'I Cringe At Some Of These Statements...': Ron DeSantis Discusses Past Quotes From New University of Florida President

Forbes Breaking News

At a press briefing, Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL) was asked about Santa J. Ono, the incoming President of the University of Florida whose past statements have made some conservatives upset.

Transcript

00:00Governor, do you know who you want to replace Commissioner Diaz?

00:03And could you also comment on that vote to hire Santa Ono to leave the UF?

00:09So on the UF presidential, I appoint people to the boards of trustees and the board of governors.

00:18And they do these searches and they bring in candidates.

00:22And so with respect for the University of Florida, I don't know the candidate.

00:27He was the president of the University of Michigan.

00:30Which is usually considered one of the top public universities in America.

00:34And he wants to come to Florida.

00:36Now people have pointed out a lot of statements that he has made that are not exactly what we're looking for in a state where woke goes to die.

00:46And I cringe at some of these statements.

00:49But basically I think the folks that were involved in the search, after having interviewed him, spent time with him,

00:55it's their judgment that he's really kind of reached the limit on the campus leftism.

01:02And he would want to leave Michigan where that is prevalent, to Florida where it's frowned upon,

01:07because he wants to be more in line with what Florida is doing and our policies.

01:12And they really believe that.

01:13Now there's other folks that haven't necessarily talked to him.

01:15They see all these and they're like, you can't, you can't do it.

01:18So he's going to go in front of the board of governors and I appointed all those folks.

01:21And so, so they'll make the judgment.

01:23But, but people are saying, well, well, you know, you know, you could have a woke here.

01:27No, no, no, no, no.

01:28That's not going to happen.

01:29Because if he were to go in and do that, he will lose his job in Florida.

01:34We have expectations about what we want in higher education.

01:38We don't want it to be a fountain of activism or leftist indoctrination.

01:44And if you go in that direction, then you will not have support to continue.

01:48And so either way, we will continue to have a higher education system that's really leading the way.

01:56Our expectations are clear, not only in law, which we have, such as by eliminating DE&I,

02:02but also in other actions that we have taken.

02:05And those expectations will need to be met one way or another.

02:09When we had the Hamas stuff breaking out across the country and you had this stuff at Columbia University,

02:15all these other places, people said, oh, man, you know, it's not happening in Florida.

02:19I wonder why.

02:20Well, it wasn't a mystery why.

02:21If a president of a university in Florida allowed that to happen,

02:26they would no longer be the president of a university in the state of Florida.

02:30It's just that simple.

02:31So we have expectations for it.

02:34But, you know, I've appointed these people to do their job.

02:37I wasn't, you know, I wasn't the one that picked the candidate or this or that.

02:42You know, it's my view is, like, let them do their job.

02:45Let the process unfold.

02:46But however it works out, you know, we will continue on the direction that we will one way or another.

02:53The city of legal interest was lost in appeal on a stop at drag strip and being held outside next weekend at Campion Park.

03:00Of course, it comes as that state law is still blocked.

03:02How far is the state willing to take this fight to the Supreme Court?

03:07We are going to protect the innocence of our children.

03:11Why would it be problematic to say you can't do this stuff that's sexually explicit in front of minors?

03:20That used to not even be something that would be questioned.

03:23Now, somehow, you have folks going in the court and they really want to push the envelope on this stuff.

03:29And I want Florida to be family friendly.

03:32We fought the fight about the schools with the education, particularly for the young grades,

03:37about are you going to be like California where you port to second grade and you're not learning math or English.

03:46You're learning about changing genders.

03:49That's unacceptable.

03:51And we laid down the marker here.

03:52So parents in Florida should know that we're on their side and these kids should not be robbed of their innocence.

04:03So when you have some of this stuff where you'd have these establishments where you could have minors in there,

04:08and that's not consistent with good policy.

04:12So we stand for the protection of the children and we're going to continue to do that.

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