WTW51: A New New College

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.

0:00:41 Thomas: Hello and welcome to Where There's Woke. This is episode 51. I'm Thomas. That's Lydia. I hope, did you get your gift? Did you get you're 50th episode anniversary? Oh, well, now what?

0:00:50 Lydia: No, not here. Not here. Stuck in the mail?

0:00:55 Thomas: Yeah, I mean, I sent it. So we'll just, you know, I guess.

0:00:59 Lydia: It'll get here when it gets here. Yeah, pretty

0:01:00 Thomas: You know, definitely call them or something. Yeah, it was really nice what it was.

0:01:07 Lydia: Good.

0:01:07 Thomas: How's it going?

0:01:10 Lydia: How are you?

0:01:10 Thomas: I'm excited to hear about this fascist religious asshole takeover of an otherwise good school. It this seems seems really sad like this is just a really shitty crappy bullshit thing and uh curious to see how this goes uh when last we left off just to make sure I and the audience are following um ron got his pudding fingers all over the board of a college that, you know, it was his, uh, within his rights to do as governor. I mean, there are consequences to electing pieces of shit. So let that be a lesson that maybe you just don't do that. Like don't elect the piece of shit to begin with. Um, it's just crazy that it's this, it's, like, I, I think of another time where we've seen anything like that. I means, maybe it exists, but it's pretty crazy to just like do a complete in the schools. I know there's often like the famous corporate hostile takeover, you know, where it's like, ah, we've got enough stock to buy our enough spots on the board.

0:01:33 Lydia: Did. Yeah, yeah. Right. A la Succession kind of thing. Yeah yeah

0:02:05 Thomas: That kind of thing. I mean, way predates that. I'm in the eighties, like the hostile take over kind of thing was a, was people did. There's specifically these investors that would like do, was really bad. They had to, they changed some of the rules for that. But anyway, like in the business sense, I've seen it, but I don't, I don'T know if I've ever seen anything like this. And it's pretty crazy. So I'm interested to learn more about what the fuck happened when these assholes took over. So that's part two, right?

0:02:25 Lydia: Yeah so we're gonna jump in. Know one thing you might have noticed with the timeline that we talked about last episode.

0:02:33 Thomas: I guarantee you I didn't.

0:02:35 Lydia: Okay. January 6, 2023.

0:02:37 Thomas: Okay. I did notice that. Yeah.

0:02:39 Lydia: Happening in January during, like, the college year?

0:02:43 Thomas: Well, January, you're starting back up the second semester, aren't you? Usually.

0:02:46 Lydia: Second semester. But generally, when you enroll in college, when does your year start? August.

0:02:54 Thomas: August.

0:02:55 Lydia: So this was a change that happened fast and furious mid -year. So not only was it something that no one was prepared for, no one knew this was happening. And then all the students come back after Christmas break and their entire world has changed.

0:03:00 Thomas: Mid -year. Oh, oh wow. I didn' t think about that. Wow. Well, why don't we pause for our usual beginning the episode teaser break. So that's it. That's a teaser. And after this break, which you don't have to hear if you go on a patreon.com/wherethereswoke. Thanks so much to our patrons who make this show possible. This break we will find out what the hell that was. Jeez. Jeez. Say Christmas break.

0:03:39 Thomas: No, I'm just kidding. I imagine that was like their first order of business. We're calling it Christmas break again, everyone.

0:03:46 Lydia: Yeah. Winter break. So, I January 6th, no one's on campus really at that point in time. They're coming back a couple couple weeks after that. Was always after Martin Luther King Jr. Day. Was always the day after that, mid -January. And it would always be that Monday. And then we would come back the Tuesday. As a student, coming back, and Chris Rufo is on your campus.

0:04:05 Thomas: Is OK. Oh my god yeah imagine leaving for christmas break for winter saturnalia break as a genderqueer feminist studies major which I say that in like in a loving way like you're there you're you're like you're open you'reyou've got friends supporting you've got faculty probably supporting you know like you'RE living your best life you leave you You come back and all of a sudden your school is run by Chris fucking Rufo, among others. Like that is that's a nightmare. That's a that's actual hellish nightmare.

0:04:21 Lydia: Your best life. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It It really was. It really does. And it was a nightmare for a lot of folks. Um, you know, tried to protest and they were attending board meetings and offering public comment, none of that really mattered. You know, everyone, they continued to vote 6-4, 6-5, 6-4. As a result, more than a third of the faculty members did not return.

0:05:02 Thomas: Voluntarily or fired or.

0:05:04 Lydia: Combination. That losing a lot of your.

0:05:07 Thomas: That's a lot. Yeah. Mid -year too.

0:05:09 Lydia: Yeah. Yeah. And I don't know that they necessarily all left come January. You know, they might have trickled out.

0:05:14 Thomas: What is this as of? Like, as of the next year or when?

0:05:17 Lydia: So following spring semester, a total of a third of the faculty members.

0:05:20 Thomas: Gotcha. So, they probably, yeah, they probably wouldn't have left their kids hanging, you know, I'm sure.

0:05:25 Lydia: Addition to that, you remember how small the school is, right? Right, under 700 people, about 125 students chose not to return the following year. And these are students that have started college and now they don't have anywhere to go.

0:05:41 Lydia: And but they know they just don't want to be there anymore.

0:05:41 Thomas: That's nuts yeah that's a tough

0:05:45 Lydia: It is a tough choice.

0:05:45 Thomas: Choice I don't know what you're supposed to do in that situation

0:05:46 Lydia: Yeah. Hampshire College, which is a small liberal arts school up in Massachusetts, they were struggling bit too. And when this happened, they reached out and said, if there are any new college students that want a safe haven, essentially, yeah, yeah.

0:06:01 Thomas: They're like refugees oh my god wow

0:06:04 Lydia: And offered admission to new college students and would match the new college tuition because Hampshire College is way more expensive.

0:06:11 Thomas: Well that's good at least

0:06:13 Lydia: And so I think some folks took them up on that and moved up to Massachusetts. But that's a pretty big difference. Yeah.

0:06:18 Thomas: That's the big commitment yeah that'S

0:06:20 Lydia: Yeah, Florida to Massachusetts, you're making a choice.

0:06:23 Thomas: A very positive change but uh that's

0:06:25 Lydia: Well, weather -wise, I don't know, depending what you want. You we lost all of these people, incredible teachers, teachers that have been there for a long time. I mentioned last episode certain faculty or staff members being fired, and you lost those people mid -year. You You lost the academic librarian midyear. Your president completely changed at the end of January, right after everybody gets back to school. Just this tumultuous, you know, constant chaos that you're experiencing. Later, when were getting ready to do orientation and things like that the following following late summer, early fall, orientation leaders were ordered to remove Black Lives Matter pins and

0:06:27 Thomas: Fair mm -hmm mm -hm jesus

0:07:13 Lydia: Pride pins from their polo shirts.

0:07:13 Thomas: What is still a public school right you can't I mean here I mean maybe there's some sort of bullshit justification that works there but that's wow that is wait hold on I thought they were the party of free speech wait Dave Rubin Dave Ruben I didn't you oh man I so believed when you said that free speech is now a republican issue because even wear a fucking pin yeah

0:07:16 Lydia: It's still Exactly. Yeah. Were murals that students had created that sanctioned, and they were completed, you know, early winter, expected to remain for years. And they painted over everything it because wasn't going to match the aesthetic of the school that they were trying to move towards.

0:07:56 Thomas: The fascist that didn't yeah it didn't match the flags and the swastikas yeah did

0:08:00 Lydia: They're really looking to be like modern and, you know,, like very clean. And this school has always been full of color, according to the students, full of colorful of life, quirky, weird, You know, and all of that just got painted over with beige and hard work that the students did to create these murals. Their art just completely wiped away like it was never there.

0:08:27 Thomas: They try to put in some like greek columns or whatever I know that genuinely like they're they think that's how everything that should be like that classical architecture

0:08:34 Lydia: That's architecture. Yeah. Yeah, why don't we listen a little bit to a couple of pretty well -known alumni from new college um this was happening they went on a radio show and I don'T want to spoil by by saying who they are yet because we'll talk about it when we're done but But why don't we go ahead and hear from them?

0:08:42 Thomas: There's

0:08:54 Clip: And that kind of fear that we hear from members of this board people who are trying to make some kind of spectacle we make a big deal about like explaining oh maybe you don't understand it's not an ideological place it's like the real truth is this place completely transforms people and I think maybe that might be what they're actually afraid of it's it's not ideological it's not anybody's being told what to believe or what to think I wasn't told what to do I came to my own position I came to a point in my life where I had to really dramatically alter what I was doing what I thought and is that because somebody told me I needed nobody ever would have been able to convince me to do that if they were like here's what's right here's what's wrong because new colors doesn't do that and I'm starting to realize that's what they're actually afraid of like they want it to be a place where people tell you what's right and what's wrong yeah they cannot stand the lack of structure and the informality that we like to bring to academia they they have um really been afraid of the power that the students have like every year students will get together and do some sort of protest because you know there are always things going on at new college there are are always problematic things happening where somebody's like well that's a problem and I as a student am impacted by it and I would like to combat this change and as this is my home I would like to protect my home at the same time and so there are so many protests that have happened and by the time you leave you kind of just have learned how to throw a protest you know a lot of people understand like interpersonal um social situations in an activist sense in a in um in an active way like that like far more and like I wish you could put it on your resume it's something that's kind of not quantifiable um

0:09:44 Thomas: What by the way if chris rufo promises to um reform the av engineering program of this college I I think I'm actually I'm actually with the fascists now. I don't know if the listeners.

0:11:00 Lydia: There That's not affiliated with the college.

0:11:02 Thomas: OK. Yeah. But there's there. It sounds like the people are involved in.

0:11:06 Lydia: Yeah. So let me tell you a little bit about who those folks are.

0:11:08 Thomas: I don' t know. No I'm not done. I don''t know if the listeners will hear it but there's an awful static noise the entire time. I'll probably try to filter it out but I'm torn because often I want to shame the people who did the audio by leaving it in but I also can't stand it so I'll I'll probably fix it. And then people will be like, what is Tom was talking about? That sounded amazing.

0:11:15 Lydia: It's really bad. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So the most recent individual that was talking goes by ex -Gonzalez now. They used to go by Emma Gonzalez, and that name might be familiar to listeners because they were a survivor of Marjory Stoneman Douglas high school shooting and became a very incredible advocate and New College alum. Went to New College and ended up understanding themselves better. They went on Jimmy Fallon. Actually, I watched an interview and saying that they go by X now. They have since come out as trans and that they felt Emma defined that they had to be a girl. And they didn't like that. And that they knew them because they were in the media and they had this trauma that everybody knows about and that now they know their name and they have all these just ideas of what that means then. And so they kind of decided, OK, I'm starting over and I go by X now. And yeah,

0:12:40 Thomas: And then Elon Musk ruined that whole thing. What are the odds?

0:12:44 Lydia: How dare he? And so, like I said, new college alum, someone who was an activist before they got to new college.

0:12:49 Thomas: Can they change their name to Twitter now?

0:12:52 Lydia: Yeah, they should.

0:12:53 Thomas: Hi, Twitter Gonzalez. That's actually a badass name. I fucking love that name.

0:12:55 Lydia: That is really, really good.

0:12:57 Thomas: It's also non -binary. Okay. X, reach out to us. That's a, you can have that one. Or somebody reach out to them on behalf of us and say, please change your name to Twitter Gonzalez, oh

0:13:07 Lydia: Then the first person that we heard on that clip is a name that I don't know that people will necessarily recognize. His name is Derek Black. He is a former white supremacist. His dad started Stormfront, and his godfather is David Duke. He was very, very, very deep in white supremacy. And what is so interesting, he was a white supremacist while he was at New College.

0:13:35 Thomas: Hmm how did he go to nuke yeah

0:13:38 Lydia: Yeah, he had an interest. So he went to community college after he finished high school. And apparently he ran for a seat on the Republican executive committee at the college. And he was 19. He got 60 percent of the vote. But then the committee community, refused to seat him because he would not take the oath because white supremacist, I guess. Yes.

0:14:01 Thomas: The oath like I won't be a white supremacist yeah

0:14:04 Lydia: No, I don't know. It was like a pledging. I don'T know. Community college. It's a public institution. There's probably something related to, you know, inclusivity.

0:14:11 Thomas: Not being a white supremacy

0:14:13 Lydia: Yeah. Yeah. When that happened, he decided that he actually wanted to study medieval European history. And where do you go in Florida when you want to study something a little, you know, off the beaten path? New college.

0:14:13 Thomas: Fair yeah

0:14:28 Lydia: So it his first time away from home. And I think that this is something that you might relate to. You're not a white supremacist. You've never been a white suprematist. But it was His first time Away From Home four hours across the state. So now he's experiencing life without his dad with him all the time. However, every morning he still called into the dad's radio show and, you know, was a white supremacist and stuff. And then he would go to class and hang out with social justice warriors, essentially, and trying to

0:14:27 Thomas: No wow that's crazy

0:15:01 Lydia: Live both of the lives. Like he was making friends with these people, but he was so confused and he didn't feel like he could 100 percent be himself. He said he terrifying because I knew that one day somebody was going to type my name into Google and they they did. Yeah. So it became public knowledge at the college and he ended up being ostracized by a lot of the community. But in to that, he started to make friends with Jewish people on campus and have conversations with them. And he started to realize that the beliefs that he had this entire time are wrong, that this group of people that he thought he knew and he thought He understood because of what was being fed to him by his dad and his godfather and that community that he was a part of, of these horrible backwards people, he was wrong. So they would do, like, Friday night dinners, the little group of friends. And he says at one of the dinners he, you know, shared something about, like what he believed about IQ differences.

0:16:16 Lydia: And And they would come back with 150 more recent, more well -researched studies and explain to me how statistics work. And we would go back and forth until I would come to the end of the And I'd say, yes, that makes sense. That does not hold together. And I'll remove that from toolbox. Everything And else stays there. But then they start dismantling it one by one by One. And he said about over a year, a year or two, he got to a point where he just didn't believe leave any of it anymore. His friends sticking with him and helping him kind of like deprogram almost.

0:16:46 Thomas: That's crazy. A really powerful story. And it's something we've touched on before, but while it's definitely true that nobody has the obligation to do this, I do think it's really important, especially with younger people, especially with the younger people. Maybe not with old boomer pieces of shit, but younger people who are brought up with a certain set of views like I I it's really hard because on one hand obviously it's hard to be sympathetic to anyone with those awful views on the other hand what would you expect someone born into that circumstance to believe you every single authority figure that ever is around you and raised you is telling you one thing. Wouldn't you believe it? You're lying to yourself if you're pretending somehow you would secretly know the truth, like you'd intuit it. I it's important and it's crucial that, especially with younger people, that if people are willing and able to give them a chance and to try to work on them, it can work.

0:17:48 Thomas: And I imagine if he had just been ostracized, I don't think he'd ever have changed his views. I bet.

0:17:54 Lydia: No, I think you're right. And it's interesting because that environment, like how much he was involved with the creation of some of this stuff.

0:18:04 Thomas: No one else could work the technology.

0:18:05 Lydia: Well, apparently when he was 10, he started to learn coding and then he created a page on Stormfront.

0:18:14 Thomas: Yeah. It's not even really joking. It's

0:18:15 Lydia: Says he started a dedicated Lord of the Rings section on Storm front. Yeah, that was, you know, geared towards other kids. Kids. He started receiving like death threats and stuff at that very young age. And his dad is just like, oh, don't look at it. Don't worry about it.

0:18:34 Thomas: Hey, don't send a 10 year old death threats. I don'T really care who or what they are.

0:18:37 Lydia: Matter what. Yeah.

0:18:37 Thomas: Like, just don't, don'T do that. Maybe they didn't know he was 10, but like, just DON'T.

0:18:41 Lydia: I think what is also incredible here is when Ron DeSantis, as we spoke about in the last episode, Ron DeSantis is saying, you know, gender studies, critical race theory, this ideological that they're creating for students that shouldn't be on the taxpayer. They're telling our kids what to believe. Here we have a new college alum that was literally a white nationalist. And he has come out and said, I don't think they did enough to protect people on campus or people of other races on campus. They should have spoken out more. They not step up and act in a way that I think was And here I am, a Nazi.

0:19:21 Thomas: What, when, what happened? When,

0:19:23 Lydia: Well, he was a Nazi on campus and, like, engaging in some of this rhetoric and stuff.

0:19:23 Thomas: Like, well, he was, I thought he was like under, are like kind of in secret

0:19:29 Lydia: Well, yes, he was. But I mean, in terms of he doesn't speak about, like the specific instances, but his his interpretation of his time there was that there should have been a environment for people when things occurred. And he felt upon reflection that that was not happening. As a former Nazi, you know, like the things that he probably could have gotten away with at school, from the students, but not necessarily from the administration. In he publicly renounced his views with the Southern Poverty Law Center. And he just wanted to make sure that, you know, everybody understood like what he believes now and the growth that he's done. And and as you heard in that interview, he attributes a lot of that to new college and the people he was around there, the environment that was set up, even though it wasn't always like as safe as he wanted it to be upon, you know, like later reflection for for folks. Jokes um had he just stayed at home you wasn't going to change or to your point had they just like bother engaging with this person that that they knew to some degree and then they come to find out like these views that um okay if if his friends hadn't worked with him through that then yeah I don't know where he would have been he would still probably believe every every this yeah

0:20:50 Thomas: Well and the important thing is he he wasn't forced to take a diversity seminar that did this or he wasn't pushed to take how not to be a nazi 101 mandatory class it just these interactions with students and it's students who they're also doing what what they're doing and trying to like deconvert him because of their beliefs that they should be allowed to fucking have because it's a free fucking country those students in turn were not you by the university like it's it's just they have to have that theory because there's no other way to explain why their ideas never work other than their ideas being wrong she

0:21:26 Lydia: Well x's point in the recording

0:21:29 Thomas: Means twitter everyone sorry I'm just formerly it's twitter formerly known as x

0:21:32 Lydia: X gonzalez okay this is gonna be very confusing using.

0:21:40 Thomas: I'm I have to email them I know this is gonna be dumb but I know

0:21:46 Lydia: You know, something that every student walks away from New College knowing is how to throw a protest, how to be vocal about something that you care about, how to recognize when something is happening. And this was happening at New College. You know, it's not a perfect school. It never was. No one was saying it was. But that it was an environment in which you recognize that something was happening you weren't OK with and you got to stand up and lead a protest and have your voice heard. And think that is, in theory, what conservatives would want. Mentioned a little bit about the potential for lawsuits in our last episode. You said, you know, like it sounds like there'd be opportunities for for lawsuits to occur. Was a civil rights investigation that was filed With the Department of Education. And this was a rights complaint on August 22nd, where it was accusing the new College of Florida's Board of Trustees and the administration of disability discrimination. Discrimination that it excluded qualified persons with disabilities from participation in denied them the benefits of or otherwise subjected them to discrimination in its programs activities aids benefits or services they specifically say who involved was was making these claims regarding disabilities. But it also cited the hostile environment for and discrimination against protected groups like LGBTQ students and the hostile environment for those folks. The civil rights complaint was going somewhere. And just recently there was a satisfactory settlement, I guess.

0:22:24 Thomas: You would think. Oh,

0:23:25 Lydia: And they are not disclosing what that is. It is confidential. So we don't know exactly what came to be from that.

0:23:33 Thomas: Were the plaintiffs exactly? Just Was it like one student or was it?

0:23:39 Lydia: There are not a lot of details, honestly. Yeah.

0:23:42 Thomas: Interesting.

0:23:43 Lydia: Example, I think Rufo's tweeting habits kind of fueled a lot of this. They specifically include a tweet that he wrote saying, among other other things. The problem is that non -binary is an entirely fake identity. It does not exist. Nobody is non -binary. This is weapons -grade pseudoscience that ends up pushing kids on a path to lifetime medicalization, sterilization, and castration.

0:24:11 Thomas: Non -binary people are non -binary, though. Just off the top of my head. I think that's probably the only people who are non binary is non binary people. I think but like that's a he should remember that group of people. That's like, kind of important.

0:24:24 Lydia: Right. Piece that was filed in this investigation was that when the board voted to abolish the Office of Outreach and Inclusive Excellence, one of their first things that they did, I think that was February 2023, what ended up happening was the Muslim students on campus didn't have food to eat during Ramadan. That entity was responsible for making sure that they had food that they could have.

0:24:49 Thomas: That's Yeah, that's important. That'S that'S that's something you need.

0:24:53 Lydia: Yep, pretty terrible. The meal plan hours hours um not accommodated for ramadan so this office was a way for them to actually eat at a time that was in line with their religious beliefs so like I said we don't know how that got settled but it got settled and that's kind of where we're at there um so then Then there's a lawsuit that was filed by an entity called the NCF Freedom Organization. And this was a lawsuit from SB 266, which really was going after higher education in Florida. And they said that this law infringes on freedom of speech, that freedom had been violated. But for whatever reason, they have decided to withdraw the lawsuit without prejudice. So they could come back and if they have any instance of harm or whatever, they absolutely could come back. But right now that lawsuit is not going anywhere. Corcoran spoke about this and he said, we are crossing the Rubicon. New College of Florida is making significant progress toward becoming the top liberal arts college in the nation. It's it is time to put

0:25:11 Thomas: Nothing from like like a group of teachers or there's nothing.

0:26:13 Lydia: This lawsuit lawsuit behind us? Yeah, I don't know. An interesting question that we will get to as we talk about this.

0:26:13 Thomas: By what measurement? Well, I guess they don't have grades. Oh, wait, did they get rid of that? Were they like, we need grades? That's interesting.

0:26:22 Lydia: No. So they decided to keep the structure of the school because they said this is a defining feature of the college. And that is so interesting to me. Yeah. Because you would think conservatives would be like, we need grades. We need.

0:26:26 Thomas: That is fascinating. Surprising, yeah. We need a way to tell the underprivileged kids that don't get as many resources that they aren't as valuable.

0:26:41 Lydia: And he closes that by saying it is time to put this lawsuit behind us and come together to realize the immense potential of new college as a thriving educational institution. So when when withdrew the lawsuit, I don't know. They decided to issue.

0:26:47 Thomas: What? Wait, why is he commenting on that? That's curious. So it's not a settlement. But it's huh yeah I wonder what's going on there yeah

0:27:01 Lydia: That's kind of what we're at with lawsuit stuff against the college specifically. And so they're not really going going anywhere, which is a The American Association of University Professors, though, is involved in this because naturally they have major concerns about what was going on. And they issued a full report on their website in December 2023. And their report is looking broader structure of higher education in Florida under DeSantis' decisions and changes and movements. But they really highlight New College at the very beginning of the report. And let's with Nicholas Clarkson, who I mentioned previously. He was the assistant professor of gender studies at New College, and he resigned right when the school year was about He says, this for a conservative overhaul of higher education, and it isn't going to stay isolated to New College of Florida. And I think that is a fair statement to make because even Rufo is saying that even DeSantis is saying that, you know, that this is something where they are happy to say that that this can serve as a model of how conservatives can tackle other colleges.

0:28:20 Thomas: Hmm how you looked into that I mean because it it seems like well why hasn't he already done that like there's other public universities that is it just that I wonder if you need it to be a tiny one just by the nature of like how that would work or something

0:28:36 Lydia: Yeah, I think you probably do do need it to be a tiny one like I can't imagine him going to University of Florida and being like this is mine now like I don't I cannot imagine that I

0:28:47 Thomas: Or is it because it's just because the specific like like, agreement they had come to with New College due to that bankruptcy thing or something? Is it like, I'm just wondering, really?

0:28:56 Lydia: don'T think so no yeah

0:28:58 Thomas: So, you think he could do this to a board of directors at any school? I don't know why he wouldn't have, though.

0:29:03 Lydia: I I think he can but I don' t know that it would affect change if it was like a huge school with huge endowments I think I think it's easy for them to hide behind this you school's not not performing well, so the state had to step in, right? And they're saying performance metrics are not great, sothe state hadto step in. Enrollment's down, sothestate hadtostep in.

0:29:23 Thomas: I guess money -wise, yeah,

0:29:25 Lydia: Yeah, yeah. Whereas like UF, FSU, you do that and it's going to be like, what are you doing?

0:29:30 Thomas: Plus you don't want to fuck with the football or whatever, like, there's no...

0:29:33 Lydia: You don't. You mess with sports. That's That's for sure.

0:29:35 Thomas: Yeah maybe that's yeah okay that kind of makes sense you gotta bully the smallest you know first

0:29:39 Lydia: And pin in that too. Yeah, Yeah? Exactly. There There is another college that performance metric wise has been doing OK, but it is a small college that was called out at that same point in 2020, you know, railing after the conservatism and the concerns about how much money per student the state is spending at those schools. So there potential that there could be another one on the horizon. We'll see. Um thought yeah four years I

0:30:07 Thomas: Hmm is this fucking meatball up for re -election I forget how long are those is it four years god I I feel like he was elected in 2018 but I could be wrong no it couldn't be because he'd already did he get re -elected shit but was that a re -elector oh no know because it was Scott oh really god the years have gone so fast because it was Scott was governor and then he ran for Senate and that guy sucked but that was that that long ago this is a second term wait

0:30:19 Lydia: I think it's 2022 I think it a it was re -election I uh uh since 2019 so this is his second term.

0:30:39 Thomas: There term limits is all have term anyway you got to get rid of this fucking guy but it's another two years until it asshole

0:30:43 Lydia: Yeah please Florida. Yeah so the AAUP in their report you spoke about the tenure concern that we spoke about where historically about one -third of the college's faculty have applied for tenure in the fifth year. Individuals who are pursuing tenure under that model, I guess there was a warning from President Corcoran where he said he advised them to withdraw their applications because they would risk being denied tenure. And five of the seven, I guess, decided to call his bluff and lost. And he drafted a memo, put it in their files, and part of it says, I recommend the Board of Trustees defer its decision on awarding tenure to the candidate. If that is not possible, I commend denying tenure at this time. Time. Recommendation is based on extraordinary circumstances, including but not limited to changes in administration, turnover of a majority of the board of trustees, a renewed focus on ensuring the college is moving towards a more traditional liberal arts institution, and the related current uncertainty of the needs of the divisions, units, and college.

0:32:00 Thomas: That's fair you've gotten rid of a bunch of fucking programs so it is a little that's the one logic that I think does work it's like well we're not going to give tenure yeah it's like well we've gotten rid of gender studies we're not going to give tenure you're too for example I know that probably anyway yeah yeah

0:32:06 Lydia: The last Yeah. Yeah. But, you standards of academic freedom that most colleges and universities operate under is that the focus on ensuring the colleges moving towards a more traditional liberal arts institution, that sure sounds like you're trying to infringe upon academic freedom of of your professors that are applying for tenure.

0:32:32 Thomas: I don't don' t know how much that matters how much is any what's the enforcement who can say anything I don''t know okay

0:32:37 Lydia: Yeah. So the new college faculty, you know, like pretty upset. This is last spring still. So we're we're nearing the end of the year for them. And they had been giving it their best shot, I guess, for a couple months. And in mid -May, they voted to censure the board of trustees. 80 percent voted to do that. And They wrote a letter to press the faculty.

0:32:52 Thomas: The faculty can't is that some official thing or they just like let's write an angry letter

0:32:57 Lydia: I it's a statement. Yeah. Yeah, in the letter to President Cork, They said the board had failed in its fiduciary duties. Is endangering the college's ability to fulfill its mission. Again, the mission is defined in Florida statute. And the letter cited potential conflicts of interest by some of the trustees and unprofessional behavior by board members. Um let me send you a link I of what unprofessional behavior might be is

0:33:32 Clip: I will say first in response to um the last point that trustee keening um brought up is that it's been raised repeatedly over this past number of months that there are conflicts of interest among some members of this board who seem to be perhaps profiting from your work on this board and so I think that is the reason why she raised that question mr rufo um can you be specific which people let's not make vague accusations be a grown -up and actually say what you mean I'd like to know if I'm one of those with a conflict of interest yeah trustee reid you're telling the entire time everything you say is so angry is so negative is so critical and you want these bad accusations of breaking the law and so I would say that either make your accusation or shut up

0:34:05 Thomas: The fuck up oh my god by the way that's like an a old lady well

0:34:30 Lydia: She is the director of gender studies that's dr amy reed the faculty representative on the board and she was speaking in support of grace keenan who is the student representative ontheboard who raised concerns that were dismissed and so she was stepping into you know voice of reason the only two voices of reason really on this board.

0:34:51 Thomas: Did she say what I

0:34:53 Lydia: And so that there there's kind of a whisper thing going on. I know that anyone has like put pen to paper exactly to specifically call anything out. Board meeting was in relation to a we're going to be talking about a bit later where the individual who is the of that program, Christopher Ruffo, has described him as, you know, my good friend, etc., etc. And so it's a program we're going to get into later regarding great books, you Know, because we have to have something about great books.

0:35:19 Thomas: What sorry what program is it like yeah but it's somebody who's gonna a profit like a like a contractor type deal okay

0:35:30 Lydia: You know, you can clearly hear the tone of these board meetings. They're rough. They that's the AAUP report. Um, of the other big changes was that New College did not have any sports.

0:35:33 Thomas: Jesus yeah yeah why would you it's a 700 person school yeah yeah you probably have intramurals they're gonna have a division one football team

0:35:50 Lydia: They had, uh, things. They They were going to have a sports program and it was gonna be like 14 different sports that they were going to do.

0:36:05 Thomas: Chris rufo's like I've got to suit up that's the only way it's like gonna get his high school baseball career back or something probably

0:36:18 Lydia: Yeah. What up happening? Like you would think that, you a sports program. You might want to have facilities to do the sport. They don't have that. You would think that you'd want to Have, you know, some thoughts about some coaching. They got there eventually. They have some coaches. They're all from, you religious high schools that have come in. And they got kind of like like immediate approval from, I don't know if it's the NCAA. Guess like low, low, low, lo, low division.

0:36:32 Thomas: Be necessary yeah I fucking doubt it yeah division nine yeah

0:36:56 Lydia: Yeah. They But officially a sports school, I guess.

0:36:56 Thomas: Why would you fucking do like okay even by their logic even by the logic I could see and I'm a fan of sports I would be by the way I wouldn't go to any fucking college that didn't have intramurals at least because it's great it's exercise it's fun it's and it's it's not kind of a club thing it's a hobby thing that'd be awesome there's no reason not to to have intramural sports or the next step up is like club sports. You know, I think it's I think what you do is you kind of find some other colleges to play, but it's not like official or whatever. But, you know, yeah, yeah.

0:37:26 Lydia: They have like a sailing thing, I think, that they do.

0:37:29 Thomas: I mean, that's great. Nothing wrong with that fun stuff. But enough. What is your like if your theory is under your stupid religious bullshit? Well, it's part of a complete breakfast. You got to have the yeah, sure. But like you're going to try to like compete with a 700 person school that's lost the however many of their what's evers and has no thing that's just going to be embarrassing like

0:37:49 Lydia: Why would they do this? I'll tell you. I have a few I have few theories. Salaries.

0:37:52 Thomas: Money do people get to make money off of it yeah

0:37:54 Lydia: Well, I think money is part of it. But, you mentioned how many students left. As of July, they had this year, July 2023, they Had 328 incoming students. That's a record for new students. 115 of them are student athletes. 70 of them were recruited to play baseball. Ball. Of those 70, came with scholarship. Don't have athletic scholarships at New College. They received merit -based scholarships. And so of the 179 students that received $10,000 presidential honor scholarships, 84 of them were athletes. Put this into perspective, so those 70 freshman baseball players that all had scholarships when they came in, 70 freshmen, that's a lot.

0:38:46 Thomas: Can't remember meatball ron was like a baseball player like a real baseball player yeah

0:38:51 Lydia: Yeah. University of Florida, Division I, right, population 90 times bigger than new college. They have 37 baseball players on scholarship in total. Total.

0:39:04 Thomas: Baseball teams are not that big I mean you want to obviously want to have some amount of development and redundancy

0:39:09 Lydia: And then the money that they're offering them like this was a way that they could get a lot of students to come in that weren't going to play for a Division one school or a Division two school or Division three school. School. They're going to go to it, but they want to keep playing baseball and they're going to get money to do it. They get to go to school for cheap.

0:39:16 Thomas: Or a little league or a bowling team or uh yeah yeah is it a way to just get in juice enrollment but if the whole thing is like you're failing money -wise how are you paying for the resources you need to support all these new students

0:39:40 Lydia: That's got to be part three. We're not going to be able to get into all the money for part two, but I promise we will. Problems that I had mentioned. And one of those problems was deferred maintenance. And that deferred maintenence is on things like dorms.

0:39:42 Thomas: That's fair the invisible baseball field that they don't have yeah

0:40:00 Lydia: Also that. So you have these dorms that aren't sufficient for your student population already and are in rough shape already. But they decided that the student athletes got the good dorms on campus and they moved returning students to there's a mold infested dorm that they get to go to or off -campus hotels yep

0:40:16 Thomas: My god wow hotels that's got to be expensive for the school yeah

0:40:29 Lydia: Yeah are not supposed to do that I mean I went to a private university in florida and we did have overflow housing with hotels yeah and like you have a bigger you class than than you have uh for but like they don't want to use that that space it's very expensive And it's annoying for the students to have to bus in all the time.

0:40:35 Thomas: If something happens or yeah yeah yeah you would think right plus it's florida there's probably like you know a lot of drug deals going on at these hotels hotels. Yep. Alligator drug deals.

0:40:54 Lydia: Alligators, though. Yeah, it's all the alligators. Yeah. So you have these this incoming class that looks incredibly different than the school has ever looked ever. And I The put this really well. They said that New College and Ron DeSantis really are purchasing a right wing student body through athletic scholarships to replace those students they've driven out. OK, so, amazing.

0:41:20 Thomas: I want to watch their first game so badly. I cannot tell you how badly I want TO watch these people get destroyed.

0:41:30 Lydia: I'm so glad you went there because that's what I'm going to next. I listened to and folks on our Facebook group, folks on Facebook group know.

0:41:40 Thomas: Really? How did I miss this

0:41:42 Lydia: You'll know. I listened listened to an episode of Blocked and Reported, Jesse Singles' stupid podcast, because they were talking about new college. And I was like, oh, I'm curious what their takes are going to be. They said at the end of the episode, I listened to the whole episode, they said they were going to cover the baseball team season if the season actually started. But they didn't.

0:42:02 Thomas: I want to cover it oh

0:42:03 Lydia: They didn't do it. So now we get to.

0:42:03 Thomas: Well we the official coverage of the baseball

0:42:07 Lydia: Do you want me to send you the link? Because I don't understand the stats

0:42:09 Thomas: I want you to send me tickets I want I don't not going to Florida but I that's

0:42:12 Lydia: Well I think I think their season just ended on the 24th they I are the mighty banyans that is their their banyan tree

0:42:19 Thomas: After steve banyan no stupid I don't know

0:42:25 Lydia: No that was good I liked it here let me send the link so you can look at the the site with me um

0:42:27 Thomas: Well there's a lot of variables though like who are they playing can't you can engineer a season I don'T know well I mean if they are really in ncaa something like I I just don't I donT know what the this level of sports would be here's the other thing if they had to build a team out of a freshman class that's a huge liability so it actually be fair to expect they're going to suck and unless I don't know if the league would like t know I make any sort of allowances or if they're playing an easy schedule I I don know I've never this is a weird situation that I know

0:42:58 Lydia: Well it is a very weird situation early in the season and they do like series right so they play two to three games against the same school in a row um destroyed lighthouse christian college

0:43:12 Thomas: That that college is just a lighthouse that has two kids in it that they try to play all the positions yeah actually yeah only because the other one has to eat man in the lighthouse wow

0:43:16 Lydia: Turn the light on and off yeah their their overall record for the year is not great I mean they won 20 they they lost 26 I

0:43:27 Thomas: I mean on paper that's not bad for this situation but I have no idea who they're playing like what the you

0:43:35 Lydia: Know either these schools aren't real yeah I sent you the link to their their page yeah it says that they finished up their their season game

0:43:37 Thomas: Did you send me something or okay okay like they didn't make the playoffs yeah

0:43:45 Lydia: Game one they lost this is against weber international don't Know Who That Is they They lost 4 -11, and then in Game 2, they beat them 4 -3. So there you go.

0:43:56 Thomas: At number five webern okay that's a ranked team all right tell me what fucking division this is okay so I want to apologize for my wife. They are not an NCAA program. They're in the NAIA, which is like for small schools, National Association of intercollegiate athletics and I don't even know what division they are there so there's three divisions to varsity sports teams wow yeah so they recruited more than 150 scholar athletes fielding six varsities sports teams that's that is pretty impressive I mean I don't know why but the point wow

0:44:25 Lydia: Months yeah well so here are some thoughts uh new york times ran a piece on this and um interviewed chris ruffo this is michelle goldberg when I spoke to christopher ruffe last weekend he offered several explanations for new college's new emphasis on sports including the classical idea that a healthy body sustains a healthy mind. But an important part of the investment in athletics, he said, is that it make New College more male and, by extension, less left wing. Yep. Yep, affirmative action for men. And

0:45:07 Thomas: But but -athletes, like, mainly they're the athlete part normally, but I don't know if it's different at this level.

0:45:16 Lydia: I mean, I saw, you know, like an economics professor sharing that interest in his courses seems to increase. So I think studying more business -related things. The male population, just for a frame of reference, from 23 percent of the student population to 54 percent.

0:45:37 Thomas: Well, I mean, mission accomplished. I say this about Rufo, like he's competently evil. So, I means, you now, maybe they have a plan here. Is it fucking impossible to find what division schools are for anything? Like, this happened recently with something else. Oh, it was because I was trying to figure out Eli's dad's college. I was like, what division?

0:45:56 Lydia: North Carolina.

0:45:56 Thomas: For some reason, that's stupid, but it's information that they decide doesn't exist. I don't know why. Even on the Wikipedia page for the Sun Conference, which their conference that they joined, and it can't tell me what division it is. I can't it. But I think they're They're in Division three, would be the smallest division of the smallest like organization, which whatever. I guess that's what you would be. But I OK, I don't know. I like sports. I just I don't know how to feel about this, I guess. Like, it's interesting, but I don't I don't really feel like that's college needs is not more sports, it seems like. I think sports usually, if anything, is again coming from a sports fan. Doesn't even make it there's such a massive business and take so much it should just be separated from college like make any sense for it to be a part of college. It's just a billion dollar industry that the students only just now are starting to be allowed to profit from at all.

0:46:34 Lydia: And again and they had sports that was Almost This essentially they just weren't getting scholarships for it you know if they're doing intramural and stuff where

0:46:59 Thomas: It's a step above that. But it's yeah, it doesn't really nobody cares. Yeah, It's like I mean, they say it's like, oh, it'S the equivalent of an NCAA division two. And for one I don't buy that because why why wouldn't you just go to an NCAA division two school like I don't get why but also nobody cares like nobody's going to be like I was the NAIA division three runner-up finalist for the like what does that do I don't whatever I don't know I wonder if those people whose podcast you listen to went through the same process were like we're gonna cover their season then they realize like oh it's just like a small it's nothing like

0:47:01 Lydia: Rarely. Really? No. Yeah. Let Yeah,

0:47:34 Thomas: Like it doesn't, it very quickly, I lost interest because I have no frame of reference. It doesn't. Oh, you won the division three NIAI sun conference. Like what is cool? You beat two other like farms in a lighthouse. I don't know what that is.

0:47:47 Lydia: Well, Yeah yeah single and Katie Herzog would have a hard time bringing in their anti trans comments, probably with the baseball topics so they had to stick to what they know. Yeah, exactly.

0:47:57 Thomas: I would probably get old every time being like, and none of the athletes were trans. Okay, cool.

0:48:03 Lydia: We've been talking a lot about, at least by name, I've mentioned Richard Corcoran quite a bit.

0:48:10 Lydia: He's the president. Think we're going to dig into his stuff more in the next episode when we talk about all the money, because there's some interesting things going on But I did want to go out with this episode just sharing the title of David Duke's godson slash Stormfront's son. The title of his thesis, right? Right. So he had mentioned he was going to New College because of an interest in medieval European history. And you can see some of the students theses on the New College website. I tried looking for X's, but it was not available to read. It was, you something that is remaining private. It. But this one is available to read. And I am happy to share it with everybody. I will send the link as part of the show notes. I don't know, because it's amazing. If people want to read it.

0:49:04 Thomas: Why oh it is good oh so

0:49:08 Lydia: Well, I don' t know if the thesis is good.

0:49:08 Thomas: Did he had he deconverted or oh

0:49:10 Lydia: Yes. Yeah. So he had deconverted by this point. It was towards the end of his career. It has nothing to do with that because he was studying, you know, medieval European history. So the title of his thesis is Mortuis Non Mordet, Michael Ranth's influence in the 18th century vampire debate. And I have not read it. I'm so excited to read it, and I want to share the wealth with everybody. If anyone else would like to hear about the vampire power debate makes me

0:49:13 Thomas: Gotcha medieval history here okay uh yeah

0:49:45 Lydia: So happy so nerdy that's your typical new college person I guess The student that spit on Chris Rufo, she ended up taking Hampshire College up on that offer and she transferred there. So when she withdrew, she found a home up in Massachusetts.

0:49:59 Thomas: Is nice that's lucky for her so what did we learn this sounds like they're winning. I it's over. Right. Like, I mean, you've established a sports program. You've got like pretty organized. You know, they've got to the to the extent where they're in this conference and they're competing. They're not really that bad, like all things considered.

0:50:20 Thomas: That's takes a lot of organization. It takes a lot of buy in from people. And they've changed. They fundamentally changed the demographics of the school yeah yeah

0:50:29 Lydia: I yep uh overhauled the administration you have a bunch of people who are serving in positions that have never worked in higher education before. They have very different backgrounds that have nothing to do with anything. Like grabbing them out the wheels of this, I think would be incredibly difficult. And think we have also seen how chaotic it is when you change a school completely. You You completely overhaul it in the shortest time period you could ever imagine. I don't see reasonable people wanting to do that like normally on a normal basis. Like if we ever got control back of new college, what would that look like? Would we even turn it back over that quickly? What, you know?

0:50:59 Thomas: Well yeah no we probably wouldn't want to it wouldn't be fair because you know the thing about the left is they usually don't like to just fuck people over especially school students um so we'd probably have a have a grace period and uh whatever and it would still be good that we did that I think yeah yeah but I I think what's interesting is like the whole goal is like we're going to pry the colleges away from the left but like have you really done Like if you take the these people is that these universities or whatever, these tiny schools, I guess that's the case, maybe are are brainwashing, producing progressive students that are crazy and they're producing scholarship that's blah, blah, but if all you've done is changed it from a school to a gymnasium or a practice

0:51:26 Lydia: Multi -year transition plan. Yeah. Mm -hmm. Yeah.

0:52:02 Thomas: Field, where people play baseball you didn't really like take over scholarship and instant like you just changed what a place is you know like you haven't really you know what I mean like it's not really fair to say like ha we won back universities and whatever no you just like displaced people and then did a different thing that's not really anything

0:52:26 Lydia: Yeah. Also learned that the entire faculty is changing, right? The administration is changing. The faculty is changing the nature of the school except for this. Grades. And that's still the same. And they do want people to still kind of create their own program, but you're not allowed to wear Black Lives Matter pins anymore if you are serving as an orientation leader during school orientation week. See this monumental change happening here, and we're getting a lot of sports, and it's almost as if the entire college is not being treated as an institution for higher learning. It's being treated more like a business and a way that is detached from learning. I understand that universities ultimately, like they have to make money.

0:52:40 Thomas: That's still the same well no they don't private don't have to make money

0:53:24 Lydia: Have to make money to pay salaries, I guess is what I I mean, they could.

0:53:26 Thomas: They don't I just want to say it's the same way that like the postal service doesn't have to make money we've just decided that that somehow yeah like oh they're they're losing money it's like no they provide provide a service that we need and we pay for it. Same could be said, could be for state universities. I don't, I don'T particularly care if they make money. It mean, obviously there's a lot to go there, but I, I, sorry, I dispute your premise because I think it's buying into the right -wing framing of this.

0:53:33 Lydia: That they make money. Yeah, yeah. Okay. Sure. I think that's fair. I have been living and breathing a lot of budget documents. So we will get into the money side of things because I think there are some illuminating things there. And we're going going to follow the money a little bit and we're going to spend more time with President Richard Corcoran because he's an important figure in all of that.

0:54:04 Thomas: I am really excited to follow the money.

0:54:15 Thomas: All right. I've got to get to baseball practice because I am now fighting Banyan.

0:54:19 Lydia: Go Banyans. Can probably find that faster than me.

0:54:40 Thomas: Know it's that easy sometimes

0:54:42 Lydia: And while you're doing that, I'll read some coverage to our good listeners. Sean Lara Rosa had a good run on the mound in Game 1. Lara Rosa came in and pitched two innings, allowing just one hit with a strikeout and no earned runs. The Banyans responded in a big way in Game 3. Yeah, okay. Did I buy you enough time? Morrison delivered Mighty Banyan.

0:55:05 Thomas: Oh boy I'm Oh, sorry. I'm mining Banyan, my opinion. Fighting Banyans?

0:55:13 Lydia: Yeah.

0:55:15 Thomas: Does that make any less sense? I don't know. The Fighting Irish? Steve Banyan. Stupid.

0:55:21 Lydia: Yeah, that's good. All