'Chaos' reigns at Florida college that DeSantis filled with far-right cronies: report

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis has turned the New College of Florida, a public liberal arts college in Sarasota, into a social experiment, staffing the Board of Trustees with hard-right allies with the goal of erasing what he calls "woke" ideology. The result, according to the website Inside Higher Ed, has been utter "chaos" and a campus that can barely function.

New College's problems have been trickling out for months, with the pro-DeSantis trustees interfering with the merit-based tenure system, and major bleeding of staff. The school has been left without an American History professor after pushing out a DeSantis critic and more than a third of the faculty has either been purged or left.

But that appears to be just the beginning, according to the new report.

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The huge staff shortages mean some essential classes won't even be offered this term, reported Johanna Alonso: "Dani Delaney, the mother of one former New College student who is transferring to Hampshire College in Massachusetts — which guaranteed admission to all New College students in good standing — said her son could only find two classes that counted toward his 'area of concentration' (which is what New College calls majors)."

"When he contacted the institution about the lack of relevant courses, she said, he was told the course catalogue was 'in flux' and to 'choose something else.'"

The school is also facing a housing crisis. The new leadership of New College has made a push to boost the school's sports program, accepting huge numbers of student athletes, only to realize that they don't have enough housing for them. It's squeezing out juniors and seniors who were previously given a housing contract into older dorms "except for a number of rooms that are offline due to mold and other structural problems," and, in some cases, even moving them to an extended-stay Home2 Suites hotel at Bradenton Airport, which has been completely rented out for campus housing for the semester.

New College is not the only public college in which Florida that DeSantis is accused of interfering with. A report last month suggests that DeSantis sabotaged the hiring process for the president of Florida Atlantic University in order to seat an unqualified ally in the role.