Bloomberg columnist Mary Ellen Klas has been watching what has been happening with the University of West Florida Board of Trustees and has read several of my articles. In her column, “Meet the Educator Who Thinks Fewer Women Should Go to College,” she said UWF board chairman is one of the “lightning rods” for the far-right’s crusade to “dismantle the current university system and replace it with their own, “anti-woke” version that would discourage the advancement of women and minorities.”
Klas notes that Yenor’s research focuses on “feminism, sexual liberation, and dismantling social justice in academia.” He has written about the need to socially engineer society back to a time when women stayed home and had more children. He points to the decline in birth rates and college enrollment and concludes that “state legislatures and Boards of Regents should now consider policies of patriotic downsizing and reorganizing.”
And Gov. Ron DeSantis has rigged the Board of Trustees vote to ensure Yenor was elected chairman last. Yenor received eight votes – five from DeSantis’ recent appointees and three from the Board of Governors’ picks.
While I have accused the governor of letting UWF become a test lab for the Claremont Institute and those who support the National Christian Movement, I like Klas’ calling Florida’s university system being a “petri dish.”
She wrote, “Under DeSantis, Florida has been a willing petri dish for the conservative movement to revamp higher ed, banning and defunding diversity programs at universities, lowering teacher standards, sidelining sociology courses, and helping to create a new accreditation system for universities and colleges that discourage a diversity focus. Two years ago, DeSantis removed the leadership at New College of Florida, the smallest college in the system, and installed conservative administrators who helped him write his Stop WOKE Act, tossed hundreds of library books, cancelled the school’s gender studies major and bulldozed coastal preserves to make way for more sports fields.”
Like Inweekly and the Florida Legislative Jewish Caucus, Klas believes the Florida Senate should reject Yenor’s appointment and “demand that DeSantis instead appoint mainstream thinkers who acknowledge reality: The US needs more educated and empowered women, not fewer.”
Read her column.
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