Private Colleges
It happened quietly; drowned out by the noise of Congressional Chaos, the near-tragedy on the NFL football field, and the day to day beginnings of a New Year. But while we were distracted, Governor Ron DeSantis of Florida moved to create his own “ideology” university.
There are “real” ideology schools in the United States. Hillsdale College in Michigan is a stand-out. The privately owned school refuses all government monies, including student loans. And Hillsdale is open about their beliefs – in Capitalism, a Christian America, and the “purity” of the Founding Fathers. Hillsdale sees itself as a bastion against “woke” culture. They refuse to recognize the importance that this Nation was founded, in part, on the backs of those that were imported to perform slave labor. And they fail to acknowledge the inequities that still exist in American society.
It’s a free country, and if Hillsdale wants to advocate that view, that’s their right. If someone chooses to attend Hillsdale, they will be imbued with “history” as we knew it in the 1950’s. Back then the “Indians” were in the way of Western/Christian culture, and the South was just exercising their right to “withdraw” from the Union.
“Liberal” Arts
By the way, there are colleges that have an opposite view. Oberlin College in Ohio was founded in the 1840’s, and has been in the fore-front of “liberal” thought ever since. Oberlin was one of the first colleges to admit women and Blacks, and it remains a place where “free thought” is treasured. It’s a “woke” place, in all the good ways that word can mean. Oberlin recognizes and honors the differences in people and tries to value all of the diversity in our Nation. And it’s a private school as well, though not as divorced from Federal funding as Hillsdale.
I also attended a private school here in Ohio, Denison University. Denison did not have an institutional political ideology, but did encourage diversity of thought. Two of my favorite professors were diametrically opposite in their politics. Professor Dennis was a conservative in the traditional Republican manner, who would go onto work in the Reagan Administration. Professor Kirby was a traditional liberal; and the two would challenge their shared students with their teachings. And as different as their politics were, they were to good friends. They were concerned about their students as well as their ideologies. I learned from both.
New College
The New College started out as a private school near Sarasota, Florida. It eventually merged with the public South Florida University, but remained a separately governed institution (around 700 students). New College gives students different options from the traditional “graded” programs. Instead of receiving letter grades, students are given written evaluations of their course performance, a pass/fail/incomplete “contract” with the College. The “contract” might be to get evaluations “passing” three of the five courses they take in a semester, with the goal of encouraging students to both academically experiment and take academic risks. Failure within the contract is acceptable.
As a small school, dedicated to academic experimentation and student governance, it should be little surprise that New College is a “liberal” institution that values the diversity and independence of their students. As their website states:
“…the school community “celebrates diversity, encourages individual expression, and values openness, kindness and mutual respect,” and that the private college that was its predecessor was “founded on principles of equality and inclusion.”
Stop Celebrating
But that doesn’t fit into the current Florida Governor’s campaign against “free thought” and “wokeness”. DeSantis has sponsored several laws requiring public education to restrict discussion of racism, under the misguided guise of controlling “Critical Race Theory”. If DeSantis gets his way, the whole idea that race impacts outcomes in governments, schools, economics or life will be “outlawed” in Florida. Inclusion and diversity are “dirty words” in Florida government.
And since New College is a state school, the Governor of Florida has the authority to select members of the Board of Trustees, the group that determines the administration and policies of the College. DeSantis, on the January 6th anniversary of the 2021 Insurrection, appointed six new trustees to the Board.
Not Critical
One of those appointees is Chris Rufo, a Georgetown University graduate and a fellow at two conservative “think tanks”(Heritage Institute and Claremont College). Rufo is best known for taking the arcane legal study of institutional racism called “Critical Race Theory”, and rebranding it into a label for the right to attack including many of the inclusion and diversity efforts in the United States. While that isn’t what Critical Race Theory was about, Rufo managed to find a “catchy” name to include many of the grievances of the right against public education.
Other new trustees are Matthew Spalding, a government professor at Hillsdale University itself, and Charles Kessler a professor at Claremont. As DeSantis’s chief of staff put it: “ It is our hope that New College of Florida will become Florida’s classical college, more along the lines of a Hillsdale of the South.”
It’s good to be the Governor. He decides what kind of education Floridians should have, or more specifically, what they should believe. And he can makeover a whole university to do it.
Best of all, it’s all on the taxpayer’s dime.
