Gov. Ron DeSantis re-emerged on the weekend press conference circuit Saturday to take a victory lap at a Southwest Florida school he and his political allies radically changed in recent years, telling a receptive crowd that when it came to conservative reforms, they “ain’t seen nothing yet.”
Speaking Saturday at New College in Sarasota, DeSantis boasted that the school has been wrested away from “the Left,” and is now akin to places that the property-owning white men who established the United States learned.
“But the mission is we want a liberal arts education that is rooted in the Western tradition that is a classical education similar to what our Founding Fathers had when they went to, to universities. That is something that I think will attract people, not just throughout Florida, but throughout the country,” DeSantis asserted.
According to a report by the Sarasota Herald-Tribune, New College has seen its lowest retention rate of first-year students in the college’s history and the departure of more than a third of the faculty.
A newly established athletics department at the college brought in record enrollment through athletic recruiting, but it also led to a decrease in overall grade point averages and test scores, according to the Herald-Tribune. Subsequently, the college dropped 24 spots in the U.S. News and World Report rankings of top liberal arts colleges in the country.
DeSantis’ remarks went beyond New College, touching on a number of right-wing, hot-button issues, such as Major League Baseball moving its All Star Game from Atlanta years ago, the dissemination of so-called “woke” ideology, and the “corruption of academia.”
DeSantis also celebrated squelching protests of the ongoing Israeli war with Hamas.
“The lawn at Florida State, they turned the sprinklers on. They were gone very quickly. Tried to do it at (the University of Florida), didn’t work. And even beyond universities, you know, they tried to take over a street in Miami.”
“A couple of months ago, Miami PD had all of them dragged off in 15 minutes, which was very good because they were taking over places for hours and hours in other parts of the country. Then fast forward a couple of weeks after that, they tried to take over a road going into Disney World and the Florida Highway Patrol ejected them in 11 minutes. That’s a new world record,” DeSantis joked.
“If one of the presidents of our colleges or universities in Florida allowed their campus to become what we’ve seen recently from Harvard or Columbia, they’d be out of work the next day,” the Governor maintained.
–A.G. Gancarski, Florida Politics
Keep Flagler Beautiful says
The usual propaganda. DeSantis did not say the New School is is now “akin to places [where] the property-owning white men who established the United States learned.” We know you hate the governor, but show some journalistic integrity and stop race-baiting.
Justbob says
The beat goes on. Toss in a few chaplains to round out Ron’s White Christian Nationalism.
Mark Foley says
The DeSantis agenda is straight out of the Fascist playbook. Erase and redact history in order to propagandize the next generstion. Erase an entire minority from education – the LGBTQ communuty and their contributions – and redact history lessons pertaining to slavery and the treatment of Native Americans to exclude the truth about the horrors perpetrated in our past. DeSantis education is purposely deficient and caters to a white supremacist world view. His education is an injustice to all minorities as to the majority who benefits from learning the truth about our past. History is to learn from, not to purposely avoid.
Laurel says
“You ain’t seen nothing yet” huh? I bet he’ll be pushing out women’s education as well. Maybe they can learn Home Ec again, or learn to paint on heavy eyebrows.
The idiot has got to go.
Don't get it says
I don’t understand why the curriculum and openness of universities must be altered by our Governor. There are private and Christian Universities within our State already. That choice is there for anyone who seeks that avenue. Why shove a particular set of beliefs and ideologies down the throats of our State’s youth seeking a higher degree. There are so many choices with our State that I really don’t understand why any of them need to be altered. Anyone?
Deborah Coffey says
Well, there were no quotes around your statement in the article; it’s a paraphrase. And, there are plenty of other quotable DeSantis statements that clearly show he is a Nazi (which is what he really is). To call him a White Christian Nationalist is just more “polite.”
Skibum says
In other words, the college is now so tightly controlled that it may no longer resemble an institution of higher learning. Yes, take our state’s college systems back in history to the time when only white, male landowners made all of the decisions, when they were the only citizens who were allowed to vote. Take us back to when women were basically nothing more than man’s personal possessions, to have no say so over much of anything in their lives, when they were not only expected, but legally bound to keep quiet and not even dare to question or argue about decisions men made, even as far as laws protecting men from forcible rape charges if the wife refused the husband’s sexual assault. Take us back to the time when black men, women and children were routinely whipped and treated as less than human. And then teach only this version of white man’s history to our college students while banning books and prohibiting any contradictory teachings that don’t comport with the “John Wayne, white American good guy hero” false narrative that whites in our history never, ever did anything wrong, were all saints and deserve only respect and admiration throughout our nation’s history. Yes, let DeSantis expand this fairytale narrative throughout the state’s entire educational system so every little white child can grow up, waving the American flag and realizing how wonderful, how special, how unique and gifted they are to have been born white and privileged instead of the alternative. Yea, Amerika!
Deborah Coffey says
Simple. Fascists take complete control of everyone and everything.
Deborah Coffey says
You’ve captured the feelings and thoughts of millions of us. Well said.
Laurel says
Exactly right.
Glenn. says
He sure isn’t a real true Christian because they don’t discriminate and they don’t lie and feed people propaganda, he is as phony as a $3.00 bill.
Keep Flagler Beautiful says
It’s a quote from Flagler Live’s article, so it does require quotation marks in my comment. As for calling DeSantis a “Nazi,” you need to grow up. We all know what the Nazis did, and it’s a filthy name to be calling anyone just because you don’t like their policies. Get some new material, not the same old predictable names limp-wristed liberals use as a default when they can’t think of anything more intelligent.