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Liberal arts college caught in America’s culture wars

3 views | Mar 30, 2023, 02:31:23 PM | AP
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Professors at the New College of Florida are using personal email because they’re afraid of being subpoenaed. Students are concerned, too: Some fear for their physical safety, many worry their teachers will be fired en masse and that their courses and books will be policed. It’s increasingly hard to focus on their studies. For years, students have come to this tiny, public liberal arts college on the western coast of Florida because they were self-described free thinkers. Now they find themselves caught in the crosshairs of America’s culture war. Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis has targeted the previously little-known school on the shores of Sarasota Bay as a staging ground for his war on “woke.” The governor and his allies say that New College, a progressive school with a prominent LGBTQ community, is indoctrinating students with leftist ideology and should be revamped into a more conservative institution. Students and faculty say America should take note because the transformation at New College could become a blueprint with national implications as DeSantis gears up for a likely presidential bid. “I’m sorry but this isn’t an indoctrination facility. This isn’t a factory that pumps out, you know, non-binary communists,” says Viv Cargille, 20, a marine biology major from Miami, who is passionate about researching dolphin acoustics but finds it mentally exhausting to focus on classes in a climate she describes as turbulent, volatile and anxiety-inducing. Her roommate Olivia Pare, a second-year biology major, wishes the politicians would leave their school alone. “My biggest frustration is the way it is impacting my education. I am here to learn. I am not here to be more woke _ whatever that is,” said Pare, who does research in the organic chemistry lab but, “we’re not talking about organic chemistry anymore, we’re talking about whether my professor will get her tenure approved.” In January, DeSantis and his allies overhauled the 13-member Board of Trustees and installed a majority of conservative figures. The new trustees promptly fired the college president and replaced her with a Republican politician, the first of several administrators to lose their jobs. Next, they dismantled the office of diversity and equity. They have not revealed future plans but trustees have posted vague warnings on social media like: “You will see changes in 120 days.” Changes so far have come in tandem with a new bill DeSantis unveiled Jan. 31 aimed at overhauling higher education in Florida. The bill would ban gender studies majors and minors, eliminate diversity programs, require courses in Western civilization, weaken tenure protections and put all hiring decisions in the hands of each university’s board of trustees. The effect at New College has been chilling and disruptive. Students and faculty compare the upheaval to a “hostile takeover” that feels even more jarring because of what the school has represented to so many students for so many years, a haven of open-mindedness and acceptance in a place of idyllic beauty with palm-tree lined paths along a stretch of white-sand coast.

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