The Extraordinary Story: Inside the college on the front line of Florida’s culture war

From: The Economist IE Sep-15-2024 11:19:am

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March 19th 2023

The Extraordinary Story

Long reads and life from 1843 magazine, delivered every Sunday

EDUCATION

Inside the college on the front line of Ron DeSantis’s culture war

Conservatives have seized control of New College in Florida

“Are you a journalist?” a student asked me. I recognised their shaggy surfer hair from a photo in the student newspaper. Libby Harrity is the president of the student senate at New College of Florida, a public liberal-arts college at the centre of a political maelstrom. A meeting of the student government was about to begin and Harrity had heard there was a journalist in the room. (Harrity asked to be referred to with they/them pronouns in this article.) “I’m sorry but you can’t be here,” Harrity told me politely but firmly. Well, I replied, according to the student-government constitution, these meetings are open to the public. I held a print-out of the constitution, ready to show the relevant passage. Harrity turned and walked down the burgundy-carpeted steps back to the stage, where they began conferring with their fellow officials. Two women sitting across the aisle glared at me. I waited for a verdict.

It’s not surprising that the students of New College have succumbed to a bunker mentality. Their school is under siege. Ron DeSantis, the ambitious Republican governor of Florida, is on a crusade to purge academia of left-wing orthodoxy, as he sees it.

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