Next month, New College of Florida will welcome activist and writer Steve Sailer, a ‘proponent of scientific racism’

Next month, New College of Florida will welcome activist and writer Steve Sailer, a ‘proponent of scientific racism’

New College of Florida (NCF) will host the extremist writer Steve Sailer, who has been described as a “white supremacist” and a “proponent of scientific racism”, at a college-branded public event next month.

New College has made headlines since January 2023, when the rightwing governor, Ron DeSantis, vowed to transform it from a university known for liberal values into a conservative institution, and installed a new board of trustees including the rightwing culture warrior Christopher Rufo. That board in turn appointed DeSantis’s “close ally” Richard Corcoran as the new college president, in which role he makes a $699,000 salary.

DeSantis’s lieutenants’ actions at New College – like abolishing disciplines, removing bathroom signage and denying professors tenure – have seen the departure of more than a third of the faculty, and given rise to myriad legal actions.

  • PrincessLeiasCat@sh.itjust.works
    31·
    2 months ago

    I saw a Vice (I think) piece about this. Basically Desantis really took an interest in this one random college and has steamrolled all over it. They interviewed students who thought they were going to one school, but everything changed not long after they got there.

    But it’s so fucking weird that he’s focusing all this energy on this small school. I don’t want to go full tinfoil hat, but this is so random.

    • bassomitron@lemmy.worldEnglish
      25·
      2 months ago

      I think the one buddy of his getting a $699,000 salary as the new school president speaks for itself. The rest is just theatrics while his allies grift public money.

    • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
      19·
      2 months ago

      It’s not so random. It was one of the most progressive schools in the country with a very left-wing student body. This was a targeted attack on what DeSantis viewed as an indoctrination school.

      My brother went to New College. Other than being in Florida, it was a great school that DeSantis has destroyed.

      • PrincessLeiasCat@sh.itjust.works
        7·
        2 months ago

        Oh wow, that’s interesting insight, thanks for the details. I’m in Texas and it’s like a pissing contest between Abbott & Desantis to be the most shitty state.

    • PenguinMage@lemmy.world
      9·
      2 months ago

      You don’t have to go tinfoil hat… they just opened up am “austin university” in TX that’s supposed to be a conservative speaking university… whatever the fuck that means in the actual education since (which I fully assume is not what they care about)

  • SGGeorwell@lemmy.world
    8·
    2 months ago

    Reminds me of Martin Wolf.

    MAGA is eating out the new College of Florida from inside, just as the larva of the spider wasp eats out the host in which it has been laid.

    It also applies to the GOP. Hopefully it doesn’t apply to the whole USA.

    • wjrii@lemmy.world
      13·
      2 months ago

      New College has the double whammy of being Florida’s most liberal public college, and also by far its smallest. It didn’t have nearly the cultural insulation to survive DeSantis even as well as The larger schools who have alumni scattered across various levels of business ands government. More’s the pity. New College was something special.

      UF for instance slow played everything its imported, uselessly-conservative president Ben Sasse thought he might want to do until he got bored of spending the school’s money on his friends in Washington — as in they literally got jobs with UF but never moved to Gainesville — and finally quit.

      • g0d0fm15ch13f@lemmy.worldEnglish
        3·
        2 months ago

        What does it mean to be the “most liberal college” in florida? Is this in the actual college administration? As my understanding and experince indicates that colligate student bodies trend liberally to begin with, and I’ve seen nothing to indicate that would change even in the hellhole that is florida. (Yeah rich coming from Tennessee, I know, but I’m genuinely curious)

        • RBWells@lemmy.world
          17·
          2 months ago

          New College WAS a school where kids sort of designed their own major, did a project or thesis and defended it. The Veggie Bus that ran on used oil from McDonald’s fryers was a New College project. It was good for hyper achievers who didn’t fit into a canned curriculum. I don’t know that I’d call it “liberal” but it was progressive and challenging.

          This apparently annoyed the fuck out of the governor for some reason. Maybe he just doesn’t like the idea of smart weirdos. But it’s those people who move us forward, the smart ones who don’t fit in.

          • prole@lemmy.blahaj.zone
            2·
            2 months ago

            This reeks of “cool guy in high school gets mocked in college by the smart, nerdy (liberal) kids for saying something idiotic, then never stops ‘seeking revenge’ for it.” Meanwhile, the people who mocked him probably don’t even live in the state anymore and have no memory of the incident.

    • FirstCircle@lemmy.mlEnglish
      8·
      2 months ago

      “MAGA is eating out” - this is happening to the colleges in N. Idaho as well, possibly all of ID. Schools losing accreditation, admin and faculty bailing, students unable to xfer credits… a big shit-show that fucks over students but makes the local Fascists think that they’re “taking back education”. Got kids? Send 'em to FL or ID and they can get an unaccredited PhD in Ignorance Studies in a year or less.