New College of Florida is a tiny blip in Florida’s state university system of over 300,000 students. New College is the honors college of the Florida university system and was founded in 1960 in the spirit of reforming higher education to better instill a sense of lifelong academic curiosity in students. At its founding, it was part of the experimental colleges movement to reinvigorate liberal arts education in the 1960s and 1970s. At New College, students receive comprehensive evaluations rather than grades, and all students create their own courses of study. Until the takeover, they had no sports teams and a strong reputation for LGBTQ+ inclusiveness. Two-thirds of New College’s students identified as female pre-takeover. 

In recent pandemic years, the school had suffered financial problems and dropping enrollment, creating the perfect conditions for the Governor to test his educational agenda. I asked trustee and faculty representative Amy Reid why she thinks Governor DeSantis chose to target New College. The reason she gave was simple – as a struggling public school, it was easy for Governor DeSantis to execute the takeover; it was fun because the college has such a reputation for social justice and LGBTQ+ inclusion. As she put it:

 “We were an easy target… it’s not just that we were easy, but like ‘boy oh boy, this will be fun.’” 

I wanted to dig deeper, to find out how New College fits into the right-wing ecosystem. Governor DeSantis’s many policy priorities – educational and economic – had to have a connecting thread. Journalist Adam Serwer wrote that “the cruelty is the point” regarding former president Trump’s policy choices, and that may be true of the takeover. 

However, when I asked Professor Reid about the role of outside influences on the takeover, she told me that “Hillsdale, The Manhattan Institute, The Heritage Foundation and Claremont McKenna are all working in cahoots… [it is unclear to what extent] this is outside influence or just the way in which the people who are the players here have bases that provide them with funding and platforms.”

 “We were an easy target… it’s not just that we were easy, but like ‘boy oh boy, this will be fun.’” 

When Governor DeSantis took office in 2019, he made educational reform an early priority. Florida’s legislature quickly prohibited schools from teaching “critical race theory,” banned diversity, equity, and inclusion training, and infamously restricted speech on LGBTQ+ people and ideas in schools with the controversial “Don’t Say Gay” law. DeSantis even signed a bill allowing students to film their college professors in order to file complaints about political bias. These laws applied statewide, reshaping education and limiting academic freedom. Much of this agenda has been seen as mere attempts to “own the libs,” rile up a right-wing base, and win culture wars. In his second inauguration speech, Governor DeSantis said, “We must ensure that our institutions of higher learning are focused on academic excellence and the pursuit of truth, not the imposition of trendy ideologies.”

Or, as Harvard Kennedy School Professor Khalil Gibran Muhammad put it, “Florida is a laboratory of fascism at this point.”  

In an illuminating Zoom conversation, Professor Juliana Paré-Blagoev of Johns Hopkins University made the connection between the New College takeover and efforts to influence public opinion about American capitalism, situating New College within a fifty-year right-wing playbook through an “anchoring document… for how corporations interacted with government.” 

In 1971, ten years after New College was founded at the height of the experimental college movement, Lewis Powell submitted a confidential memo to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. The memo is titled “Attack on American Free Enterprise System,” and it details the sources of the perceived attack on American free enterprise and presenting possible solutions for preventing the rise of “extremists of the left.” Before becoming a Supreme Court justice, Powell laid the blame for the rise of anti-corporate thought on colleges, media, and “the apathy of business.” 

A large part of the Powell memo is dedicated to responding to the perceived crisis on college campuses, stating “there is reason to believe that the campus is the single most dynamic source” of anti-corporate sentiment. Powell proposed that pro-business interests develop and fund scholars that agree with the American free enterprise system while also sending pro-business speakers to college campuses. He also describes the need to pressure boards of trustees using the language of academic freedom and balanced inquiry. The Powell memo placed college culture as a hugely influential factor on the continued survival of American free market capitalism.

 Governor DeSantis cares a lot about how corporations operate – he often rails against environmental, social, and governance (ESG) criteria for corporations, diversity initiatives, and “wokeness” in business. At a recent campaign stop, he told voters that his goal was to “restore merit in the individual as the central criteria for economic advancement.” He has spent a substantial amount of his time in office attempting to intimidate Disney, one of the largest employers in the state, for speaking out about Florida’s “Don’t Say Gay” law. 

As journalist Andrew Perez put it, Governor DeSantis wants to “make the economy meaner and dumber” to prop up a specific and regressive idea of American capitalism unencumbered by liberal excesses like diversity, equity, and inclusion policies. The Powell memo’s goals are being realized: restrictions are being placed on the broad liberal arts education students need to be critical of the corporations they may work for, in the name of academic freedom. Once radical students enter corporate America, they will “quickly discover the fallacies of what they have been taught,” Powell writes. 

The reason for the takeover of New College is not simply hostility towards liberal arts, or diversity, or LGBTQ+ students. Governor DeSantis’s anti-woke educational agenda furthers his plans to reshape the economy. Wealthy right-wing donors like the Koch brothers have built influence by following the Powell memo exactly: they have funded a network of think tanks, allowing these institutions to develop right-wing scholars that Governor DeSantis could then install on the board of trustees legally and legitimately.

The takeover of New College of Florida began on January 6, 2023, when Governor DeSantis appointed six board members to vacant positions on the University’s Board of Trustees. 

I wanted to get an idea of what it was like to be a New College student the day of the takeover. Current senior Marshall Bustamante remembered not knowing what was going on until a friend asked if he had seen the news. A hurricane had forced the campus to evacuate a few months before the takeover began, but to New College sophomore Ashleigh Roberts, the mood on campus “felt more . . . dour than when Hurricane Ian was coming.” Students organized protests, but Marshall pointed out that the board takeover seems to have been timed to coincide with an independent study period where many students were off-campus.

“We are now over the walls and ready to transform higher education from within.” 

The new members of the board of trustees are universally right-wing activists, but most do not have actual experience as educators. Of the six appointees, four have backgrounds in cultural battles over education. Most infamously, Christopher Rufo was appointed to the board. Rufo is a conservative figure best known as the architect of the anti-Critical Race Theory movement sweeping school boards and boardrooms across the country. On the day of the takeover, he tweeted: 

“We are now over the walls and ready to transform higher education from within.” 

Other notable DeSantis picks include Dr. Matthew Spalding, a dean at Hillsdale College, a private Christian college in Michigan known for its religious conservatism. On the day of the takeover, Governor DeSantis’s chief of staff expressed “hope that New College of Florida will become Florida’s classical college, more along the lines of a Hillsdale of the South.” Charles Kesler, a member of the Claremont Institute who helped to build the 1776 Commission, was also appointed. Governor DeSantis also appointed the president of right-wing think tank Ethics & Public Policy Center, Ryan T. Anderson.  Rufo, Anderson, Spalding, and Kesler all have ties to right-wing think tanks and policy organizations (The Manhattan Institute for Policy Research, the Ethics & Public Policy Center, the Heritage Foundation, and the Claremont Institute, respectively) originally funded by billionaires seeking to make the Powell memo reality. 

New College’s president at the time was Patricia Okker, the first woman in the role. Okker had inherited the college’s financial problems when she took the position in 2021. Professor Reid remembers a sinking feeling that Okker would face a “glass cliff” as the first woman in the job attempting to fix the mistakes of her predecessors. “I think we were set up,” Professor Reid told me. “Not set up that somebody orchestrated all this intentionally, but we were positioned in a way such that it was easy to do the takeover.”

After their appointment, the new trustees moved fast. Less than a month after DeSantis’ appointees were installed, Okker was fired without cause. [Note: Okker declined to be interviewed for this piece.] The Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion office was disbanded. The Dean of Diversity and a beloved librarian, both members of the LGBTQ+ community, were fired. Okker was quickly replaced by Richard Corcoran, a longtime Florida politician who served as Speaker of the Florida House before becoming Secretary of Education. He stepped down from the Education role after a conflict of interest scandal involving Corcoran trying to assign a multi-million-dollar contract to a friend. 

Professors left New College in droves. 36 professors, one third of the faculty, left post-takeover.  Current senior Marshall told me “…almost every returning student I’ve talked to, there’s been a complaint that a professor that they were interested in taking classes with has left.” In April 2023, the board of trustees denied tenure to all five applicants with no explanation. 

The culture changes have been swift and calculated. The board voted to disband the school’s gender studies concentration, leading its only full time faculty member to quit. By May of 2023, the gender-neutral restroom signs had been taken down and murals had been painted over. New College began recruiting athletes for newly-formed sports teams. The school lowered its admission standard: the new admits had a lower average GPA and standardized test scores than previous first-years. Incoming athletes were assigned to newer dorms, while returning students were assigned to dorms that had serious mold problems. Eventually, most of the returning students were housed in off-campus hotels. 

At the same time, New College received $2 million from the Florida legislature to fund the New College Freedom Institute, which President Corcoran said would fight back against a “tremendous cancel culture” at colleges and universities. 

The outside influences of well-funded right-wing think tanks on New College reveal the hypocrisy of DeSantis’ populist rhetoric while campaigning for president. DeSantis recently echoed Martin Luther King, Jr. on a presidential campaign stop: “No more socialism for the wealthy and rugged individualism for small businesses, and for individuals, and for working class people.” Despite this rhetoric, the DeSantis campaign’s economic agenda is stacked with massive corporate giveaways. “As president, [I’m] going to ensure that these businesses are actually meeting their fiduciary obligations to maximize value for shareholders or for beneficiaries,” DeSantis said in the very same speech. These two positions are incompatible: DeSantis is lying to either businesses or voters, much as he might assert that pro-business policies will be best for workers.. Most of his campaign funds come from large donors, and his actions as governor support the assertion that he is on the side of business, not individuals. 

Back at New College, the chair of the Board of Trustees, Debra Jenks, let the subtext become text at a January 2023 board meeting approving a contract with a nearly $700,000 yearly salary for current President Corcoran. 

“[New College] has been known until now as a soft-skills institution with no real notable contribution to Florida’s higher education system or workforce. That is not acceptable to us.”  

In this quote, Ms. Jenks positions liberal arts education, especially the unique academic structure of New College, as a useless and decadent pursuit. The goal is the workforce, not the pursuit of knowledge, and schools should be accountable to the needs of employers. Ms. Jenks is following the Powell memo’s plan: after placing business interests on the board of trustees, Ms. Jenks is prioritizing the needs of corporations. 

This combines with DeSantis’s vision of shareholder supremacy: “The reality is [ESG] is just a cover for people in large companies to depart from their obligations to their shareholders, and to use that financial power to advance an ideological or political agenda.” 

“[New College] has been known until now as a soft-skills institution with no real notable contribution to Florida’s higher education system or workforce. That is not acceptable to us.”  

The takeover is a means to an end. The true goal is “prioritizing the . . . short term benefit to shareholders over the entire broader public and in fact, the future habitability of the planet,” Andrew Perez told me.

“[T]his is cancel culture promoted by . . . and enforced by the state.” 

This takeover may win culture war points now, but in the long run, the goal is a less well-educated workforce. The moral culpability of corporate actors will remain unexamined by a workforce who was taught to blame a rotating cast of marginalized groups for their own exploitation. 

Of course, students bear the burden of rapid change. 

When I spoke to him, Marshall was afraid he might not be able to graduate. He is concentrating in Philosophy, and nearly all the philosophy professors have left the school. With the mad scramble of departing professors, Marshall learned that a class he needed to take was cancelled just a few days before the semester started.

“[T]his is cancel culture promoted by and enforced by the state.” 

Campus is tense. Ashleigh told me that returning students still protest board of trustee meetings, but despite their efforts the board “mostly vote[s] the same way every time.” Returning students who spoke to the New York Times in September 2023 recounted feeling judged and unwelcome on campus.

Many recruited athletes were given merit scholarships despite having lower GPAs and test scores. Athletes were also given housing that was generally reserved for seniors. Marshall described the athletes’ isolation as “palpable,” and their attitude as “rude,” “disrespect[ful],” and “standoffish,” despite his best efforts to welcome them. 

“One of the things that they want to accomplish is some sense of cultural erasure.” 

Before school began in August, 125 students made the choice to leave New College and finish their studies elsewhere. Christopher Rufo tweeted, “The student body will be recomposed over time: some current students will self-select out, others will graduate; we’ll recruit new students who are mission-aligned.” Hampshire College, a small private liberal arts college in Massachusetts, offered to match the tuition of New College students seeking to transfer. 35 students took Hampshire College up on its offer. 

“One of the things that they want to accomplish is some sense of cultural erasure.” 

New College is not the only target. On October 23, 2023, Ron DeSantis filled the board of Florida Polytechnic University with right-wing activists. The takeover of New College was successful, so these tactics based in the Powell memo find a new target. Academic and cultural takeovers will continue to happen. Criticism of free-enterprise capitalism will become less and less welcome on college campuses.

 My brother’s words still ring true: the world needs fully educated people. However, Ron DeSantis’s crusade against higher education ensures that a full education will be more difficult to come by. New College is only the beginning.