I’m a very proud graduate of the University of Florida. I went later in life after being afforded the opportunity by angels, my mother and father. The offer was made in my thirties and was generous to the point that I only had to concentrate on school.
I went to an excellent local community college. I’m going to keep this part brief. I was never familiar with any of the staff holding a left leaning ideology outside of a Spanish teacher. Of course there were more than that but only one was open about it. I was familiar with a number of them being right wingers. Interestingly enough, my accounting teacher who was all too proud to tell us she was a libertarian, was probably the best instructor I’ve ever had. She was a professor at Princeton before she and her husband retired and moved here. She still wanted to teach. We get lucky like that around here simply because of our location.
Then I was accepted into the Warrington College of Business at the University of Florida. The professors were overall conservative. One of my economics professors was an economics advisor to the W administration. But the overall tilt was pretty conservative. As were most of the students.
My Business Law and Ethics professor was a different story. He was extremely proud of his arrest record. Big time leftist with a penchant for getting arrested at protests. He said he was too old for that stuff anymore but I think if I asked him to lay in the road outside to protests the universities use of fertilizer he would have been the first one out the door. How about this for a welcome to class? “Close your eyes if you are squeamish. We are about to watch a mink get electrocuted. Don’t want to mess it’s fur up with blood.”
But the tilt was clear and it was to the right.
The Hare Krishna’s would set up in the middle of the University and feed students for free, one day per week. On occasion the Young Republicans Club would set up right next to them with a bbq truck.
In the free speech zone bigotry was a daily theme.
What happened to Chris Leak is something I’ll never forget. He was booed regularly as he brought us a National Championship. The racial aspect was a big topic on campus. It wasn’t discussed much outside of that.
Who was on the sidelines? Our good white Christian with Bible verse under his eyes. Every rich white Bull Gator was trying to force the coach to make him a starter. So were most alumni with any clout. I want to be fair to Tebow. At a very young age he was amazing. Tebow only promoted the fact that Leak was number one and that’s right where he should be. While we did use Tebow that year he was Leaks biggest fan.
Some Imams came to give a lecture one evening. Additional police had to get them in as a group dressed in Israeli military uniforms showed up.
Don’t taze me bro!
I watched people from all political spectrums give talks. UF brings in some interesting people. I went to a lecture from Sandra Day O’Connor one night and Ron Jeremy a couple of weeks later.
My long ass point. UF is not some enclave of liberalism. Not even close.
I’m sure the experience is different for students at other UF Colleges. But that’s the point. They are places of diversity.
Fuck DeSantis. We have some issues at our universities and this ain’t one of them.
Lastly, I hope I have given you a grammatical error or two so you can grumble “educated Florida Man” under your breath, before laughing.