As part of his war on “woke ideology,” Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis has mounted a hostile takeover of New College, a Sarasota liberal-arts school known for inculcating free thinking and welcoming LGBTQ culture. DeSantis plans to instill conservative values at the school, as a model for other efforts to rout the politically correct liberal policies DeSantis refers to as wokeism from the education system and other public institutions.
But all is not going as planned. The new president of New College, a DeSantis ally, earns an outsized salary that's supposed to come largely from a foundation aligned with the school that's supported by donors. But donors are yanking their money, turned off by DeSantis's intervention. New donors more aligned with DeSantis may materialize, but in the meanwhile, a once quiet school is now in a state of turmoil.
This might be a small-town spat pitting a tiny, unorthodox college against its prickly overseers, except for two things. One, DeSantis has broadly signaled he plans to run for the Republican presidential nomination in 2024. And two, he’s already campaigning on his record in the Sunshine State and promising to “make America Florida.” That battle over New College reveals how DeSantis moves fast and breaks things in service of the conservative cause, tactics he may apply to social programs, tax policy or immigration if he ever becomes president.
With about 660 students, New College is one of the smallest schools in Florida’s public university system. US News & World Report ranks it 76th best out of 210 liberal arts schools nationwide. Part of the appeal is low tuition: roughly $7,000 per year for Florida residents. The school also has a reputation for launching high achievers, with 89 Fulbright scholars among its graduates. Alumni include William Dudley, former president of the New York Federal Reserve Bank, the former Congressman Lincoln Diaz-Balart and his brother, the Telemundo news anchor José Díaz-Balart.
DeSantis mounted a broadside campaign against the Walt Disney Corp. last year when the Orlando theme park operator opposed a DeSantis-backed bill limiting what Florida schools can teach young kids about sex and gender issues—the so-called "don't say gay" law. DeSantis retaliated by stripping Disney of special municipal autonomy it had enjoyed around Disney World for decades. Traditional Republicans ally with big business, but in his new book, “The Courage to be Free,” DeSantis brags about taking on Disney and other organizations that tout what he calls liberal priorities.
DeSantis took that fight to New College early this year. In January, he engineered a sweep of the school’s board of trustees that put conservative allies in charge. DeSantis’s chief of staff said the goal was to convert the quirky school into a Christian academy. At the beginning of March, the trustees eliminated New College’s diversity program, which one of the new trustees bragged about on Twitter. School supporters worry many more changes are coming.
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In February, the reconstituted board fired New College’s president, Patricia Okker, and replaced her on an interim basis with Richard Corcoran, who served as Florida’s education commissioner under DeSantis. Okker’s base pay was $305,000. For Corcoran, the board raised that to $699,000. That’s comparable to presidents of other public Florida schools that have 50 times the number of students.
Corcoran, for instance, earns about $1,060 per student. That compares with $18 per student for the president of the University of Florida, $13 per student for the president of the University of South Florida and $11 per student for the president of Florida Intl. University.
Florida law allows taxpayer money to cover just $200,000 of a university administrator’s pay. The rest must come from private donations. The New College Foundation, funded by donations from alumni and local philanthropists, was able to raise the extra money for Okker, who was popular among New College's supporters. The new trustees assumed the Foundation would put up the money for Corcoran’s extra pay, as well.
But that additional $400,000, plus a possible 15% bonus and other perks totaling around $200,000, doesn’t appear to be there. Most of the foundation’s $43 million in funding is earmarked for specific causes and can’t be used to pay Corcoran. Debra Jenks, the new chair of the school’s board of trustees, has suggested the school can tap a $4 million grant the foundation received from a Sarasota couple in 2021. But that may not be kosher, either.
The 2021 grant came from the estate of Lee and Bob Peterson and was the largest in New College’s history. The family stipulated that the money was for supporting students, especially those needing treatment for mental illness. Using that money to cover the possibly inflated salary of a political operator revamping the school’s mission would seem to violate the intent of the donors. A person familiar with the Peterson family told Yahoo Finance, “The process by which the donation was made is under attorney review. The Peterson family is working on a response with their attorney.”
Another New College donor told the Sarasota Herald-Tribune she has tallied $10 million in funding for the foundation that donors have withdrawn since the DeSantis team swooped in. That's nearly one-fourth of the nonprofit's funding.
In a March 8 email to New College faculty and staff, Corcoran, the interim president, said “we have no plans to fire tenured faculty and current students should be confident that they will be able to pursue their goals in the traditional academic system of the college.” He attached a Feb. 27 written question-and-answer exchange with the Sarasota Herald-Tribune, in which he explained his vision for the school. Corcoran justified earning more than twice the prior president by outlining several problems he has to fix, such as low student retention rates and a reputation for “weirdos.” There were no questions in the exchange about the use of foundation money for most of his pay.
New College administrators did not respond to a Yahoo Finance request for comment. Nor did DeSantis's office. But one solution to the question of how to cover Corcoran's nearly $1 million compensation package would be to line up new donors more amenable to DeSantis's conservative activism. The Florida legislature has also directed $15 million in new funding to New College. That can't be used to top off Corcoran's salary, but it may help cover activities if foundation money dries up.
Is all of the turmoil worth it? DeSantis obviously thinks so, but most voters don't show much interest in "wokeism," either for it or against it. One recent poll even shows that Americans consider woke virtues a net positive. As DeSantis goes national with his crusade to vilify wokeism, voters will have to consider how much breakage they're looking for in public institutions.
Rick Newman is a senior columnist for Yahoo Finance. Follow him on Twitter at @rickjnewman
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