How DeSantis Turned New College into a Circus
Slate News
Slate Podcasts
4.5 • 6K Ratings
🗓️ 12 September 2023
⏱️ 26 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Back in January, Ron DeSantis appointed six new trustees to the board of Florida’s New College, who swiftly set about remaking the school according to a much more conservative vision of what college should be. Now, as the new school year begins, we’re starting to see what that vision actually looks like.
Guest: Sam Greenspan, freelance journalist who attended New College of Florida from 2004 to 2008 and reported on the college for Reveal in June.
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Transcript
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| 0:45.0 | Sam Greenspan is not the kind of person who looks back on their undergrad days and gets wistful. |
| 0:51.0 | Sam's never been to a college reunion or an alumni mixer. |
| 0:55.0 | But back in the spring, they sat down to write a letter to their college newspaper. |
| 1:00.0 | Yeah, let me find it. |
| 1:04.0 | The newspaper? It's called the Catalyst. |
| 1:07.0 | Dear Catalyst team, I'm a reporter and radio slash podcast producer who's an alum of New College and who also happens to be queer and trans. |
| 1:16.0 | The Catalyst is the student paper for the new college of Florida. |
| 1:21.0 | I was never Catalyst staff, but if you dig through the archives and I hope you won't, you'll find some very questionable opinion pieces I submitted over the years. |
| 1:29.0 | Sam was partially sending a letter of support. |
| 1:32.0 | They've been watching SlackJod as Florida's governor, Ron DeSantis, executed a remarkably swift takeover of this tiny liberal arts school. |
| 1:42.0 | Replacing college leadership, even changing the kinds of students that got admitted. |
| 1:47.0 | But deep in this carefully worded note was a request to return to campus and get an up close look at how the Catalyst has been reporting on the governor's changes. |
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