Ron DeSantis Appoints Conservatives to University of West Florida Board

Ron DeSantis Appoints Conservatives to University of West Florida Board

Republican governors across the nation should be following this example. How else are you going to eventually bring about any political balance in higher education?

Florida Politics reports:

Gov. DeSantis names conservative think tank members to University of West Florida Board

The University of West Florida (UWF) may soon lurch rightward, following new appointments by Gov. Ron DeSantis.

DeSantis just named five new members to the school’s Board of Trustees. All are conservatives. Several have drawn attention for their political views or activities. A couple donated to DeSantis’ 2022 campaign for Governor.

Two of them, Adam Kissel and Scott Yenor, live outside of Florida and have associations with The Heritage Foundation, whose Project 2025 vision for President-elect Donald Trump’s incoming administration attracted national headlines and ample consternation among progressives.

Yenor now works with the Claremont Institute, a California-based think tank described by The New York Times as “a nerve center of the American Right.”

The other appointees include lawyers Paul Bailey and Chris Young and investor Gates Garcia.

Kissel, a West Virginia resident, is a visiting fellow on higher education reform for the Heritage Foundation, a senior fellow for the Cardinal Institute for West Virginia Policy and a visiting scholar for the Texas Public Policy Foundation.

He previously worked for five years on higher education matters for the Charles Koch Foundation and as Deputy Assistant Secretary for Higher Education Programs at the U.S. Department of Education (USDOE) for a year and four months under Trump.

Kissel has filed numerous discrimination complaints over the years with the USDOE over university policies. One such complaint about unequal treatment of non-Black students at Stanford University was dismissed in March 2023. Another proved more fruitful a year later, when a University of Minnesota Law School fellowship agreed to no longer give preferential treatment to minorities after Kissel challenged the matter six months earlier.

State records show Kissel gave DeSantis’ gubernatorial campaign $150 in November 2022.

Kissel said on X Monday, “It will be an honor to serve UWF.”

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