FAU Presidential Search

In conjunction with an outside search firm, FAU's search committee for the new president identified three qualified candidates and released their names and info to the university community in accordance with the recently passed hiring laws. Forums with students, staff, and faculty were set to begin the following week and that is when the Board of Governors, which oversees the entire university system - and is appointed by Ron DeSantis - stepped in and issued a letter saying they thought that there were irregularities in the gathering of demographic data and the way that votes had been done within the search committee. They then suspended the search. It is widely speculated this was because certain of the governor’s favorites, including self-described conservative firebrand Randy Fine, were not included in the search. When there was pushback from the search committee, who also are mostly DeSantis appointees, the state shut down the search entirely. So now the new school year is starting without a president. This happened at Florida Gulf Coast, where the Board of Governors also turned down the university's selection and of course, we know all about New College. DeSantis wants his conservative lackey in place to carry out his worldview for higher ed. Meanwhile, Christopher Rufo, the governor’s intellectual guide and manufacturer of the anti-woke extreme ideology is attacking Vice Admiral Sean Buck, “describing him as a woke military leader who pushed “radical” diversity, equity and inclusion efforts at the U.S. Naval Academy.” 

 

We need the Board of Governors to stop government overreach and allow the processes in place to work in order to protect and represent all the stakeholders. When the Board of Governors behaves this way, they expose the fact that DeSantis thinks only his point of view matters no matter how much work has gone into the effort so far.

 

We are asking the local community to stand with the 30,000+ students and 1000+ faculty members, many of whom are your neighbors, your neighbor's children, and contact the Board of Governors and tell them to keep their hands off this process. We’ve shared on Facebook, and through email, and we’ll put on our website an easy way to access a template that you should customize and send to the Board of Governors. The press coverage has been pretty good about the event and our local elected Democrats are following the issue. Please keep it in your mind and take action.