SEIDMAN SAYS: Inside the New College boardroom - an ungodly display of power and arrogance

I had the – what’s the right word here? privilege? obligation? misfortune? – to be inside the New College of Florida boardroom recently as a slate of new trustees installed by Gov. Ron DeSantis initiated an overhaul of the school by firing the president, replacing the board chair and legal counsel and taking steps toward abolishing the diversity, equity and inclusion programs on campus.

It was a dispassionate display of political overreach that might have been shocking were it not so similar to what took place last fall when new Sarasota County Public Schools board members, also endorsed by DeSantis, terminated the district superintendent at their first meeting.

Apparently, this is what public education is going to look like under a governor who, by virtue of his election victory margin, feels entitled to pursue – to borrow from new Board Trustee Christopher Rufo’s military vernacular – whatever shock and awe campaign will help pave his path to the White House.

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Turns out I was right to have been skeptical a week prior when two of the six appointees – Rufo, a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute and Jason “Eddie” Spier, the co-founder of a Christian charter school in Bradenton – assured students and faculty they would “welcome all voices” and encourage “passionate debate” to reach solutions to the school’s declining enrollment.

That flew out the window before the board meeting had even begun when an alert on my phone confirmed former Florida Commissioner of Education Richard Corcoran had been selected behind closed doors to replace Patricia Okker as New College president.

The 100-plus students, parents and alumni allowed into the boardroom, however, appeared unaware of this preordained outcome. They waved signs and stickers (“Trailblazers, risk takers, free thinkers”) and passed out “Puppet Trustee Bingo” cards that included squares like “Fire leadership under any pretext” and “Yes, I just got here but already I know better than you.”

As the two dozen speakers who’d signed up 48 hours in advance for their 60 seconds of mic time rushed through their pleas, protests and denouncements trying to beat the clock, Rufo exhibited an amused smirk and an air of magnanimous tolerance toward the delay in getting to his own agenda.

Board Chair Mary Ruiz and Okker each spoke to what they believe is working at the college (enrollment up 30%, research and independent study, graduation without debt) and what is not (crumbling dormitories, insufficient technology, lack of retention). Student body president and Board Trustee Grace Keenan, a third-year classical studies major who transferred from a “traditional” school, called New College’s approach to education a model for institutions of higher learning and praised Okker for uniting a previously “silo’d” student body.

But Okker said she’d been informed of “a new mandate” for the college – one she couldn’t, in good conscience, carry out – and “a plan that includes the termination of my employment.” If that caught the newest board member – Ryan Anderson, appointed by the Florida Board of Governors Jan. 25 – off guard (“Whose plan? I was not aware of any plan”), it was the moment DeSantis’s acolytes had been waiting more than three hours for. Their ready proposal for Okker's replacement suggested potential violations of Sunshine laws forbidding discussion and decision-making outside the public eye.

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Permitted an epilogue, Okker – who’d gone briefly off script trying to explain her position to the crowd without giving the board ammunition to fire her for cause – returned to prepared remarks. Looking at the students through teary eyes, she apologized for letting them down and thanked them for sharing her vision and their stories. Then she shared a story of her own – a memory drawn from her childhood growing up in a devout Christian family where, at twice-a-Sunday services she first learned the familiar hymn “This Little Light of Mine,” which ever after “gave me courage and inspiration when I needed it most.”

“To the students of New College . . . I offer these two final thoughts,” Okker concluded. “First, know that you are truly loved here – not just for what you do, but for who you are. And second, the light that is within you . . . don’t hide it under a bush. Let it shine.”

The contentious clash that had lasted more than four hours steamrolled to a swift finish, as trustees voted to engage Corcoran as interim president and initiate negotiations with former Florida Senate President Bill Galvano to become the board’s new legal counsel. With that Ruiz, who had already offered her resignation at the end of the meeting, abruptly adjourned the session.

“Do you even care about the students at all?” came a last desperate shout from the gallery. Tearful, angry and despondent, the students dispersed as if in a state of shock.

Board members insisted they are simply carrying out the governor's orders to quash a progressive “woke” culture at New College that alienates students who are not of like mind. Many dispute such a culture exists, but if it does, this slash-and-burn approach is like hacking off a leg to cure a stubbed toe; the patient is going to die.

The new trustees’ arrogant and inhumane approach is altogether contrary to the Christian values they purportedly espouse. They may have succeeded in eradicating a culture at the college, but it’s not the perceived or fabricated one they were aiming for. Rather they have undermined the culture of safety, trust and community Okker spent her 19-month tenure working to foster.

If that’s what Christianity looks like these days, count me out.

Contact Carrie Seidman at carrie.seidman@gmail.com or 505-238-0392.

This article originally appeared on Sarasota Herald-Tribune: Carrie Seidman: New College trustees put on a display of inhumanity