Is Florida still where “Woke” goes to die?
Ask the seemingly cowardly inhabiting the University of Florida’s Board of Trustees, the answer appears to be a resounding “No!”
On Tuesday, the woke-wavering trustees of our free state’s flagship public university unanimously voted to confirm Santa J. Ono, until recently the DEI (Diversity, equity, and Inclusion)-crazed president of the University of Michigan, as UF’s next president.
Ono must still be approved by the Florida state university system’s board of governors, a 17-member body mostly appointed by Gov. Ron DeSantis, R-Fla..
At the time of this writing, they are slated to decide the matter on June 3.
This is usually a formality, but a majority vote against the prospective UF president would send Santa on a one-way sleigh ride (in summer!) back to Michigan.
Ono has been a prominent advocate of DEI, along with Critical Race Theory (CRT), climate change insanity, “land acknowledgments,” radical gender ideology, and other solidly beyond left wing positions.
Curiously the only finalist for the UF presidency, which comes with a salary which could reach $3 million annually, the highest of any public university president in America, Ono has attempted to explain away his ideological past, apparently expecting the overwhelming majority of Floridians — and Americans — who reject his heinous ideology to believe that he has “evolved.”
Evolved?! Fat chance!
The record overwhelmingly shows Ono advocating woke positions as recently as a few months ago.
And while it’s true that he scaled back the University of Michigan’s DEI structures in March, he did so only after President Donald Trump’s executive order outlawing DEI in all federal contractors and grantees, including almost all universities, on pain of losing federal funds.
Ono also apparently moved to scale back DEI at Michigan just before he applied for the higher-paying job at UF, where the previous president — Fmr. U.S. Sen. Ben Sasse, R-Neb. — went a long way toward rooting out woke ideology.
It would seem opportunity knocked.
While Michigan’s president, Ono introduced a campus-wide program called “DEI 2.0,” which sought to “fully institutionalize DEI” everywhere to alter “who has power, influence, and voice in priorities and decision-making.”
According to the prestigious Manhattan Institute, Ono’s program was “the most aggressive diversity initiative in the country.”
The New York Times reported that Ono’s administration “doubled down” on DEI even while Florida’s entire system was actively dismantling it.
Ample video evidence circulating on social media shows Ono repeating his DEI-inspired belief that “systemic racism” is “embedded in every corner of any institution” and calls for universities to “dismantle the tools of oppression and white supremacy.”
On Instagram, he is “he/him/his,” using pronouns in a way that most government institutions now prohibit.
Under Ono’s leadership, the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), which monitors campus anti-Semitism, gave Michigan a grade of “F” as pro-Hamas protests and encampments rocked his campus.
Under Sasse, UF had a grade of “A.”
With his legacy at stake, DeSantis has been surprisingly reticent on Ono’s appointment.
When questions were raised in early May, Florida’s governor had little more to say than that he trusted the process and the UF trustees who would carry it out.
Sources cited in media reports over the past few days have suggested that DeSantis has advised the board of governors to “vote your conscience,” neither a repudiation of Ono nor a decisive restatement of DeSantis’s core conservative message on the subject of higher education reform, a major issue in his towering reelection victory in 2022.
Other Florida politicians are speaking up. Sen. Rick Scott, R-Fla., and a former governor of the Sunshine State, has expressed outrage on Twitter/X and on Charlie Kirk’s popular podcast, demanding an investigation of the process.
Reps. Greg Steube, R-Fla., a UF alumnus, and Byron Donalds, R-Fla., who is campaigning for the GOP nomination to succeed DeSantis — who is term-limited and will leave office in 2027 — have both publicly demanded Ono’s rejection.
A rising chorus of media critics is vilifying Ono’s appointment, lashing out at a shocking betrayal of everything DeSantis has stood for and a crushing blow to the national cause of education reform, which Floridians — like most Americans — massively support, with some polls showing rejection of race-based college admissions rising to nearly 70%.
DeSantis has no formal role in the appointment process, but he’s free to make his displeasure known and to restate his principles on the issue of higher education reform, for which he is perhaps best known.
Should he fail to do so, it’s hard to see the Florida electorate trusting him with future office in a state where recent term-limited governors, including Rick Scott, have successfully sought Senate seats.
Florida first lady Casey DeSantis, who may challenge Donalds for the GOP nomination to succeed her husband as governor, could also lose out by association.
In a poll released on May 9, just as the Ono controversy was beginning, Mrs. DeSantis was already trailing Donalds, who holds President Trump’s endorsement, by 19 points.
Having her husband oversee the triumphant return of DEI to Florida’s leading public institution will do nothing to improve her chances or save the DeSantis legacy.
The board of governors, 15 members of whom were appointed by DeSantis, could still save the day, but it’s time for the governor to lead, and that time is fast running out.
Paul du Quenoy is President of the Palm Beach Freedom Institute. Read Paul du Quenoy’s Reports — More Here.
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