WTW50: New College Was a Progressive University. Then Ron DeSantis Took It Over

Transcript

This transcript was generated automatically and may contain errors — the audio is the record.

0:00:03 Clip: What's so scary about the woke mob, how often you just don't see them coming.

0:00:11 Clip: Anywhere you see diversity, equity, and inclusion, you see Marxism, and you see woke principles being pushed.

0:00:19 Clip: Wokeness is a virus more dangerous than any pandemic hands down. The woke monster is here, and it's coming for everything, everything, everything, and everything. Instead of go-go boots, the seductress green M&M will now wear sneakers.

0:00:42 Thomas: And welcome to Where There's Woke. This is episode 50. Holy shit.

0:00:47 Lydia: A moment.

0:00:47 Thomas: Wow. I'm Thomas. That's Lydia. How you doing?

0:00:52 Lydia: Hi, I'm doing pretty well. How are you?

0:00:54 Thomas: Well. Well, a surprise milestone, you know.

0:00:56 Lydia: Yeah, I know. Just realized that right now.

0:01:00 Thomas: Well, I'm sure we have something exciting planned. I definitely got you something for it, but it just hasn't come yet. Definitely. Be any minute. No, you've been working on this project forever. So it's unclear if you're ever done with it, but it's one of those like, all right, guess it's time.

0:01:13 Lydia: My god. Probably not. Yeah I guess it's time to get this one started anyway. Anyway, so I want to start by giving a special shout out to a listener, Heidi Gazer, who helped me put this stuff together because there's so much and she was super helpful helping me compile timelines and collate research and stuff. So thank you, Heidi. Hope you're listening. And I am very, very grateful for your assistance. So what did Heidi help me with? The people want to know. Um, new college of Florida. We're finally going to talk about new college of Florida it's just always been called new college.

0:01:56 Thomas: New college. Why is it called Oh, really?

0:02:01 Lydia: Yeah. We'll get a little bit into kind of the background, but it's not a new college it's an old college.

0:02:06 Thomas: Well, that's confusing.

0:02:09 Lydia: It is confusing. Um, new you remember anything from 2023? 23. Nothing.

0:02:15 Thomas: No, I remember nothing from 2020.

0:02:17 Lydia: Oh, that's fair. Do you remember anything related?

0:02:20 Thomas: Do I remember anything from 2022? No, we can go through all the years. Memory stretches back, boy, about an hour, maybe?

0:02:30 Lydia: Do you remember hearing anything about New College of Florida in the news? Any no one talking about it?

0:02:35 Thomas: No, I only remember you mentioning it

0:02:38 Lydia: Me going crazy about it.

0:02:38 Thomas: Every... Yeah, you saying like, okay, we're going to do new college every single week for like a year.

0:02:43 Lydia: Every week I had another update for you. I was like, you'll never guess what's happening at New College.

0:02:49 Thomas: This is a spoiler -free household, so I know nothing about this. I mean, I'm sure I'll remember once you start talking about it, but no, I don't know.

0:02:55 Lydia: So New College, January 6, 2023, not 2021, but, you know, conveniently two years to the day from when conservatives attempted to take over our democracy, DeSantis Santos announced that he would be taking over New College of Florida, a public institution, a public college in Florida.

0:03:19 Thomas: He's taking it over. Okay.

0:03:21 Lydia: Did it by way of something that he's legally allowed to do. He appointed new trustee members, new truste members. And that is, again, within his rights as the governor to appoint. However, Haya Raychik was not included here. I was waiting for that, but I guess Oklahoma has libs of TikTok. Oklahoma has first on her. Before we get into who those trustees are exactly, you started off this episode with, I think, a reasonable question. Is New College, right? Right. It is Florida's designated honors college. It's defined that way in statute. And it actually started back in 1960 as a private liberal arts college funded partly by the United Church of Christ.

0:04:08 Thomas: Do all states have a designated honors college?

0:04:11 Lydia: No, this is pretty, pretty

0:04:12 Thomas: Oh, okay. Thank God. I was like, is that like the state flower and the state bird?

0:04:16 Lydia: No, no. But the school started in the private sphere for institutions. It was open to all races, genders, religions in 1960. That's, you know, that's pretty good. In Florida. Yeah. And over the years, you know, it had decent enrollment. But then in the 1970s, when inflation hit, they started to really struggle. And by 1975, and I don't know exactly the decisions that led to this outside of just inflation as a general situation. But by 1975, they were almost $4 million in debt, significant for that period of time for a small liberal arts college. Part of trying to get out of that debt, they made an agreement with with the state of Florida, that Florida would absorb the

0:04:28 Thomas: Wow. Progressive? In Florida, no less. Okay. Hmm.

0:05:06 Lydia: Debt that they owed to their creditors. And in 1975, they became public by merging with University of South Florida. But they wanted to maintain their independence to some degree. So it was considered a separate upper division campus within the University of South Florida rather than a USF satellite, you specifically. And continued on until 2001. In 2001, it became an autonomous college. So it was autonomous. I don't know.

0:05:40 Thomas: Gain sentience? Or like walks around no you're probably right

0:05:45 Lydia: That's what my research is showing, the language that they have used. In 2001, it separated from USF. From what I understand, there were challenges with USF, USF is a huge school. And I don't really know, I imagine there was a lot of politics at play between the two entities. And it was kind of in everybody's best interest to that relationship. And as said, 2001, they became their own entity and they statutorily designated as the Honors College at that point in time. And their mission is also stated in Florida statute.

0:05:45 Thomas: I don't know that's yeah nice work if you can get it I want to be statutorily designated like the us just like a smart person like we've decided where there's woke actually is the honors podcast of california we've statutorially it's only for the smart kids so

0:06:28 Lydia: It's pretty protective. Yeah. Yeah there we go. Yeah don't look it up. So their mission, as defined in statute, is to provide programs of study that allow students design to their educational experience as much as possible in accordance with their individual interests, values and abilities. It's very it is a very liberal arts college. It's actually one of the most well -regarded public liberal arts colleges from my research. Research and they actually have like a significant percentage of Fulbright scholars. We'll do a where there's probably in the future on Fulbright because he was a racist.

0:06:53 Thomas: Yeah it's very liberal artsy right right?

0:07:14 Lydia: I would love to dive into that. You know, the scholarship program through Fulbight scholars is, you thing.

0:07:12 Thomas: Huh. Oh, you know it. I've

0:07:21 Lydia: So we can talk about the scholars. Seventy seven percent of all Fulbrights that were awarded to Florida college students, public and private universities in the last 15 years were at New College.

0:07:22 Thomas: Heard of it. Yeah. Wow.

0:07:34 Lydia: So, you know, really bright student body.

0:07:37 Thomas: Fulbright.

0:07:39 Lydia: Some would say they're Fulbright. The way that New College approaches their academics academics is very alternative. Of higher education in line with that mission statement, right, that the students are there to design that experience, their educational experience, as much as possible aligned with what they want to be studying. And as a result, the majors that they offer are highly individualized. So you can sign up and say, you know, I want to major in psychology. You know, they have kind of a standard track for all those things. But you could say, oh, I'm kind of interested in psychology and also economics and also Irish history. And so now I'm going to blend those things together. And under the guidance of faculty, I'm going to develop my own course of study, my own area of expertise based off of my interests. They also don't do grades there.

0:08:42 Thomas: This reminds me of Evergreen College when I covered that way back when. Brett Weinstein's place that he's now not at. They the same thing.

0:08:52 Lydia: They don't do grades. They're they do narrative evaluations that the teachers prepare. And those evaluations are prepared based off of discussions that they've had with the students to create a contract. They're essentially sitting down and saying, you know, this is the course of study that you are going to pursue. And in order to demonstrate, you Know, your education in these areas, and like, these are the objectives we're looking for. And then they do those narrative evaluations at the the end of the year or the end of the semester.

0:09:23 Thomas: This sounds like a really small place, though, right?

0:09:25 Lydia: Very small. Fewer than 700 students are enrolled.

0:09:28 Thomas: Oh, for. OK.

0:09:30 Lydia: Yeah, very, very small and students do independent study projects. They also have to do a thesis in order to earn their degree and get into that a little bit later when we talk about some of the students there, they understandably based off of everything that you're hearing here, they have a high tolerance of diversity They are very flexible with a lot of different things. They have a reputation for having lot of quirky students, a high LGBTQ population. Understanding that, yes, it is an incredibly small school and it is an incredibly, let's school. Administration and faculty over the years have been feeling that they have been kind of underfunded. And I think there is an argument to be made that, you know, if you're producing the the most Fulbright scholars than any other institution in the state of Florida. And you're talking about that potential return on investment. Like, that's a pretty big deal. And the administration would be kind of continually asking for additional funding, and the legislature just did not budge at all, citing low enrollment. However, that has been a defining factor of that school. You only are able to accomplish the and the mission and the structure that is this college by having a small student population.

0:10:59 Thomas: But like, OK, so you said it's it was private and then it was too in debt. So they had to go public. But there's like kind of a they got a bit of a like a deal or some sort of negotiated way that they're going public. But what do they charge in terms of tuition well let's enroll yeah

0:11:15 Lydia: It is affordable. It is a very affordable education from what I recall. Yeah, it sounds like fun until you get to January January 6th, 2023. I don't think I want to be there now. Know, despite the requests for additional funding and the legislature not moving on it, that went back and forth for several years. And in 2020, in the Florida legislature, a representative named Randy Fine, who is a close ally of Ron DeSantis, introduced a bill to approach a merger again for New College, but this time with Florida State University. And he went off, apparently, on the floor about

0:11:22 Thomas: Not sure hmm yeah

0:11:57 Lydia: How much money the school was costing taxpayers. Again, that enrollment under 700 students. And so you're looking at it. Yeah, but I think when you're looking at a per student, they like it's not worth it.

0:12:04 Thomas: How much could it possibly be but is there that big of a gap between because they charge tuition right I don't understand I

0:12:16 Lydia: But then the costs of the school don't get to be spread across a larger number of students. So, you you're talking about like USF, FSU, those are, you Know, 50 ,000 students.

0:12:27 Thomas: Guess I was assuming that you would also not spend a bunch on crap or something you know like it depends on I guess I don't know that side of the ledger like are they building a bunch of buildings or something like why why would it cost so much

0:12:39 Lydia: Not from my understanding. So I think that are certain things that have become clear through this research that that bill ultimately died. But during that time, legislators were they knew that new college had a target on its back from that fiscal perspective. Like it was very clear.

0:12:58 Thomas: If New College didn't exist, I feel like Fox News would have to invent it. Do they just exist for that? If anything, I feels like Rhonda Sanctimonious should encourage New College because that's what you need to be a culture warrior all the time. You need that foil, you dummy.

0:13:06 Lydia: Like a caricature. Yeah. Yeah.

0:13:16 Thomas: Is why you aren't president and didn't get close.

0:13:21 Lydia: So 2020, when that bill died, one of the state senators named Joe Gruters, and this name will matter later. So bear with me that I'm giving you local Florida politician names.

0:13:32 Thomas: I'll remember the name joe gruters okay

0:13:35 Lydia: He specifically said to local reporters, something is going to happen there. That's ominous, right?

0:13:42 Thomas: To get on the phone with hey something's gonna happen there and they're like what who is this what are you talking where huh

0:13:49 Lydia: So yeah, New College because of the language was being used as they were talking about how big of a problem it was at that school because it cost so much money, etc., etc. Obviously, something did happen. That's why we're talking about it today. I mentioned, January 6, 2023, Ron DeSantis took over the Board of Trustees. And in remarks later that spring at the Midland County Republican Party spring breakfast in Michigan, he is quoted as saying, I had a small liberal arts college in Sarasota called New College of Sarasotah. It's not called that, Ron DeSantis. First of all, I have to pull out of your quote to fact check you on a college that you just took over three months before this. And yeah, yeah.

0:14:12 Thomas: Meatball that he took over and doesn't know the name of it boy that is on brand okay

0:14:45 Lydia: He said, I don't think anyone had even heard of it. Apparently he hadn't. Very few people had heard of It. It was performing very poorly. It was supposed to be Florida's top honors college in the entire state under Florida statute. That's what it says. But what happened is it became an ideological epicenter. It was all about things like gender ideology, critical race theory, and all that. And we don't think that that has a lot of value from the perspective of our taxpayers. Payers. So I think what's interesting here, just looking at that timeline between 2020 when Randy Fine, that representative who is friends with DeSantis, tried to encourage folks to grab grab new college under the FSU wing

0:15:33 Thomas: Randy

0:15:33 Lydia: And merge it.

0:15:34 Thomas: Fine for sure a a drag name uh

0:15:36 Lydia: Yeah. The move from that fiscal focus to in DeSantis' own words here, that it was an ideological epicenter and it was about gender ideology, critical et cetera, and that taxpayers should not be paying for that. That. So let's talk a little bit about decided he was going to solve that issue. He appointed the new trustees, I think what I want to talk about here is a who's who a little bit. So, yeah.

0:16:12 Thomas: What other drag stars were okay we got randy fine okay dang

0:16:15 Lydia: No, so Randy Fine was not, he was not tapped on the shoulder to come on over as a trustee. Yeah.

0:16:20 Thomas: He didn't I don't watch that show but he didn't make it he had to sashay away or whatever the oh can you believe I got that reference okay this that's gonna seem like not an accomplishment to because every other person in the world knows that I've just heard heard that once and I guessed that that's what happens when you get eliminated I I'm really proud of myself right now I don't know if this is gonna make the final edit but like that was I'm surprised you didn't die of shock of what I just said I

0:16:40 Lydia: Awesome. No, RuPaul is also not on the trustee's unfortunately. But Dr. Mark Bowerlin is, and he, it's a terrible name, you know, figure it out.

0:16:54 Thomas: Terrible drag name come on man there's your problem there I

0:16:59 Lydia: He was a professor of English at Emory University from 1989 to 2018. He strongly opposes DEI initiatives, wouldn't you know it. He is quoted as saying, they lead students to develop bad ideas. And another quote, he not elaborate.

0:17:15 Thomas: How? Okay.

0:17:19 Lydia: He says, when you start saying, oh, we need to publish more writers who are not white men, the process has been corrupted.

0:17:26 Thomas: Okay. Is that a DEI thing?

0:17:28 Lydia: His mind, I don't know. I don' t think so.

0:17:31 Thomas: I know I say it all the time, but is the DEI in the room with you right now is the best tweet because it's just like, you just blame everything on it. It's anything vaguely to do with race, sort of. You're just like it's DEI. It'S DEI is really, there there's a publishing part of DEI that's like the DEA journal only publishes. Cause like, Like, what is that? I don't know what that is. Am I wrong? What is that that's

0:17:54 Lydia: Yeah, I don't know. Like when you're trying to raise voices that you don't hear from very often or something, that's thought to be DEI. Goes on to say right off the bat, standards go down. Peer review becomes politicized. This is the beginning of the fall of a discipline. And I've seen it happen many, many times.

0:18:14 Thomas: Name one time.

0:18:14 Lydia: Yeah, he didn't. In 2008, he wrote a book called The Dumbest Generation, How the Digital Age Stupefies Young Americans and Jeopardizes Our Future, or in parentheses, Don't Trust Anyone Under 30.

0:18:30 Thomas: That's a time honored. You're always right when you have that take just throughout history.

0:18:34 Lydia: Yeah. Then he did a sequel, of course, because that book needed to live again. In 2022, the dumbest generation grows up, from stupefied youth to dangerous adults. Converted to Catholicism in 2012, endorsed Trump in 2016, and October 20th, 2023, he's a trustee member at this time. He has been appointed for 10 months at this times. He retweeted this from Twitter user Joey Manorino, and this is a tweet that got 2.2 million views, the original. And when he retweetED it, it says, our president has dementia. Our vice president is a cum dumpster.

0:19:18 Lydia: Yep. Our secretary of state has the presence of a turnip and it goes on. I read that and my jaw dropped. I could not believe. What is he thinking?

0:19:18 Thomas: So we've got we're Going Through the New A Team and you got this guy he's good at you vaults and you get this guy he's got this good at racism and this guy is good at sex you know it's like the new uh you know oceans 11 you know to try to turn this college around that is it that's a wow so he retweeted that wow look if I know catholicism that is definitely in line with was it the sermon on the mount in which jesus said blessed be the cum dumpsters for they

0:19:48 Lydia: He retweeted that. Yeah yeah. And Yeah, right.

0:20:07 Lydia: So that's where we're starting with this Mark Bauerling guy. Next person I want to talk about is Charles Kessler, who is he's from the Claremont Institute, you know, where John Eastman is from. And he, you know, big Trump supporter, of course. Also a professor at Claremont McKenna, understandably, and was a member of the 1776 Commission. So, you know, an unbiased individual there. We also have Dr. Ryan T. Anderson. Don't know if I've said this name on this show yet, but I think I brought him up on SIO when we covered marriage and the public good because he is from the Witherspoon Institute. Originally, he founded that public discourse magazine that is through the Witherspoon Since then, he has moved on and he is the president of Ethics Center. He was also affiliated with the Heritage Foundation a while back. And he is known for writing the book, along with Robert P. George and Sharif Jurgis, What is Marriage, Man and Woman and Defense. Alito cited that in his dissent in USB Windsor. And he also wrote When Harry Became Sally, the 2018 book that Amazon removed from their platform because they did not want to be selling that garbage. And in 2021, Congress had Amazon come in to defend why they removed the book from their Platform. Individuals that DeSantis appointed are Debra Jenks, and Debra Jenkins is a Floridian. So I think she's our first Floridian

0:20:17 Thomas: Who's this cum dumpster uh yeah what I thought you were suggesting like that's like here's the reason all these people are assholes this guy the trump supporter cum dumpster this guy this person's a floridian you're like yeah wow god he's three for three so far oh

0:22:15 Lydia: But she's a lawyer based out of Palm Beach County. She practices in securities arbitration, registration, regulation. She's actually a New College graduate back in 1980, and her degree was in economics. And then she went to Lewis and Clark Law School in Portland, Oregon, and that's where she earned her JD and moved back to Florida and practices there. Watched a lot of the board meetings. She sucks. Her bio does not do her justice at all.

0:22:39 Thomas: For how much she sucks oh

0:22:43 Lydia: She's she sucks. And she she the chair. So you have to hear her a lot. Also have Matthew Spaulding. Matthew Spaulding is the dean of the Washington, D.C., campus of Hillsdale College. Yeah. And he also was involved with the 1776 Commission because, of course, he was. The Hillsdale College tie in here is interesting because of it's not surprising, but in so many of the press conferences that occurred after Ron DeSantis had said, you know, we want to make new college the Hillsdale of the South. And some folks have pointed out, well, Hillsdale is a private religious institution and this is a public school. So you literally cannot make it that. Yeah.

0:23:37 Lydia: But they're certainly going to try, aren't they? And then there is Eddie Spear, who co -founded a Christian school school in Florida. A pretty intense figure in this. And we'll talk about him a little bit more later. I want to touch on the most controversial figure. You have a guess? Do you know?

0:23:30 Thomas: One would think controversial in what sense is

0:24:01 Lydia: Controversial figure that would be placed on the board of trustees? No, because he's the president of the University of Florida.

0:24:05 Thomas: It ben sass oh that's right I'm mixing up my uh my bullshits uh I can't remember rufo oh it's rufio that's correct yeah wow well

0:24:15 Lydia: Rufo. Yeah. Obviously need to figure out when we're going to do a dedicated episode on him because he has been popping up a lot lately for us. He's just always there. He is omnipresent. Isn't. Christopher Rufo, you just very, very briefly, the chief instigator of critical race theory, the person who made up that this is something that is being taught to young children. He's a Manhattan Institute fellow. And he more recently has moved on from critical race theory because it's not getting as many clicks. And now is the time to attack diversity, equity and inclusion.

0:24:54 Thomas: Like because they it's like by election cycle and the election cycle there's different vintages you know there's the caravan I think that was one election cycle that's and the um critical race theory was one and they didn't do that well with it so I think I thinkthat's part of like all right okay we'll rebrand something else but it's it's the same thing and he's sorry he's another board member or does he have some other role he's

0:25:17 Lydia: He is on the boardof trustees. Chris Rufo was announced as part of this, he tweeted immediately, of course, and he said, I'm proud to announce that Governor Ron DeSantis has appointed me to the Board of Trustees of the New College of Florida. My ambition is to help the the new board majority transform new college into a classical liberal arts institution. We are recapturing higher education.

0:25:45 Thomas: Sure so it sounds like does he do the kind of thing where you just need to appoint like a bare majority kind of things or did he wipe the whole everybody okay

0:25:53 Lydia: Only has a certain number of spots that I think he's allowed to appoint. There is always going to be like a faculty representative that he doesn't get to appoint, there's a student representative that she doesn't have, to appoint. And I think that there are other entities that get to appoint other folks. So I think six might be what he's allowed to do. And that's what he did.

0:26:11 Thomas: Well it doesn't matter it's basically enough yeah

0:26:15 Lydia: Yeah. Yeah, it's a six to four basically, that they're living with right now. He was super, super excited about coming on. First meeting that they had was later that month, January 31st, 2023. 23. And in that meeting, they voted to remove the president of the college, Patricia Ocker. The very first time they met, they had her fired and they appointed Richard Corcoran as the interim president at double Ocker's salary. Why?

0:26:50 Lydia: Who knows? For a college that is, you know, fiscally concerning?

0:26:49 Thomas: I thought the uh I thought costs was the yeah I thought the whole issue was like okay

0:26:56 Lydia: It gets worse. We'll get more into Corcoran, too. Before that board meeting, DeSantis had a press conference, right? You know, they're just capitalizing on all of these moments. And he announced in that press conference right before the board meeting that they would be defunding all diversity programs that this is for Florida public education in general. That they would be defunding all diversity programs, that they would be moving to a core curriculum, right, that model legislation that we've talked about before on this show, where it's like the general education becomes its own college and then you get to have greater control over that. On Western civilization, he He announced that they would be tackling tenure and that he would be pursuing moving hiring authority from faculty committees to the president's and the board of trustees. Yeah. The board moved to eliminate the Office of Outreach and Inclusive Excellence. Prevalence in April 2023. So we're starting to see some of these things happen, even though there is no legislation that's been passed regarding what DeSantis says he wants to do for public education.

0:27:53 Thomas: Why would you you need legislation yeah

0:28:14 Lydia: Just saying that there is no you need it, but there is No authority making them do this. It's just the majority board six to four. This is what DeSantis wants. So this is what we're going to move to do. 2023, they denied tenure to five faculty despite them being strongly recommended, strongly, per

0:28:33 Thomas: I feel like I heard about that well

0:28:33 Lydia: The tenure process. So they were strongly recommended by other faculty. They were strongly recommended by those not in new college that, their field. And as a result of the mess that had been going on and then kind of the straw that broke the camel's back I think was that denial of tenure to five faculty members in april 2023 the faculty rep on the board quit um were like I can't do this anymore um what that person was then replaced by again not

0:29:02 Thomas: I was going to say, is that a a good good idea?

0:29:03 Lydia: Someone it's okay because desantis can't pick the person

0:29:06 Thomas: OK, gotcha. The faculty votes on it or something.

0:29:09 Lydia: And I don't know that necessarily that a lot of people were clamoring for this spot um shout out to dr amy reed who is sitting in the spot still to to this day. And she is the of the gender studies program that they also voted as the board to kill in August 2023. So she stepped in to that role and she teaches other classes and stuff too. So she's all right. But as fall starts of 2024, there will not be a gender studies program anymore. Those classes do not exist.

0:29:44 Thomas: What happens to students who are like in the program?

0:29:48 Lydia: They have to figure something else out. It's an individualized, you know, yeah.

0:29:49 Thomas: Oh, I guess it's, yes, I guess they just have to, yeah, that's interesting.

0:29:55 Lydia: They gave them essentially a year to figure out what that transition would look like for them. Lot of faculty left. There's someone I follow that was a gender studies professor, Nicholas Clarkson, who has been pretty vocal about what that experience was. He's a trans male. And the experience that he had on campus, someplace that he felt safe at and loved and loved teaching courses to his students, all of those things, and just how intensely it changed just because of DeSantis overthrowing a board of trustees. So didn't stop there, though. They also voted to remove gender neutral signage from restrooms because that's worth spending time on.

0:30:45 Lydia: And they eliminated the diversity office. And shortly after eliminating the diversity office, which then fired the diversity chief and the academic librarian. Both of them are LGBTQ. In prior to that, you might have seen this, actually. This made the news pretty prominently. When Ruffo was on campus for something in May, he was approached by a lot of students. There was a protest going on. And one of the students, who was actually the president of the student senate, Libby Herody, spit on him.

0:31:27 Lydia: Yeah. He filed criminal charges of battery. And would be a misdemeanor. And in for her to get out of that, she agreed with the school that she would withdraw and she left and has not come back. She's not allowed back on campus. She made that choice because the other option was that she Would be charged with a misdemeanor and have to go to trial and see what happened there. And, you know, it was on video like she did spit it. That wasn't, you Know, who knows how that would have worked out. Of the people that I mentioned earlier, Eddie Speier, that, you know, decently controversial, but not Chris Ruffo controversial. I haven't talked about him much since I brought that up. And there's a reason why. Why don't you go ahead and open up to the first video I sent you. Is the Committee on Ethics and Elections in the Florida Senate. This is a hearing that they held for public comment primarily regarding DeSantis' trustee picks, because even though he picks people, the Senate has to confirm them. And so this is April 2023. The only trustee that showed up to this hearing with the committee was Eddie Speier. And we're going to hear from him when a member of the committee, one of the senators, asks him to give us more details about the truths that he says he goes on campus to engage students with.

0:33:01 Clip: You share with us first your truths that may have caused concern, what those are, what these truths are, and then maybe the continued dialogue. Trustee Speer, you're recognized to answer the question. I do want to remind everybody that we have a 12 -30 hard stop, and I want to make sure to afford the members of the public the opportunity who have still signed up to speak, so if you don't mind keeping your answers as succinct as possible, sir, but also directed to the question, that would be appreciated. Yes, thank you. I have to start with the truth that Jesus Christ is the way, the truth, and the life. Everything else comes from there, articulated in the Bible. Now there's a lot of room for interpretation from there.

0:33:18 Lydia: Guy's great. I don't know who he is, but.

0:33:42 Clip: But the truth specifically, in relation to a hit piece, would be a tweet that I sent out describing gender trans as a mental disorder. And so I sent that out and was not shy about sending that out, and then immediately went on campus to face the wrath. And I found the students engaging in conversation, albeit heated, but we've worked past that.

0:33:35 Thomas: What? Yeah, yeah gender trans, what? Gender trans has a mental disorder.

0:34:10 Clip: Right now, I believe that there's a lot of challenges yet to go at New College of Florida, but also the engagement, the respect for engagement, at least from what I've seen, my personal experience has been very positive.

0:34:28 Lydia: OK, so hadn't been there, If I he hadn'T been at that hearing, I DON'T know what WOULD HAVE HAPPENED because they WERE REALLY FOCUSED ON CHRIS RUFFO. And they said, you know, in previous other points of that hearing they said you know he'S NOT here to defend himself, you WITH THESE THINGS THAT WE'RE HEARING, THESE CONCERNS THAT WE HAVE. So we're going to table discussion of Christopher Ruffo, etc., etc. But Eddie Speier showed up. And later, when the Senate was voting to confirm the DeSantis board of trustee appointments, they did a bulk confirmation. Information, and when the media received the list of executive appointments, when that came out as a press release, Eddie Speier wasn't on there. They did not approve his appointment, and they just didn't want to talk about it on the floor. That was the first he heard about it, too. He didn't.

0:35:20 Thomas: Wait, he wasn't already bored? What, wait? What is this?

0:35:22 Lydia: So they are appointed by DeSantis, and then they serve in good faith until or unless they are.

0:35:28 Thomas: Oh, so they got to serve while I see. Okay, that was my confusion.

0:35:31 Lydia: And so he no longer is on the board. And yeah, and that's the first time he heard about it was when the press release came out that he wasn't going to be confirmed. And essentially, I think the lesson there, Chris Ruffo went through. Everyone knows what Chris Ruffo thinks. He just didn't say it in the Senate committee room, I guess.

0:35:52 Thomas: Yeah. Talking about Jesus Christ being the truth and the whatever.

0:35:55 Lydia: And Eddie Eddie Speier decided to say some of the quiet parts out loud.

0:35:57 Thomas: I'm surprised that mattered though. It's still Florida state Senate, right?

0:36:01 Lydia: Yeah, it is. I think that, you know, a lot of the pushback that you that kind of see in that hearing is from the the black senators that are on that committee. And I think that there was significant rhetoric that Eddie Spear engaged in on his blog in advance that was really concerning. And think that a lot of students felt threatened by what could happen because of his rhetoric and because of Chris Ruffo's rhetoric. But Eddie Speier made the mistake of actually showing up and being confronted by it. That's So where we're at with the trustees. Chris Ruffo, like I said, he's still there. And Eddie Speyer never made it. But we have we Hillsdale represented. We have the Claremont Institute represented .We have Ethics of Public Policy Center represented. You know, all these These incredibly conservative figureheads, essentially, many of whom have honestly like Catholicism or, you know, just Christian nationalism sort of at their base. I it would be very clear that that movement does not exactly align with the folks that were at New College. Um administration administrative staff you know um students and

0:37:20 Thomas: So this is crazy. I mean, what seems like has happened is you've got this university that's, you known for being very progressive. It's a small, it's a tiny school. They've it's successful, by the way, which is always the thing that conservatives just ignore. You know it's like uh yeah I mean I think that's the thing like if there is a lot of in college sure whatever but like if it was truly worthless and pretty sure it's expensive to go to school I think people would probably stop doing it but anyway point is it's this very progressive little little school and even though it's in florida you there's all kinds of you uh areas in an otherwise pretty swing state um sounds like it's a little bastion of progressivism and then meatball ron gets gets his pudding fingers on it and it's just like we're We're going to change this whole school and just by being able to take over the board, it's this process of like it's really like a takeover. He's like a little fucking parasite that just like got in the school via that direction and then just slowly is just converting it to their purposes. This is crazy and it seems like it is working. Like, I don't know. I'm not sure what what are supposed to do, other than it feels like there's a number of lawsuits that could be filed, you know, regarding employment and regarding. I don'T KNOW, THOUGH.

0:38:42 Thomas: Like ,I'M NOT I'M NOT AN EXPERT ON LIKE HOW THAT WOULD WORK WITH FLORIDA LAW AND WITH WHAT I HAVE NO IDEA. BUT IT DEFINITELY SEEMS LIKE SOMEONE'S GOING TO HAVE CLAIMS. BUT THAT'S ALSO THE KIND OF THING THAT TAKES ETERNITY. SO THIS JUST SEEMES LIKE A THING MEATBALL RON GETS TO DO. What

0:38:58 Lydia: Yeah. He just gets to do this. And, you know, next time I really want to talk about the impact that this had on the students specifically, the impact that it had on The Faculty, what that transition looked like. And, why don't we play a little bit of a short documentary that Ruffo put together. And is posted November 28th, 2023. 23. hard left has dominated the universities for generations. The movement has captured the academic disciplines, established ideologically driven bureaucracies, and put activism rather than scholarship at the center of academic life. The left has long considered the university campus its own private domain, untouchable by political leaders, until now. In a new short documentary, I tell the story of a small public college in Florida that's become the opening move in a conservative counterrevolution.

0:39:49 Thomas: Very much not true okay it's weird that they couldn't just win on the level of ideas like they always talk about it's like the only way to get your bullshit in there is by an actual hostile takeover you can't just like publish stuff that makes sense because none of your crap makes sense yeah

0:40:14 Lydia: Whatever one's opinion, one thing is certain. The takeover of New College has changed the dynamics of America's culture war and, if successful, will provide a model for a conservative counterrevotion across the nation. So let's see what that looks like.

0:40:30 Thomas: So like taking over 700 student bodies all over across the nation yeah how many of those do you have to do until you win the whole war so

0:40:50 Clip: The problems at New College are, in many ways, the same as the problems with American universities as a whole. They were founded with a noble mission, the pursuit of the true, the good, and the beautiful. But over the years have seen that mission degraded, abandoned, and replaced with a new commitment to partisan political activism. At New College, this process of ideological capture had reached its conclusion. Faculty pushed bogus scholarship on queer theory, radical black feminism, and how to subvert the capitalist white supremacist university. Administrators established a diversity, equity, and inclusion bureaucracy to enforce left -wing orthodoxy, and, according to a consultant's report, students maintained a progressive echo chamber and bullied their peers into submission.

0:41:38 Thomas: Are they not allowed to have their political views I don't get it

0:41:42 Lydia: We'll we'll leave it there we'll find out if that's really what was happening eddie

0:41:46 Thomas: So we've set up kind of the takeover the the board despite that one guy they still had enough to do whatever and now we're the fallout all right well all that ahead in part two I'm sure it's great and now it's a leading university they cured cancer actually it's the leading university and uh that's that's what it's done I also love the idea that there's like bogus gender theory or whatever he said I want it like is they have the right version it would be funny if they're like hey finally I can submit my research on black queer feminism just like from a slightly different angle yeah

0:41:52 Lydia: Spear yeah it's just scholarly debate yeah okay

0:42:25 Thomas: Yeah,