What's up with New College's hostile takeover of USF-Sarasota?

[Zorro]

Florida lawmakers are rushing a plan in secret with little community input.

Secrecy, speed and self-dealing may be the grease that runs Tallahassee, but in the real world, they can make for monumental mistakes and generational regret. I’ll delve further into this later if the proposal moves forward, but let’s examine just a few red flags about the idea of transferring the University of South Florida’s Sarasota-Manatee campus to New College of Florida.

State lawmakers are “negotiating” plans for New College to take over USF’s neighboring regional campus near the Sarasota-Manatee county line, according to a top Republican senator, Joe Gruters of Sarasota. Gruters said the idea is to merge New College, USF’s regional campus and the Ringling Museum of Art, all which lie within a couple miles of each other near the Sarasota-Bradenton International Airport.

First things first: Republican leaders in Tallahassee are “negotiating” this idea the same way a hijacked airplane “negotiates” with the control tower. The move comes after Gov. Ron DeSantis proposed this year that New College take over the Ringling Museum from Florida State University. Gruters acknowledged to the Times/Herald that “the leading scenario for sure” is to fold all three under New College, whose president, Richard Corcoran, a DeSantis crony and former Republican House speaker, was installed in 2023 to remake New College into a more conservative mold.

At this stage, thanks to the behind-the-scenes maneuvering, there are more questions than answers. But there’s enough about a takeover already to raise serious alarm.

https://www.tampabay.com/opinion/2025/04/02/desantis-florida-university-joe-gruters-ringling-museum/

[hannah]

1. Son of a bitches

Stop forcing your right wing crap on the everyone. New college was fine without your meddling it was quirky and unique.
Part of project 2025 that Desantis got a head start on. Creep!

[Timeflyer]

2. Fighting the growing authoritarianism of tRump, and the continuing authoritarianism/privatizing/Hillsdale-ization

of Florida, is exhausting, discouraging, enraging.