In Florida, and across America, higher education is facing unprecedented attacks — affecting what subjects can be taught, how university presidents can be ousted, whether various institutions will lose federal funding and if diversity and inclusion offices are even allowed to exist.
It’s not just a battle. It’s an all-out war against the traditional norms of academia.
President Donald Trump’s crusade against Harvard University and other colleges began in January 2025, but in Florida, where Republicans have long had a monopoly on power in a staunchly red state, that same war has already been underway for several years.
Gov. Ron DeSantis
Gov. Ron DeSantis has been leading the charge to reframe universities and college campuses across Florida by promoting an expansive brand of conservatism.
The results have been dramatic and controversial. The governor has pushed for leadership shake-ups at public universities, heavy scrutiny of colleges’ finances through the creation of a Florida “DOGE” — like what’s happening in Washington, D.C., — and removal of hundreds of college courses, such as sociology, anthropology and history classes, from a standard undergraduate degree.
In many ways, Florida is “Ground Zero” for the ongoing earthquake that is hitting U.S. higher education.
That said, Florida’s higher education makeover has also been met with resistance from faculty, students, the ACLU, and even some Republicans.
An American Association of University Professors report on Florida higher education in 2023 said this: “What is unfolding in Florida is horrifying. It should serve as a cautionary tale to all in higher education, but we are mindful that this tale has yet to reach its conclusion. The time for intervention has not passed—yet.”
In addition, “We call on all professional organizations, unions, faculty, students, staff, administrators, and communities across the country to fight such ‘reforms’ tooth and nail and to offer support to colleagues and unions in Florida and beyond, however they can. The survival of the institution of higher education free from political interference and the ideological agenda of autocrats—a cornerstone of democratic societies—hangs in the balance. Being a bystander is no longer an option.”
Censoring higher education?
But following that AAUP report, DeSantis has continued his heavy influence over higher education.
“We see the pockets of resistance at the same time that we also see Ron DeSantis moving forward with other items on his wish list,” said Afshan Jafar, a professor of sociology at Connecticut College who co-authored the report.
Just recently, Florida joined several other southern states in creating an alternate accreditor for public colleges and universities. It’s called the Commission for Public Higher Education. The move, if successful, would allow Florida universities to bypass the existing accreditor system, which generally requires what’s called shared governance between university leaders and faculty on important university decisions.
College faculty are among the most-vocal critics of Florida’s education policies. By switching to its own in-house accreditor, Florida could further reduce the already-minimal pressure to share any power whatsoever with faculty.
“They’re basically going to change the rules for accreditation, and get to do whatever they want,” Jafar, the author of the AAUP report, said in an interview regarding more-recent events in Florida.
In announcing the new alt-accreditor, Ray Rodrigues, the chancellor of Florida’s public university system (and a former GOP state lawmaker) released a statement in June saying, “I am proud to be joined by leaders of five other public university systems to establish an accreditor that will focus on ensuring institutions provide high-quality, high-value programs, use student data to drive decisions, and improve the efficiency and effectiveness of the process.”
Censoring what colleges can say (or teach), has also become more common — in Florida, and around the country.
So far this year, according to PEN America, a New York City-based nonprofit that advocates for free expression worldwide, there have been more than 70 bills introduced in statehouses that would censor higher education.
At least 15 of those bills passed, according to Amy Reid, PEN America’s “Freedom to Learn” senior manager.
“Florida is a harbinger of changes that are coming across the country,” Reid said. “State-level legislation and policies are undermining the support structures that made American higher education the gold standard for the world.”
Unexpected headwinds
Florida’s higher education goals share some similarities with the Heritage Foundation-authored Project 2025 plan, which is the Trump administration’s blueprint for running the government.
And Trump’s second term as president strengthens Heritage’s influence over higher education issues nationwide.
The Heritage Foundation declined an interview request from the Florida Trident, and instead requested written questions.
The organization later declined to respond to those written questions.
Meanwhile, Florida’s higher ed agenda has encountered some unexpected headwinds several times this year. Consider:
In January 2025, the ACLU of Florida sued to overturn Florida Senate Bill 266, a law passed in 2023 that imposes restrictions on university programs and discussions related to diversity, equity, and inclusion. The plaintiffs in the lawsuit are professors from University of Florida, Florida State University, and Florida International University. The defendants are from the Florida Board of Governors of the State University System and members of the Board of Trustees at UF, FSU and FIU.
The ACLU calls the law “a blatant effort to control the content of higher education, muzzle Florida’s scholars, and erase perspectives the state finds politically inconvenient.”
While several DeSantis allies landed university president jobs this year, the Republican speaker of the Florida House, Daniel Perez, delivered a speech that blasted the apparent favoritism in the public university presidential-search process.
The fallout from the DeSantis-led overhaul of New College of Florida in 2023 continues — prompting the resignation of the alumni association chairman, and unflattering media coverage about the college’s declining academic prestige, and uncertain future.
Leftist viewpoints
In a statement to the Trident, the governor’s deputy press secretary, Molly Best, wrote in June that DeSantis is working to “ensure that universities are fulfilling their classical mission of teaching students to think for themselves, maintaining academic integrity, and ultimately preparing enrollees to be citizens of our great republic. In Florida, institutions of higher education will not be permitted to be organs of the political left.”
But Jafar, the AAUP report author, pushed back on DeSantis’ allegation that colleges are pressuring students to adopt leftist viewpoints.
“It’s always seemed to me that the idea that these are lefties indoctrinating students, I’ve never really seen the evidence for that,” Jafar said. Instead, she said, it is the DeSantis administration that is “100 percent” guilty of attempting to indoctrinate students.
“They’re out to impose their particular agenda,” Jafar said. “Their particular worldview, and that’s what this is about. This is about controlling the next generation’s access to knowledge, what they’re even allowed to think about, what they’re even allowed to talk about.”
Reacting with outrage
DeSantis has alleged “woke” campus culture is even present at the University of West Florida in Pensacola — the most conservative and reliably-Republican region in the state.
The Pensacola community reacted with outrage (and grassroots organizing), after DeSantis appointed five new members to the University of West Florida board of trustees in January.
Among the community’s complaints: several of the board members had fringe political views, or had made highly-offensive statements in the past; some of the appointees had no connection to UWF, or to the Panhandle region; and the community saw the board appointments as foreshadowing a DeSantis-led takeover that could dramatically alter UWF’s identity.
“We feel like we’ve had something shoved down our throat that’s not right for us,” said Jeanne Godwin, a former UWF trustee who started a petition to oppose the governor’s appointees. Godwin is also one of the founders of the “Save UWF” movement, which held a well-attended local town hall meeting, successfully lobbied for support from Pensacola elected officials, and then traveled to Tallahassee, en masse, to testify before state lawmakers.
In an interview, Godwin noted the area’s ruby-red political leanings.
“There was one election that the Panhandle vote got Mr. DeSantis into office,” Godwin said. “And it seems like he just doesn’t care anymore.”
The “Save UWF” movement achieved big results. Two of the controversial DeSantis appointees resigned, while a third had his appointment rejected by a Florida Senate committee in April.
Despite the strong resistance from the UWF community, DeSantis remains steadfast in his view that Florida’s universities must be radically redesigned.
“University of West Florida, buckle up,” DeSantis said at an April press conference in Pensacola. “You’re going to see a lot of changes there for the better. How does, like, the most conservative part of the state have some of the most liberal programs in the state? It doesn’t make any sense. So the times are a-changing there, too.”
In May, “Save UWF” activists were alarmed at the selection of Manny Diaz, Jr. as interim UWF president.
Diaz, the former commissioner of the Florida Department of Education, is also a former GOP state lawmaker who served in both the House and Senate. His appointment at UWF is the latest in a string of political insiders being selected for high-paying university presidency positions.
Deeply upset
Marva Johnson, a DeSantis ally who previously served on the Florida State Board of Education, became president of Florida Agricultural and Mechanical University (FAMU) in May.
Johnson’s hefty compensation package — which the university is struggling to afford — was finalized in June.
Some students, along with board of trustees’ members, were deeply upset at Johnson’s hiring, in part because she did not have any prior higher education experience.
Johnson’s critics have dubbed her “MAGA Marva.”
At the state’s flagship institution, the University of Florida, the Board of Governors (mostly appointed by DeSantis) overruled UF trustees, who had unanimously picked Santa Ono, the former University of Michigan president, to lead Gator Nation.
Despite that unanimous support from UF trustees, Florida’s Board of Governors rejected Ono in June, in part because of his past support for diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives.
Michael Haller, a UF professor and chief of pediatric endocrinology, posted an angry open letter on X in response.
“No qualified apolitical leader will ever come near our campus again with an eye on sitting in a leadership role,” Haller wrote. “By way of your insatiable appetite for political lackeys to serve as presidents of our state universities, each one of you are responsible for the ensuing brain drain that is likely to accelerate at UF.”
Also this year, Adam Hasner — a former GOP majority leader in the Florida House — became president of Florida Atlantic University. And DeSantis’ lieutenant governor, Jeanette Nuñez, resigned from her post to become interim president at Florida International University. She became the president in mid-June.
In an interview with the Trident in late May, Marc Sarnoff, a member of FIU’s board of trustees, said “there was no pressure, whatsoever, at all” to pick Nuñez.
Sarnoff said the former lieutenant governor — who is also a former Republican state lawmaker — “is the right person for the job.”
“She’s an incredibly energetic, articulate, and well-reasoned person,” Sarnoff said. “Who will serve the university well, probably for the next decade.”
FIU student Elizabeth Elmi, a rehabilitation and recreational therapy major, said students admired the previous president, Kenneth Jessell, who was both supportive of students, and frequently accessible to them.
“Nobody’s happy about this,” Elmi said about Jessell being replaced. “All the people I have talked to, they’re not very happy about it. They feel, like, betrayed. No one asked us. No one. It was just ‘emails were sent.’”
“It’s just like communism,” Elmi added.
The head of FIU’s faculty union told a local radio station that professors were caught off-guard by this unnecessary “emergency appointment.”
FIU student Daniela Gonzalez, a music education major and the daughter of Republican-leaning Cuban-American parents, said, “this whole situation we have going on with the government getting involved in human rights, in education rights, kind of feels a little too ‘dictatorship.’”
“And they’re not realizing it, and it’s really scary,” Gonzalez said.
House Speaker gets involved
The current Republican speaker of the Florida House of Representatives, Miami Rep. Daniel Perez, has his district office on the FIU campus.
Perez has also publicly questioned how university presidents are being chosen.
In a March speech to Florida’s board of governors, who oversee the state-university system, Perez called for greater transparency. Perez said the state must avoid “a spoils system for a select few.
“Requiring that the leaders of institutions with a multi-billion-dollar budget be chosen in an open and competitive process is a moral and fiscal imperative,” Perez said.
Perez noted that the legislature previously exempted presidential searches from public-records laws, but he argued this was only done “so that we could attract the strongest possible candidates, because that’s what our students deserve.”
Perez’s office did not respond to an interview request from the Florida Trident, and the board of governors did not respond to a request for comment.
New College’s makeover
The DeSantis-led makeover of New College of Florida is largely complete.
The Sarasota’s institution now has a conservative university president (former Republican House Speaker Richard Corcoran), and it has redesigned the university curriculum, while shuttering its Gender and Diversity Center (and tossing hundreds of books from that center into a dumpster).
New College is also forging new relationships with wealthy conservative donors, and hiring big-name conservatives for faculty and administrative roles.
If DeSantis succeeded in leaving his imprint on New College, does that mean the college is doing well?
Not exactly, says Benjamin Brown, who until March chaired New College’s alumni association.
Brown abruptly resigned in March, and in his 11-page resignation letter he complained of “dramatically low morale” among alumni.
In an interview with the Trident, Brown said New College is having difficulty attracting new students — despite the college lowering its academic standards for admission. And he said he does not believe the current college leadership has the skills necessary to turn this troubling trend around.
“It was managed so incredibly poorly from a simple business and operational perspective that it is falling apart, and failing,” Brown said.
And because New College has become the unofficial “blueprint” for a conservative-led college overhaul, what happens to that tiny liberal-arts college will likely reverberate across Florida, and possibly across the nation.
Michael Vasquez is an investigative reporter who previously worked at The Chronicle of Higher Education, Politico, and The Miami Herald. His prior investigations led to the closure of Miami’s most politically-powerful for-profit college, the arrest of its owner, and a change to state law that better protected students. The Florida Trident is an investigative news outlet focusing on government accountability and transparency across Florida. The Trident was created and first published in 2022 by the Florida Center for Government Accountability, a non-profit organization that facilitates local investigative reporting across the state.