Professors from across the country have long been lured to Florida’s public colleges and universities, with the educators attracted to the research opportunities, student bodies, and the warm weather.
But for a swath of liberal-leaning professors, many of them holding highly coveted tenured positions, they’ve felt increasingly out of place in the Sunshine State. And some of them are pointing to the conservative administration of Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis as the reason for their departures, according to The New York Times.
DeSantis, who was elected to the governorship in 2018 and was easily reelected last fall, has over the course of his tenure worked to put a conservative imprint on a state where moderation was once a driving force in state politics. In recent years, DeSantis has railed against the current process by which tenure is awarded, and with a largely compliant GOP-controlled legislature, he’s imposed conservative education reforms across the state.
I doubt that’s the goal for many of them (because who wants to rule a castle that’s crumbled), but they have a fair number of accelerationists in their ranks who see Republicans as useful to their own goals.
As much as we try to paint them all as a fascist monolith, they have their own subgroups with their own awful end goals, and once the rapid decline has started, it is a lot easier for them to keep the momentum going.