‘I’m not done,’ admiral says after DeSantis appointee seeks to torpedo his candidacy for FAU presidency

Christopher Rufo, the right-wing culture warrior who was appointed by — and has the ear of —– Gov. Ron DeSantis, is seeking to derail the candidacy of one of the three finalists for the presidency of Florida Atlantic University.

Rufo attacked Vice Admiral Sean Buck, describing the career officer as a woke military leader who pushed “radical” diversity, equity and inclusion efforts at the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, where he is currently superintendent.

In the highly politicized atmosphere that has engulfed higher education in Florida under DeSantis’ governorship, the Rufo charges could damage, or doom, Buck’s prospects to become FAU president.

At the conclusion of a series of Twitter posts this week, Rufo demanded that state officials “remove Buck from consideration” as a candidate to lead FAU. The far-right website The Daily Wire accepted and amplified Rufo’s statements, proclaiming in a headline that a “Pro-DeSantis Board Sinks Woke Navy Admiral’s Bid For University’s Presidency.”

Buck, in a brief phone call on Thursday, said he is still a candidate for the job.

“I’m not done,” he told the South Florida Sun Sentinel.

And, he said, the claims are false. “We do not have a woke Naval Academy. We never have. It’s not the U.S. Naval Academy,” Buck said.

Brad Levine, chair of both the FAU Board of Trustees and its Presidential Search Committee, also said the characterizations of Buck aren’t accurate.

“To me it is an embarrassment to denigrate a three-star admiral or anybody in the military with comments like this, and it is completely unpatriotic,” Levine said. “He’s a Florida resident, he’s a Republican, and he’s a lifelong conservative, probably even more conservative than Governor Ron DeSantis.”

Buck’s voter registration confirms he is a Republican.

Levine said Buck and the other two candidates — Michael Hartline, dean of the College of Business at Florida State University, and Jose Sartarelli, former Chancellor of the University of North Carolina Wilmington — are still the three finalists for the job.

The search process has been suspended, however. After the finalists were announced July 5 — and state Rep. Randy Fine, a Brevard County Republican and DeSantis culture war ally, wasn’t among those making the cut — the chancellor of the state university system stepped in.

The inspector general for the Board of Governors, the policymaking body for the state’s public universities controlled by DeSantis appointees, was assigned to investigate what Chancellor Ray Rodrigues described as “anomalies” in the search.

Rodrigues questioned a search committee’s use of secret ballots in the first round of narrowing candidates as well as a voluntary and anonymous questionnaire used by the committee’s outside search firm asking about demographic information including sexual orientation and gender identity.

Politics

In conservative political circles, especially the educational arena, the allegation of being “woke” or supporting diversity, equity and inclusion efforts, is an extraordinarily serious charge.

DeSantis has made opposition to being “woke” and fighting diversity, equity and inclusion signature issues of his time in office — and a cornerstone of his attempt to win support of conservative Republicans whose primary votes in other states will determine if he wins his party’s 2024 presidential nomination. He’s proclaimed “Florida is where woke goes to die,” and he used the word six times in his election-night victory speech last year.

As DeSantis has sought to burnish his credentials as an anti-woke, anti-DEI champion, he has boosted Rufo, and Rufo has boosted DeSantis. Rufo has helped guide some of the conservative culture war issues adopted by DeSantis and the governor has rewarded Rufo by giving him a platform to spread his views.

In 2022, when DeSantis signed legislation restricting the way race-related issues are taught in public schools, Rufo spoke as part of the program.

Early this year, DeSantis appointed Rufo as a trustee of the New College of Florida in Sarasota. (The mission for Rufo and the other trustees: overhaul the public college to make it a bastion of conservative approaches and thinking. The trustees replaced the president with Richard Corcoran, formerly the DeSantis-picked state commissioner of education and former Republican speaker of the Florida House of Representatives.)

And in May, when DeSantis formally announced his presidential candidacy during an audio presentation on Twitter, Rufo joined to offer praise for the governor.

(“What you’ve done over the last few years is really astonishing,” Rufo said of DeSantis.)

State Sen. Shevrin Jones, D-Miami Gardens, said the strategy won’t ultimately be the kind of winning political issue DeSantis and Rufo are hoping for.

“That’s exactly why the governor’s presidential polls are the way they are, because he’s listening to people like Christopher Rufo, who’s trying to take the country backwards.” (DeSantis’ standing in the national polling average of Republican voters had declined by about one-third in the last six months.)

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Designating an appointee

Rufo is a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute, a conservative tank, where he focuses on issues such as combating critical race theory, which holds that racism is ingrained in many American institutions, and on gender ideology.

The governor’s office, in a news release, said, “Rufo has led the fight against critical race theory in American institutions. Rufo’s research and activism inspired a presidential order and legislation in fifteen states, where he has worked closely with conservative governors and lawmakers to craft successful public policy.”

His book, “America’s Cultural Revolution: How the Radical Left Conquered Everything,” was released Tuesday. It is published by the conservative imprint of HarperCollins.

Outside of conservative circles, Rufo has little to no credibility. Critics have pointed to his Manhattan Institute biography and a DeSantis office press release, which said Rufo has a master’s degree from Harvard. The degree is from the Harvard Extension School, which the New Republic described as “part of the renowned institution, but it is not Harvard as most people know it.”

“If we’re going to start taking orders and direction from Christopher Rufo, we have a bigger problem in Florida than we think we have,” Jones said. “Christopher Rufo has no credibility on education, he has zero credibility when it comes to diversity, equity and inclusion.”

Jones is a doctoral student at FAU in educational leadership/higher education. He is also vice chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee on Education and a member of the Education Postsecondary Committee.

“I suggest we ignore Christopher Rufo, and Christopher Rufo stay out of Florida’s business,” Jones said.

Andrew Gothard, president of the United Faculty of Florida and part of the English Department faculty at FAU, said described Rufo as “an outside actor who really should not be involved at all.”

Though Rufo is a DeSantis appointee to the New College board, he’s been a longtime resident of Washington state.

Gothard said Rufo’s statements shouldn’t be accepted as fact.

“In my experience, for every one thing Christopher Rufo says that might modestly be true, he says nine things that might be entirely fabricated or he can’t show his homework on,” Gothard said. “I would encourage anybody who reads that Twitter thread (on Buck) to take it with an entire shaker of salt, not just a grain.”

Rufo on Buck

Rufo labeled his series of six Twitter posts on Tuesday as an “EXCLUSIVE,” and asserted that FAU “tried” to hire Buck, “but critics allege that Buck is a ‘woke’ military leader who pushed radical DEI, denied all religious exemptions for the vaccine, and lied about a conservative midshipman to ruin his career.”

He concluded the series by stating that, “Fortunately, Chancellor Ray Rodrigues and the Board of Governors have shut down the process. They need to start over, remove Buck from consideration, and hire a new president that will advance Florida’s values—not radical DEI.”

State. Sen. Lori Berman, a Democrat whose Palm Beach County district includes FAU’s main campus in Boca Raton, said the assertions about an admiral with decades of service are “preposterous.”

“This individual with outstanding credentials has been attacked,” Berman said. “It’s shocking that we’re calling a military officer ‘woke.’”

Jones agreed. “There’s no ‘wokeism’ in the military. There’s collaboration in the military,” Jones said. “They have to learn how to get along. … You are helping each other survive.”

“For them to attack an admiral in that way goes to show that they have no regard for democracy, they have no regard for leadership and no regard for our armed forces, the people who have continually put their lives on the line,” Jones said. “These are the same people who say ‘support the troops.’ But they speak out of both sides of their mouth.”

One of Rufo’s claims was that Buck “led the policy of denying all religious exemption requests for the COVID vaccine.”

It doesn’t include the context vaccinations were required for all service members. Decisions about exempting midshipmen at Annapolis weren’t up to the superintendent. Buck said they were handled by the chief of naval personnel, who was designated for that role by the chief of naval operations.

Berman said Buck should “absolutely” stay in the running. “He was one of three finalists of the 63 candidates, which speaks very highly of his qualifications.”

Jones, too, said he hopes Buck stays in the running. “If they remove him from the list because of Christopher Rufo, shame on them.”

Gothard said the union didn’t have a position on Buck or either of the other presidential finalists, but said he should remain in the mix. “Whoever is president should be a highly qualified academic professional who has demonstrated through experience that they can do the job. That’s it.”

This report includes information from Sun Sentinel archives.

Anthony Man can be reached at aman@sunsentinel.com, on Twitter @browardpolitics and on Post.news/@browardpolitics.