Florida Students Refuse To Let Skeevy MAGA Speaker Ruin Their Graduation Ceremony
New College of Florida students will hold their own, let Scott Atlas give his speech to empty chairs.
Over the last few months, Ron DeSantis has been working to turn the New College of Florida — a small liberal arts school known to have a very progressive student body — into the "Hillsdale of the South." Hillsdale College being a notably wacky right-wing conservative Christian college in Michigan. This has not gone over very well with the students, many of whom plan to leave next year, whether they are graduating or not.
But those graduating feel that they at least deserve a graduation ceremony that celebrates them , not Ron DeSantis. So when it was announced that former Trump advisor, Dr. Scott Atlas would be their commencement speaker, they would hold their own commencement ceremony instead.
Atlas will still be speaking at the "official" ceremony, but he will very likely have to tell the inspiring story of all the ridiculous and nonscientific policies he pushed during the height of the COVID pandemic to a room full of empty chairs.
As organizers Brian Cody and KC Casey explain on their GoFundMe page:
The new administration that has spent the past four months attacking our students and community cannot, in good faith, celebrate our graduating students and their accomplishments. Commencement is supposed to be a celebration of graduating students and the people who have shaped this school to be what it is. And we’re proud of who we are! So, we’re taking the celebration plans into our own hands. We want this event to be a fulfilling and memorable experience for graduating students that keeps the focus on STUDENTS, rather than an administration desperately trying to maintain normality and instill conformity.
Good for them! So far, they have raised $53,000 of their $60,000 goal and are well on their way to having the awesome graduation ceremony they deserve.
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What Ron DeSantis is doing to this college is beyond disturbing on every level. As far as I know, it's never been done before. No Governor has ever just taken over a school and forced it to conform to his personal political ideology. It is psychotic, really. It's bizarre behavior.
But what this shows is that while he and others are working to make everything cruel and ugly, that people still, in many ways, have the power to make kind and beautiful things for themselves. And to make creepy ex-Trump advisors give sad speeches to empty rooms.
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My roommate's explanation was that Chavez would tell poor people "just go to the store and take what you need" and they would do it. She seemed to be unaware that the Venezuelan politicians were stealing the country's oil wealth for decades. She didn't seem to notice that the Republicans in this country have been bleeding the country dry for decades, and their tax cuts will eventually bankrupt us.
You're welcome. There is strength in community, and we're all part of the give and get.
Having the vulnerability to say, "I am ___ (worried/sick/heartbroken/lonely /howling at the moon)" makes it easier for the next of us to say, "I'm struggling, too." Where did this idea emerge that we all have to have perfect lives, or pretend we do? And we learn from one another, too, as we find and share solutions to our own predicaments.