Update on the New College

A couple of months ago, I posted about Florida's New College, a progressive, almost experimental, liberal arts college beloved by its students, staff and alumni for its unique, humanistic approach. It's been making the news because Ron DeSantis and his Florida fascists decided to ruin it.

Here's an update as they enter the new school year.

Gov. Ron DeSantis’ hostile takeover of New College of Florida is offering up a case study of what Republican governance looks like. After DeSantis installed six partisan trustees to remake the liberal arts college in his image, they replaced the college’s president with an interim president at double the salary. Faculty fled. Before the college could staff all the courses that needed to be taught, Christopher Rufo—perhaps the most notorious of DeSantis’ new trustees—started moving to abolish the gender studies program at the college. All of that is part of the DeSantis plan, and it’s terrible on its own, but it’s left New College in chaos, showing the degree to which Republicans don’t care about anything but pushing their ideological agenda.

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Faculty continue to leave, leading to ongoing course cancellations. Some students say they haven’t been notified when classes they were enrolled in were canceled. In some cases, the cancellations make it difficult or impossible for students to find the classes they need to complete their majors.

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The interim president’s goals include increasing attendance and building an athletics program, and he’s doing both at once by bringing in a large number of new athletes. New College admitted 100 student athletes for this fall despite having no real athletic facilities and not being a member of the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics.

Go read the rest. It's an appalling attack on a treasured institution because fascists can't grow anything beautiful on their own. They can only pervert and destroy.

Fight American fascism. Vote for Democrats.