The New College of Florida — the liberal arts college that Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis took over as part of his administration’s anti-woke agenda — has acquired the nearby campus of the University of South Florida Sarasota-Manatee through a similarly hostile, Republican-led takeover, The Guardian reports.
The expansion is set to take effect July 1 and will triple the size of the New College of Florida’s campus. The Guardian says the measure was resurrected after it died and then inserted into the state budget process “with little debate” — leading some Democrats to cry foul.
USF Sarasota-Manatee president Moez Limayem said in a statement that students will be able to finish their degrees at Sarasota-Manatee “without disruption.” They will also be granted “first priority” for use of campus facilities during a “teach-out” process that is set to take place over the next couple of years.
“I fully recognize that this agreement creates significant uncertainty and anxiety for our dedicated, outstanding faculty, staff and students,” Limayem said in his statement.
The development represents the latest in a series of steps that DeSantis and his conservative colleagues have taken to remake the New College of Florida into a conservative model for higher education.
The EDU Ledger recounts the history of those efforts in an article that presages how the New College model is “primed to be scaled” under the anti-LGBTQ and anti-DEI policies of the Trump administration. It notes how the transformation began in 2023, when DeSantis appointed six highly partisan activists to the New College Board of Trustees.
“In the span of just two years, a vibrant, academically rigorous haven for LGBTQ+ youth was dismantled. Its progressive student body was alienated, outnumbered by a state-funded influx of ideological recruits,” the EDU Ledger article states. “Florida has proved that an entire college’s culture can be overwritten by administrative fiat. The blueprint is drawn, waiting for the next state to pick it up.”
Now, that blueprint includes subsuming the campuses of other schools. Limayem, the USF Sarasota-Manatee president, has sought to soften the blow of that reality, stating, “USF’s strength is not a collection of buildings and land; our real strength has been, and always will be, our people.” Limayem also noted that USF will retain more than $22 million in recurring operating funds. “Keeping those operating dollars is critical because it allows us to retain all our faculty and staff and teach-out all current students whose home campus is Sarasota-Manatee,” Limayem said.
