Inside the College at the Heart of Ron DeSantis' Culture War

When students return to the New College of Florida this fall, things will be very different from a year ago.

The tiny, progressive liberal arts college in Sarasota, known as a haven for free-thinkers and LGBTQ+ students, has found itself at the center of Florida Governor Ron DeSantis' "war on woke."

The governor, who is seeking the Republican presidential nomination, has accused the school of indoctrinating its 700 or so students with leftist ideology.

In January, he overhauled the school's 13-member board of trustees and tasked them with transforming New College into a bastion for conservatism. The appointees include Christopher Rufo, the conservative activist who orchestrated the right-wing outrage against critical race theory.

Rufo framed the move in terms of a conquest. "We are now over the walls and ready to transform higher education from within," he wrote in a post on X, formerly Twitter, on January 6, the day he was appointed to the board.

The trustees quickly fired the college president, Patricia Okker, and replaced her with Richard Corcoran, a DeSantis ally and former state House Speaker. Then they eliminated the Office of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI).

In April, the board denied tenure to five professors: Rebecca Black and Lin Jiang, who both teach organic chemistry; Nassima Neggaz, who teaches history and religion with a focus on Islam; Gerardo Toro-Farmer, a professor of coastal and marine science; and Hugo Viera-Vargas, whose specialty is Caribbean/Latin American studies and music. Viera-Vargas is suing the trustees and the Florida Board of Governors.

Matthew Lepinski, who served on the board of trustees as faculty chair, quit on the spot at the end of that contentious meeting. He also resigned from his tenured position as a professor of computer science.

"I decided that I could no longer be a part of this," Lepinski told Newsweek.

He had initially been willing to try and find common ground with the new trustees, but the denial of tenure to his five colleagues was the final straw.

"With no discussion of the individual cases, no discussion of the great work that these faculty members had done for our students, the board categorically denied all of these people tenure," he said.

"It was clear to me the new trustees were not going to respect the great work that our faculty had already done, they weren't going to protect our existing academic program... the thing that really made me want to leave was just the complete disregard for the experience of our existing students."

Newsweek reached out via email to New College of Florida for comment about this and other issues raised in this article.

DeSantis spokesman Jeremy Redfern told Newsweek that universities "are taxpayer-funded institutions, and in Florida, they are part of the executive branch of government."

He pointed to remarks DeSantis delivered in May, where he said university systems "are accountable to the best interest of the state of Florida, and [accountable to] the people that you elect to oversee the budget and oversee the administration."

DeSantis said: "We think not only do we have the right to ensure that the universities are pursuing the proper mission, but we have responsibility to ensure that universities are pursuing the core mission. And for us, we believe in the traditional mission of a university to pursue truth, to be able to promote rigor in academic discourse, and to prepare students to be citizens of this republic. I know that may have fallen out of fashion in many parts of the country, but we don't think that the purpose of universities is to impose an ideological agenda."

DeSantis' takeover of the school has led to a mass exodus of faculty. Officials are working to fill 36 open positions, the News Service of Florida reported in July. More have resigned this month, according to Lepinski.

Meanwhile, a majority of the trustees voted in July to advance a $2 million budget request to the legislature to fund a center to combat "cancel culture" in higher education.

Liz Leininger told Newsweek she started looking for jobs as soon as DeSantis announced the appointment of the conservative trustees in January. "Pretty immediately, I recognized the need to explore my options," she said.

She spent six years as an associate professor of biology at New College and got tenure in 2020, but has now moved out of state for a job at St. Mary's College of Maryland.

Leininger has been a vocal critic of the changes at New College over the past several months, on social media and to the media.

She knew that it would carry risk, noting that a new law, Senate Bill 266, allows the president or board of trustees to call a professor for post-tenure review at any time. It also limits arbitration.

"I didn't want to wait around to find out whether my speaking up in defense of New College and against these changes would cost me my job," she said.

What was happening was "terrible enough that I felt like I had to speak out, mostly in defense of the students."

She is most worried about how the upheaval will affect students.

"It's kind of a mass abandonment," she said of the faculty departures. "I'm concerned about my students' ability to get an education, and I'm really concerned about my students who are queer or trans or racial and ethnic minorities [feeling] safe on campus."

Leininger and Lepinski say New College could struggle to teach courses that existing students need because of the dwindling faculty, as well as face difficulty attracting professors to replace the ones leaving. "I think a lot of academics are generally risk-averse and want to go to a place that is stable, and where they can be assured that they will earn tenure in six years," Leininger said.

Shelby Nagle, a 23-year-old pursuing a general studies degree, is worried she may not be able to graduate on time. "I feel disheartened and devastated about the current state of New College," Nagle told Newsweek. "Almost every faculty member I made a connection with is gone. My advisor is gone, my entire thesis committee is gone."

Nagle, of Coral Springs, transferred from the University of Florida a year ago and found New College a much better fit. New College was "perfect," she said. "Small class sizes, caring professors who were passionate about what they teach, an individualized approach to academics and degree paths, and a community that is welcoming, accepting, creative, kind and eccentric."

That's all disappearing, Nagle said.

"I am watching this community dissolve before my eyes as administration is erasing every aspect of our culture—painting over murals created by students, forcing returning students off campus to stay in hotels because they promised incoming athletes their housing, eliminating our DEI department, destroying our student greenhouse, cancelling courses that students were relying on to graduate," she said.

Students, faculty, alumni and others have joined forces to fight what they call a "hostile political takeover" of New College.

DeSantis "is attacking schools and universities across the state in an attempt to control our freedom of speech, our freedom to learn, and our freedom to thrive in our communities," the Save New College coalition's website says. A Change petition calling on state lawmakers to take action has so far amassed more than 5,000 signatures.

But some students have had enough and are transferring.

"After being kicked out of my medically necessary housing assignment, with no response from housing on how to fix it—I decided I was done," Basil Pursley wrote on social media in July. Pursley was among students informed that their housing assignments were changed to accommodate incoming student-athletes and freshmen.

"I have wanted to go to NCF since I was 8 years old. I have never even toured Hampshire [College]. But I am so tired of this mistreatment, of being told I don't belong—I would rather go to a place where at least there is a sliver of a chance for something different."

According to the Sarasota Herald-Tribune, the college recently informed returning students that their housing assignments were being changed to accommodate incoming student-athletes and freshmen. New students would be living in buildings that have traditionally housed upperclassmen, while returning students would be moved to dorms that have mold issues, the newspaper reported. A New College spokesperson pointed to a July 17 statement when asked about the housing issue by Newsweek.

"Based on the findings and recommendations of professional inspectors, New College has taken all affected rooms offline to ensure safety and security of students," the statement said. "New College's ongoing multi-million-dollar campus renovation includes substantial enhancements to all residence halls, meaning students will enjoy some of the finest accommodations at any college in America this fall."

Nagle said she considered transferring, but is "too angry to leave."

"There is a part of me that wanted to transfer but I just couldn't bring myself to leave New College behind," she said. "I felt so lucky to have discovered a place as special as NCF and I will fight until the end for it. I immediately felt at home here in a way that I hadn't felt before."

She is supportive of those who have chosen to leave the school behind, however.

"Earning a degree is difficult enough, but to balance that and fighting a political war isn't sustainable," she said.

Leininger and Lepinski say that what's happening at New College is a "test case" for what DeSantis and Republican allies are planning for other public institutions in Florida, echoing the findings of a preliminary report by a special committee formed earlier this year by the American Association of University Professors.

DeSantis and the Florida legislature "are using their swift, aggressive, and ongoing 'hostile takeover' of New College of Florida as a test case," the report said, with the aim of using it as a "blueprint for future encroachments on public colleges and universities across the country."

"What really worries me is the potential for universities in Florida to really cease to be independent places of thought and free inquiry. Instead, it'll become places where you need to study or teach what the governor likes, otherwise you're fired," Leininger said.

New College is an "example of a much larger issue," she added. "We have to take a much broader look at what the consequences of this are at the national level."

Lepinski feels New College's size is partly the reason it was targeted first.

"I think because we're small, they felt that they could test things out on a very rapid timeline," he said. "I'm not optimistic about the future of New College and I worry about what this means for other colleges in Florida."

Update 8/13/23, 7:50 a.m. ET: this article has been updated with a statement from New College.