Ron DeSantis Must Be Super Glad Florida Professors Saying Hell No To Teaching In Gilead

All the better for his dystopian dreams.

Dean Lydia approves.

After pursuing a fuckton of far-right policies aimed at enacting an extreme agenda that would win him the 2024 presidential nomination, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis will have to settle for getting only one of his wishes granted. He’s no closer to becoming president, but at least his war on education is having results. As the New York Times reports (gift link), professors at Florida universities are starting to leave the state for jobs in saner places, many even giving up hard-won tenured positions. And many academics on the job market are steering clear of positions in Florida’s state university system, not only because of DeSantis’s attacks on education, but because he’s making Florida a less desirable place to live.

The story is based in part on interviews with a dozen academics in various fields, who have flown Florida for jobs in blue states. What? Only 12 bitter liberal losers? That’s no trend! But wait a moment, there’s numbers too, and the universities themselves are noticing all the dirty looks they’re getting from the rest of the academic community:

Data from several schools, however, show departure rates have ticked upward. At the University of Florida, overall turnover went from 7 percent in 2021 to 9.3 percent in 2023, according to figures released by the university.

A report by the faculty senate at the University of Florida found some departments hard hit. The school of arts — which includes art, music and dance — “struggles to hire or retain good faculty and graduate students in the current political climate,” said the report, issued in June.

In liberal arts, the report said: “Faculty of color have left.”

Well that’s fine. Nobody needs arts anyway, or for that matter any professors who aren’t white, preferably wearing tweed jackets with elbow patches and chalk dust all over the shoulder blades where the prof has leaned against the board, deep in thought about Western Culture.

Then there’s this quote from UF Law professor Danaya C. Wright, chair of the faculty senate, who says job candidates are avoiding Florida: “We have seen more people pull their applications, or just say, ‘no, I’m not interested — it’s Florida.’” No word on whether they add, “Forget it, Jake.”

This is pretty remarkable stuff, given that the academic job market has been terrible for years. Paul Ortiz, a history prof who’s leaving the U of Florida to start a new job at Cornell, noted, “If the academic job market was more robust, then a lot more people would be leaving.”

Walter Boot, a tenured prof in psychology who started at Florida State since 2008, is getting the hell out because no matter how much he loves his job and his school, he’s gay, and damned if he wants to be in a state where public schools are officially anti-LGBTQ+. Boot cited the ugly rhetoric around DeSantis’s “Don’t Say Gay” law in an August op-ed he wrote about his decision to GTFO of Florida, and said university leadership simply wasn’t even willing to publicly support gay and trans faculty and students — not even after a Florida Man threatened a mass shooting of gay people on the FSU campus.

Dr. Hope Wilson, whose kid is transgender, left her position as a professor of Education at U of North Florida because what part of “whose kid is transgender” did you miss there? She called the atmosphere in Florida universities “very dystopian all around,” because that’s precisely the plan.

And now for the part of the story where we need to remind you that throwing your iPad through the window could break both. Naturally enough, the Times followed the two profs who voiced concern about the safety of LGBTQ+ folks with a comment from DeSantis’s top education troll-activist, Christopher Rufo, the most prominent appointed goon in the governor’s crusade to ruin New College of Florida, previously a nifty little liberal arts school, and turn it into a bastion of conservative indoctrination.

Rufo is of course delighted that progressive academics are avoiding Florida universities like a MAGA voter avoids books.

“To me, this is a net gain for Florida,” he wrote in a statement, railing against diversity programs and transgender medical care. “Professors who want to practice D.E.I.-style racial discrimination, facilitate the sexual amputation of minors, and replace scholarship with partisan activism are free to do so elsewhere. Good riddance.”

Later, Rufo took to Xitter to celebrate a Daily Mail story (that he neglected to link to because citing sources is woke) that pointed out that one of the profs interviewed by the Times had actually gone to Canada, haha, can you believe it Canada! And everyone was happy, because good riddance and Marxist indoctrination and applause gifs and I hope they don’t come here.

Go read the whole Times piece with your gift link, and wonder if maybe we really are prepping this nation for disunion. Or just go read Wonkette’s serialized novel about that prospect, The Split.

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Florida Passes 'Don't Say Gay' Bill, Now Let Those Lawsuits Fly!

DeSantis, Rufo Gutted New College Of Florida, But At Least The Coffee Cups Have Bible Verses Now

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[NYT (gift link)]

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