs, prospective scientists and innovators is Florida attracting with the latest headlines about Ono? Probably very few.

The anti-DEI, anti-woke movement is winning big in Florida. The pro-diversity and inclusion camp has lost.

That’s a political triumph for DeSantis and President Donald Trump, who took the fight against DEI in higher ed national. But university appointments — as political as they may have always been — have traditionally been less about ideological domination. With this latest spectacle, Florida officially abandoned any pretense that it will choose university presidents based solely — or even primarily — on academic credentials.

Now we know not to care if the next president of Florida’s flagship university has experience in growing a student body, improving a college’s rankings or attracting more endowment money.

Granted, the state can now become a hub for conservative parents who don’t want to send their children to universities where DEI programs still exist or where they don’t feel safe expressing views that aren’t liberal. It would be disingenuous to argue that much of academia doesn’t have a left bend or that political correctness and the pressure to shield young people from information and opinions that cause them discomfort cannot stymie critical thinking.

Unfortunately, the antidote Florida is offering will replace critical and independent thinking with ideological uniformity. We have replaced the extreme and exclusionary policies that conservatives say DEI promotes with another set of extremes.

If university presidential selections were political races, the pundits and political analysts would be declaring a landslide victory for the anti-woke party. In these polarized times, many of Florida’s voters will certainly cheer Ono’s rejection. But by treating universities as political tools, Florida loses sight of the true mission of higher education.

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This story was originally published June 4, 2025 at 3:02 PM.