What Happens When the Nebraskan Senate Selects Ben Sasse to Run for Presidencies: The Case of Ronald DeSantis and the 2020 Insurrection

David M. Perry is a journalist, historian and co-author of The Bright Ages: A New History of Medieval Europe. He is a senior academic adviser in the history department of the University of Minnesota. Follow him on his official account on social media websites. The views are of his own and he doesn’t agree with them. CNN has more opinion on it.

Last March, Florida’s Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis signed a bill that exempted the names of applicants for the presidencies of Florida public universities and colleges from disclosure under public record laws. Last week, the search committee for the next president of the University of Florida named Republican Sen. Ben Sasse of Nebraska the sole finalist for the position. In between that bill signing and now, at least as far as the general public is concerned, what happened is anyone’s guess.

For his principled criticism of Donald Trump over the lies about the 2020 election and his vote to impeach the former president for setting the stage for the January 6, 2021 insurrection, Sasse has political clout and is considered a man of integrity. But if he has such integrity, why is he potentially aligning himself with DeSantis – who is busy positioning himself as the next generation of Trumpism – by taking this job?

A conversation with Mark Sasse about the ill-equippedness of college presidents: The case against anti-gays, abortion, and the lack of funding for reproductive health

Politicians have been named to be college presidents before, but they’ve usually been controversial, and only 2% of the time are from elected or appointed office. Things were worse than they were in the last year.

I’ve been interested in Sasse ever since he became a senator because, like me, he has a PhD in history. Along with Newt Gingrich, he’s one of the two most prominent history PhDs in American politics. He received his doctorate from Yale in 2004 with a thesis on the rise of the Christian religious right in the US, worked for former President George W. Bush’s administration and then, after a short period teaching and consulting, became president of then-tiny Midland Lutheran College in Nebraska (now Midland University, with 1,600 students enrolled) for a few years before running for the Senate.

There was a current freshman at Florida who told the student newspaper he didn’t have any information on whether or not Sasse was prejudiced against gays or just faking it. Either way, he said, we either have a genuine anti-gay president or someone who just says what the people want to hear.

Sasse has responded to this criticism by stating that Obergefell is the “law of the land,” so there’s no need to worry, but that kind of reassuring rhetoric was used by conservative nominees to the Supreme Court about Roe v. Wade (and we know how that turned out – those protections of “settled law” are gone).

Speaking of abortion, as president of a major university, Sasse would have significant responsibilities over the reproductive health of students and employees, especially in a college town where so many access health care from university-affiliated sources.

In a press release about legislation, the governor’s office said they wouldn’t fund diversity, equity and inclusion programs even if the source of the money wasn’t from the state.

Students from traditionally underrepresented communities can feel comfortable in a campus setting thanks to diversity, equity and inclusion programs. The University of Florida is the state’s flagship school, has a “Chief Diversity Officer,” a “center for inclusion and Multicultural Engagement” and an “office for accessibility and gender equity.”

When the governor’s office asked state universities to account for all of their spending on diversity, equity and inclusion projects in December, it was a clue as to Tuesday’s announcement.

According to the governor, the college’s mission has been more towards the gender ideology and DEI than toward a liberal arts education.

One of DeSantis’ new board members, Eddie Speir, wrote in an online post that he planned to propose in that meeting “terminating all contracts for faculty, staff and administration” of the school, “and immediately rehiring those faculty, staff and administration who fit in the new financial and business model.”

College Board educators insist that they were not consciously bowing to DeSantis’ pressure when they eliminated edgier topics from the AP African American History curriculum. But the mechanisms of censorship are insidious – threats and intimidation cause people to shift their views, choose their words and stay away from certain topics without even recognizing that they are doing so.

In the official framework made public on Wednesday, topics such as Black Lives Matter, slavery reparations and queer theory are no longer subjects to be taught. They’re only included on a list of topics that states are able to suggest to students for end of the year projects.

The official framework for the expansion of the course to hundreds of high schools in the next academic year states that the course has already been tested at 60 schools. The College Board, which oversees AP courses, said developers consulted with professors from more than 200 colleges, including several historically Black institutions.

The College Board has been taking input also from teachers running the pilot classes as the draft curriculum has gone through several revisions over the last year.

Black History Month: What have we learned in a few years of teaching black people in schools? A conversation with Emmitt Glynn

“To wake up on the first day of Black History Month to news of white men in positions of privilege horse trading essential and inextricably linked parts of Black History, which is American history, is infuriating,” said David Johns, executive director of the National Black Justice Coalition. The lives and contributions of Black trans people should not be diminished or erased.

The course is popular among students in schools where it has been introduced. Emmitt Glynn, a teacher at Baton Rouge Magnet High School, decided to teach two classes rather than one because the students were so interested.

Earlier this week, his students read selections of “The Wretched of the Earth” by Frantz Fanon, which deals with the violence inherent in colonial societies. In a lively discussion, students talked about the conflict between Native Americans and colonizers, the war in Ukraine, and police violence in Memphis, Tennessee.

“We’ve covered the range from the shores of Africa to where we are now in the 1930s, and we’ll continue on through history,” he said. He said that he was proud of his students’ connections between the past and now.

For Malina Ouyang, 17, taking the class helped fill gaps in what she has been taught. “Taking this class,” she said, “I realized how much is not said in other classes.”

Matthew Evans, 16, said the class has educated him on a multitude of perspectives on Black history. He said the political controversy was just a distraction.

The College Board for AP Students: Bringing History and Culture to the Students of St. Amant High School — David Coleman, CEO, Coleman, Ms. Coleman

The College Board offers AP courses across the academic spectrum, including math, science, social studies, foreign languages and fine arts. The courses are not mandatory. Students who score high enough in the final exam for course credit at their university are usually taught at a college level.

David Coleman, CEO of the College Board, said in a statement that the course is an “unforgettable encounter” with facts and evidence of African American history and culture.

“No one is excluded from this course: the Black artists and inventors whose achievements have come to light; the Black women and men, including gay Americans, who played pivotal roles in the Civil Rights movements; and people of faith from all backgrounds who contributed to the antislavery and Civil Rights causes. He said that everyone is seen.

The origins of the African diaspora and freedom, enslavement and resistance are two of the units in the African American studies course.

In Malcolm Reed’s classroom at St. Amant High School in Louisiana, where he teaches the AP class, he tries to be mindful of how the material and discussions can affect students.

I have seen light bulbs go off when I give them information. How does it affect you? How do you think learning about this is going? I’m taking it easy, and it’s also new for me. We’re not just learning about history, we’re making it.

Reply to “Comment on ‘Flavor of a Voter” by the Florida Department of Education on a “Decision that the College Board ruled out a political agenda”

When it came to Florida officials making “audacious claims” about getting the College Board to change the course curriculum, the college board reserved some of its strongest language for them but in reality they offered no concrete suggestions to the organization.

In a lengthy statement released Saturday, the national education nonprofit said it should have more quickly addressed claims by Florida’s Department of Education that the course was indoctrinating students and lacked educational value, which the College Board called “slander.”

The College Board made changes to the final curriculum of the course earlier this month, despite Florida’s public and private objections.

“Florida is attempting to claim a political victory by taking credit retroactively for changes we ourselves made but that they never suggested to us,” the College Board said in a statement.

The course was rejected by the Florida Department of Education as a vehicle for a political agenda, with Republican governor Ron DeSantis’s spokesman saying it was a “vehicle for a political agenda.”

The bill would make state universities subservient to the Republican leader and ban gender studies from being a field of study.

“We have made the mistake of treating FDOE with the courtesy we always accord to an education agency, but they have instead exploited this courtesy for their political agenda,” the organization said in its statement. After each exchange of words, we thank them for their feedback and contribution, even if they didn’t give us anything.

The students of New College are unhappy with what they think, or why they may stay, or whether they will stay or flee: Comment on Dr. Leininger

The denizens of the quiet campus are not sure what to think. Should they stay, or flee? Will the type of student drawn to New College fundamentally change? Will junior faculty members be given tenure? Will the new board or president fire the staff en masse, as one of the new trustees suggested should happen?

“Everything that’s been happening has been very disruptive,” said Elizabeth C. Leininger, an associate biology professor, noting that the spring semester began the day before the Jan. 31 board meeting. It is similar to when a storm hits Florida, and everyone is preoccupied.

The college does not have economies of scale that make it difficult to compete with universities with economies of scale.

Still, unsupported claims by Mr. DeSantis and his allies that New College’s students are being indoctrinated by far-left professors have offended students, faculty, parents and alumni, who feel misrepresented. Many said that the school welcomed young people who might not fit elsewhere — intensely bookish kids, bullied kids, kids with disabilities, queer kids — and required them to be driven.

Many of the young adults who are choosing to be a part of that are progressive and feel drawn to the existing student body. That doesn’t mean what is taught in a class will be compatible with students’ views.

He said that he was becoming more conservative at New College because he was on schedule to graduate next year. Students are encouraged to make their own judgments and professors are credited with teaching many points of view. He switched majors from political science to quantitative economics and was hoping to become a corporate lawyer.

Protests of the Dismissibility of the Advanced Placement course on African American Studies at the Georgia House of Representatives Against Governor Robert DeSantis

The Rev. Al Sharpton led hundreds of marchers who rallied outside of the state capitol in protest of the governor’s rejection of the African American studies course.

The Civil Rights movement and Jim Crow are two examples of how education played a role in America’s racism and bigotry.

Our children need to know how bad you were, and how good you are, in order to know how strong they are. They come from a people that fought from the back of the bus to the front of the White House.”

“Make note that we are all marching together,” said Sharpton, noting that the crowd included members of the LGBTQ, Native American and Latinx communities. “You should have left us alone. Now you have brought us all together.”

The marchers shouted “Hey, hey, ho, ho, Ron has got to go!” and “I’m Black and I’m proud!” Some carried signs that said “save our history” and “We will not be silenced.”

Shaia Simmons is a former teacher who taught the new course that was rejected by the state.

The testing organization behind the new course last weekend accused the state Education Department of “slander” and spreading misinformation about it for political gain.

The College Board earlier this month released the official framework of the new Advanced Placement course on African American studies with many of the topics DeSantis objected to removed.

In January, DeSantis replaced six of the 13 members on the college’s board of trustees with conservative allies, including Christopher Rufo, who has fueled the fight against critical race theory.

The interim president was appointed by the new board and was an ally of DeSantis. Corcoran will earn a base salary of more than $689,000 while serving from February 27 to September 1, 2024.

An Outburst from New College of Florida and How it Affects Students’ Choices about Higher Education in the U.S.

“People are very scared for what’s to come, especially kids who aren’t graduating any time soon,” Sharf told CNN. This is a hostile political act.

DeSantis’ office insists that the New College of Florida in Sarasota has seen declining enrollment and focuses too heavily on diversity and inclusion, critical race theory and gender ideology.

Some critics also worry the state might influence other Republican-led states to adopt similar measures, dwindling their options even further. The governor of Texas demanded that state agencies stop using diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) initiatives in hiring, calling the practice illegal.

DEI programs are designed to promote representation for people who have experienced discrimination because of their race, ethnicity, disability, gender, or sexual orientation.

The president of the American Association of University Professors said earlier this month that people might go to other states to get a graduate degree.

“The consequences for students are enormous,” Mulvey said. Students are denied the opportunity to hear important perspectives, and they are denied the opportunity to learn. That’s the real tragedy.”

The executive director of the National Black Justice Coalition said policies that reject diversity will push people away from higher education in Florida.

He said a lot of what the policies are designed to do is to discourage people from bothering with it. “That their contributions, their history, their ways of attempting to strengthen democracy do not matter and should not have a place in the version of America that they are now naming as classical.”

Several other states adopted anti-Abortion legislation after Georgia passed a heartbeat bill. He thinks New College of Florida is a good example of conservative MzE MzE MzE MzE MzE MzE MzE MzE MzE MzE MzE MzE MzE MzE MzE MzE MzE MzE MzE MzE MzE MzE MzE MzE MzE MzE MzE MzE MzE MzE MzE MzE MzE MzE MzE MzE MzE MzE MzE MzE MzE MzE MzE MzE MzE MzE

Some students at New College of Florida are already considering other options for their education. The school has nearly 700 students and 100 full-time faculty members, according to its website.

New College is not a Hillside of the South, but a good place to be: A professor’s perspective on the college and the students

Sharf is worried that the new board will eliminate the queer culture on campus to make the college more attractive for white students.

Florida Education Commissioner Manny Diaz said in a statement that officials wanted New College of Florida to “become Florida’s classical college, more along the lines of a Hillsdale of the South.” There is a conservative Christian college in southern Michigan.

“I would not want to attend a school that is ‘Hillsdale of the South,’” Sharf said. I would probably have to leave because it would be too hostile to trans students.

The third-year anthropology student said that the changes feels like backlash against progress towards the rights of minorities and the LGBTQ community.

Obraud also views it as an attack on educational freedom and on the safe space that New College and other universities across the country offer for students.

“That’s part of making education accessible to everyone and making sure that people feel safe is a huge part of making sure they are in a good position to learn,” Obraud said.

Chris Kottke, a mathematics professor at the New College of Florida, rejected Republican claims of being a bastion of liberal indoctrination.

Instructors always taught students how to think differently. Kottke said while most of the diverse clubs on campus don’t rely on state funding, he worries about whether they will be able to continue to safely operate.

The Real Issue of Free Enterprise: A Reply to DeSantis on the Issues of Getting Along with Business and Human Resources, or How to Train Students about Sexual Identity

DeSantis’ pugilistic style has become a frequent topic of debate among free-market conservatives who believe the government shouldn’t interfere with businesses. DeSantis has often intervened if he accuses a business of running afoul of his vision of freedom. He instigated a standoff with the cruise line industry during the pandemic over their vaccine policies, banned businesses from requiring masks and vaccines, and championed a bill that restricted how businesses train workers around topics such as race and gender.

In pushing back against wokeness he embraced the very tactics he had decried, putting the government’s power behind efforts to viewpoints that offend him and his supporters.

As Florida state lawmakers met earlier this month to hand DeSantis new authority over Disney World – punishment for the company’s opposition to a measure restricting certain classroom instruction about sexual orientation and gender identity – Republican Gov. Chris Sununu of New Hampshire took a shot at the power grab.

“I’m a principled free-market conservative,” said Sununu, who is also weighing a bid for president. For some other people out there who disagree with you politically, that is not very conservative.

The approach of demonization and stigmatization that make it difficult to raise questions is a way of trying to silence criticism. Conservatives need to reject an approach that meets informal chilling of speech with out-and-out government censorship. Florida education officials should educate and incentivize college administrators, principals and teachers on how to maintain a classroom open to all ideas, rather than responding to the exclusion of views they like with laws prohibiting those they don’t.

“Corporatism is not the same as free enterprise, and I think too many Republicans have viewed limited government to basically mean whatever is best for corporate America is how we want to do the economy,” the Florida governor said at a speech last year at the National Conservatism Conference. “My view is, you know, obviously free enterprise is the best economic system, but that is a means to an end.”

Reply to Republican Democrat Ron DeSantis’ Critique of the Florida Republican Party Candidate and the State of Freedom”

A supporter of Republican Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis said it was not a good spot for him to be in the long term if he was perceived as racially insensitive.

The supporter pointed directly to the fight over an Advanced Placement course on African American studies and DeSantis’ quarrel with the College Board, saying the governor could alienate some voters who would otherwise be supportive.

But Republicans voters have yet to be introduced to many potential contenders for the party nomination. Meanwhile, outside groups such as the Club for Growth and Americans for Prosperity have signaled they intend to get involved in the primary.

The Club for Growth has great interest in this man, but Frayda believes he has become too heavy-handed in his pursuit of social issues. DeSantis is one of six Republicans invited to a Club for Growth donor summit in Florida as the conservative organization distances itself further from Trump. Also invited are former Vice President Mike Huckabee and former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo.

“I’m a genuine libertarian; I’m kind of a live-and-let-live kind of girl,” Levin told CNN. She said she has no problem with candidates espousing strongly held personal beliefs on social issues but said she objects to DeSantis “putting the power of his state behind his socially conservative views.”

Larry Hogan, who was a fellow Republican, said last year that the cruise lines were told what they had to do by Governor DeSantis. Hogan was critical of the governor as he pondered entering the race for the Republican nomination.

Meanwhile, South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem, another potential GOP contender, has also compared her Covid19 record against DeSantis in ways that suggest Florida was too hands-on – for ideologically disparate reasons. Noem said Friday it was her state, not Florida, that “set an example of freedom” by refusing to shut down at all. Florida, which DeSantis has called a Citadel of Freedom, closed schools, bars and theme parks and restricted other economic activity early in the pandemic.

Source: https://www.cnn.com/2023/02/19/politics/ron-desantis-conservatives-florida-2024/index.html

The fight against the state power to correct the ideological corruption of public universities: When Gov. DeSantis lost his 19-point victory in November 2020, the Left would be right

But his approach has often included more government programs (creating an office to pursue voter fraud and a new program to conduct missions to surveil, house and transport migrants from border states to Democratic jurisdictions), more regulation (dictating bank lending practices) or flexing government power in unprecedented manners (ousting an elected state prosecutor).

The allies pushed back against the chatter. The Manhattan Institute’s senior fellow, Christopher Rufo, said on the social networking site that the Governor was using his power to be an elected leader even after a 19-point victory in November.

“The complaint about using ‘state power,’ meaning constitutionally-mandated democratic governance, to correct the ideological corruption of public universities, i.e., state institutions funded by taxpayers, is ridiculous,” Rufo tweeted. “Amounts to the people being unable to regulate the state.”

I don’t like that Gov. DeSantis is going after Disney’s tax status. “It can be portrayed or feel or look like retaliation. And I believe that the people who serve our nation need to rise above these moments in time in their conduct and behavior.”

But later in 2022, Griffin touted DeSantis’ “tremendous record” in an interview with Politico and suggested he would back the Florida governor in the GOP primary for president.

According to a 1947 legal precedent, men pretending to be women are not allowed in drag shows. He proposes to challenge the Supreme Court decision on libel, which narrowed the scope of press freedom.

Leadership will be needed to escape the escalating battle of assaults on speech. University presidents need to stand up and insist that all viewpoints are heard on a fair basis. They also need to resist intrusive legislation that micromanages curriculum and undercuts academic freedom.

All those who care about free speech should be concerned by this fight over public discourse. The left is too quick to want to silence those who offend or threaten them. The right is going further and legitimizing government power so that certain books, ideas and viewpoints are out of bounds. The greatest casualty in this battle may be neither progressive nor conservative ideas, but the principle of free speech itself.

The new visibility and appreciation of transgender and non-binary identities and rights has raised important questions about pronouns, bathrooms, sports and the autonomy of adolescents. The murder of George Floyd in 2020 inspired colleges, schools and companies to take new measures to address the legacy of racism in their institutions. These are positive developments, vital to bringing about a more inclusive and equal society.

Efforts to promote equity crossed over into censoriousness in some cases. Just last week Roald Dahl’s publisher announced plans to scrub beloved works like “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory” and “Matilda” of references that could be construed as offensive to the overweight, wig-wearers or people with horse-like features. The play ‘The Vagina Monologues’ was canceled by a student performance due to the fact that the script failed to acknowledge that not all women have vaginas.

Some curricula and programs offer simplistic, monolithic or flat-out illiberal ideas about racial issues, dismissing challenging questions or alternative perspectives as rooted in racism, reeking of undeserved privilege or otherwise beyond the pale.

In a highly publicized incident at the University of Central Florida in 2020, Professor Charles Negy was fired after his tweets about “Black privilege” prompted campus protests. The university claimed he was guilty of wrongdoing, but an Affirmative found no just cause to find him guilty. The incident appeared to be part of a larger pattern.

Last year a federal appeals court struck down the campus’ discriminatory harassment policy, citing its “astonishing breadth—and slipperiness.” The court found that a reasonable student could be afraid of what their speech would do to the university and that he would be better off keeping his mouth shut.

The legislation, filed this week, would also require that general education courses at state colleges and universities “promote the values necessary to preserve the constitutional republic” and cannot define American history “as contrary to the creation of a new nation based on universal principles stated in the Declaration of Independence.” It would prohibit general courses “with a curriculum based on unproven, theoretical or exploratory content.”

All hiring decisions would be made by the boards of trustees of the universities with input from the school president under the bill. A board of trustee member could also call for the review of any faculty member’s tenure.

Students and faculty at the New College of Florida are planning to demonstrate during a board of trustees meeting Tuesday after Gov. Ron DeSantis launched a conservative takeover of the small public liberal arts college.

Leffler said New College of Florida has always encouraged free academic thought. He said that the lawmakers were trying to restrict the freedom by telling students what they could and couldn’t study.

The bill was praised by Rufo, who said that it restores the principle of colorblind equality. Rufo is a senior fellow and director of the initiative on critical race theory at the conservative Manhattan Institute.