<\/p>\n
University of Florida campus in Gainesville.<\/p>\n
Phelan M. Ebenhack<\/p>\n
The Orlando Sentinel\/Tribune News Service via Getty Images<\/p>\n
U.S. Education Secretary Linda McMahon on Friday injected herself into the increasingly politicized University of Florida presidential search, reposting a scathing letter from U.S. Sen. Rick Scott and emphasizing Florida Republicans\u2019 push against diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives in higher education.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe need bold leaders to reorient higher education toward merit, truth-seeking, and academic rigor,\u201d McMahon wrote in a post on X. \u201cFlorida has led the fight to get discriminatory DEI out of our schools and universities. UF deserves a president who will continue to drive those reforms.\u201d<\/p>\n
McMahon, the Trump administration\u2019s top education official, is the highest-ranking Republican official yet to apply pressure on Florida\u2019s flagship university to install a firmly conservative president.<\/p>\n
She did not mention the sole UF presidential finalist Stuart Bell by name, but her comments arrived as Bell faces mounting scrutiny from conservative activists over his past support for diversity initiatives during his tenure leading the University of Alabama.<\/p>\n
Within hours of Bell\u2019s selection earlier this week, conservative higher-education activists began circulating opposition research on social media highlighting Alabama\u2019s diversity recruitment efforts, antiracism initiatives and campus inclusion programs under Bell\u2019s leadership.<\/p>\n
Yet Bell has drawn strong support from some within Florida\u2019s Republican establishment. Gov. Ron DeSantis quickly endorsed Bell after UF announced him as the lone finalist, calling him \u201ca great selection\u201d who would help UF \u201creach new heights.\u201d The chairman of UF\u2019s Board of Trustees, Mori Hosseini, is a GOP megadonor and prolific DeSantis ally.<\/p>\n
UF officials have stressed that Bell\u2019s DEI record was vetted during the search process, an apparent attempt to avoid a repeat of the political firestorm that engulfed former finalist Santa Ono.<\/p>\n
The education secretary also amplified Scott\u2019s Wednesday letter criticizing UF\u2019s presidential search as lacking transparency and questioning several university financial decisions, including the $2 million severance payout owed to Interim President Donald Landry after he was passed over for the permanent job. Scott separately criticized UF\u2019s decision to pay Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier $100,000 to teach a law school course.<\/p>\n
McMahon did not publicly weigh in during UF\u2019s previous presidential search, which collapsed after Ono withdrew amid conservative backlash over his support for DEI programs and other policies while president of the University of Michigan.<\/p>\n
Her comments Friday make her the latest Republican official so far to publicly engage in UF\u2019s latest search, underscoring how the fight over the university presidency has become entangled in the national Republican campaign against DEI in higher education.<\/p>\n
Bell emerged this week from another tightly controlled search process that produced only one public finalist \u2014 now a common feature of presidential searches in Florida\u2019s university system. If approved by UF trustees and later ratified by the Florida Board of Governors, Bell would become UF\u2019s 14th president.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"University of Florida campus in Gainesville. Phelan M. Ebenhack The Orlando Sentinel\/Tribune News Service via Getty Images U.S.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":281968,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[28,30,29],"class_list":["post-281967","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-florida","tag-florida","tag-florida-headlines","tag-florida-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/281967","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=281967"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/281967\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/281968"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=281967"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=281967"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=281967"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}