Governor Speaks Against Protests at Universities: “The Inmates Run the Asylum”
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis held a press conference at the University of Florida (UF) Monday with several college presidents, including Interim UF President Dr. Don Landry.
DeSantis gave Landry praise, saying, “If you want to see somebody that's accomplished look at his resume and his bio... He shows up to Colombia Medical School, he's like 24 years old, having already earned a PhD in organic chemistry from Harvard. How many people are able to do that?“
DeSantis said, “We’re here today for a very simple reason. Florida has been ranked number one in public higher education in the United States of America.”
After praising Florida’s tuition cost and scholarship opportunities, DeSantis referenced the pro-Palestine protests that gained traction on college campuses last year. The last time DeSantis spoke at UF was against a pro-Palestine protest taking place at the university.
“It’s been a rocky few years across the country for higher education,” said DeSantis. “Nowhere was that more evident than in response to the October 7, 2023, attacks. What happened at some of those campuses like Columbia University was far beyond just simply people speaking their mind.”
“Professors and students were being accosted and threatened,” DeSantis stated.
DeSantis went on to say he is happy that sociology is no longer a required course.
Later in the press conference, DeSantis said, “All of our universities, when you had the disturbances on the campuses, you didn’t see that—no one got away with that here. You can say or believe what you want. You can express views, but when your conduct is outside of acceptable behavior standards— I mean, I remember Richard Corcoran at New College… This was a couple years ago, or maybe last year; they had a commencement, and they had a great speaker, and you had a handful of students who are just screaming and trying to disturb it from everyone and he disciplined them. That’s really what needs to happen. You have a right to have your views. If we have a speaker on campus, you don’t shout them down. You don’t create disturbances so that they have to cancel an event. You have to be willing to have an exchange of ideas, but you have to behave yourself. I think on some of these university campuses it’s like the inmates run the asylum because no one ever gets held accountable for anything.”
DeSantis said, “I think it was Florida State… I think they tried to take over the lawn, and like ten minutes later they just turned the sprinklers on, and those guys got off that lawn very quickly… I think when parents see that in Florida and beyond, and they say, ‘You know what, these are positive environments, and they're not gonna devolve into some of the things that we’ve had.'"
DeSantis referenced the protest from the last time he spoke at UF, saying, “We came here, and we had all these people. It’s interesting; a lot of people that were creating most of the problems were not actually even students. These are kind of like professional agitators… We definitely can’t let them run the institution. All the universities in Florida did a very good job at that, and that was in stark contrast to so many of the others.”
DeSantis was followed by Landry, who told the governor it’s an “honor to have him at UF.”
Landry said, “I’ve contributed nothing to what I’m about to talk to you about,” as he’s only held his position for one month.
Landry said, “These have been fraught times; they’ve been fraught for a while… It seems like a crescendo between COVID and post-October 7 and then the insanity of the last year. It’s been difficult across the country but not really in Florida. That’s because Florida has had the right compass; moral; ethical; practical.”
Landry said UF had received $800 million in grants towards research into artificial intelligence.
“We are leading the nation, and we hope that leadership is recognized very shortly at the highest levels in Washington,” said Landry.
State University Chancellor Ray Rodriguez said, “One of the key things in this state occurred three years ago when the legislature passed Senate Bill 266, which removed indoctrinating concepts out of our general education curriculum. It allowed us to take general education and use it for its purpose, which is focusing on academic excellence. That was challenged with multiple lawsuits from faculty members in the ACLU [American Civil Liberties Union of Florida], who all contended they had the right to indoctrinate in general education… Last week, the last of the general education challenges was dismissed.”
Rodriguez said that in the wake of the Charlie Kirk assassination, Florida universities are hosting public debates with people on both sides to promote civil discourse.
“Our students need to learn that words are not violence, and you don’t need a trigger warning to hear something you don’t like,” said Rodriguez.
At the end of the press conference, DeSantis said that Florida universities "were making sure that the Hamas stuff wasn't intruding or that there weren't riots or any of the disturbances."
