With only a year left in office, Gov. Ron DeSantis has a limited window of time to wield power in Tallahassee.
But on college campuses across Florida, DeSantis continues to expand his army of political loyalists — both college presidents and university trustees, who are poised to dominate for many years to come, no matter who is elected governor in 2026.
As a result, higher education could become DeSantis’ enduring political legacy. And the governor’s final year in office will provide still more opportunities to push academia in a conservative direction.
It is an agenda intertwined with the conservative Heritage Foundation, founded in the Nixon era, which authored the controversial Project 2025 blueprint to guide the Trump administration’s efforts to reshape Washington. With President Donald Trump term limited as well, aligning with Heritage could benefit DeSantis politically in the future.
This Heritage-inspired sea change has outraged alumni and the communities surrounding Florida’s college campuses, some of whom view DeSantis’ allies as interlopers — many of the leaders DeSantis has installed have no previous connections to the schools they now run, limited experience in higher education, or live out of state. Those limitations have not stopped these new leaders from burrowing deep into the universities’ affairs, according to public records obtained by The Tributary, from micro-managing the materials presented in individual classrooms to replacing signs on bathrooms.
The governor’s project has also come with costs — both material and political – that have given even some of his elected Republican peers in the legislature pause.
At the University of West Florida, a DeSantis ally, former GOP lawmaker Manny Diaz, Jr., is expected to become permanent president later this week, after spending six months as interim leader.
On Thursday, Diaz’s hiring will be considered by a UWF board of trustees that is strongly aligned with the governor and has two Heritage Foundation-affiliated members. And if UWF confirms him, that decision will almost certainly receive final approval by Florida’s Board of Governors, which supervises universities — and is composed almost entirely of DeSantis appointees.
‘Conservative capture’
In recent years, similar scenarios have played out at universities across the state.
“This is a conservative capture of Florida’s public higher education,” said Robert Cassanello, a University of Central Florida history professor who is president of the United Faculty of Florida union. “It’s all ideological, and politically-driven.”
DeSantis’ press office did not respond to a request for comment.
At New College of Florida in Sarasota, the governor’s aggressive takeover of the institution prompted more than one-third of faculty to find jobs elsewhere. The school has since plummeted in national rankings, and, according to a Florida Department of Government Efficiency report, is spending an astronomical figure per student: $83,207.
The state average is $22,217.
In June, a onetime lawmaker and DeSantis’ former lieutenant governor, Jeanette M. Nuñez, became permanent president of Florida International University in Miami — a university where roughly two-thirds of the student body is of Hispanic origin.
The following month, FIU police signed a controversial agreement with the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency. The deal allows campus police to collaborate with ICE, and perform certain immigration enforcement actions.
The FIU-ICE partnership has prompted multiple protests.
“ICE, ICE, shame on you,” chanted student and faculty protesters in November. “Immigrants have rights, too.”
At Florida A&M University, alumni and students expressed deep anger at the hire of a DeSantis ally and cable company lobbyist, Marva Johnson, as president of the historically-black university. Johnson’s critics called her unqualified, and derisively nicknamed her “MAGA Marva.”
One FAMU alum, addressing the Board of Governors in June, called Johnson’s hire “an embarrassment.”
At the University of North Florida in Jacksonville, where DeSantis has many past ties, a presidential search is underway — yet another opportunity for DeSantis to handpick a favored leader.
200 miles
At UWF, Diaz’s prior higher education experience was limited to an executive role at Doral College — an online institution started by Academica, a charter school operator — and serving on Florida’s board of governors, which oversees higher education. Diaz’s role as state education commissioner automatically gave him a seat on the board of governors.
Diaz has little connection to the Pensacola community, the western-most outpost on the rural Panhandle with about 50,000 residents. Diaz’s children still attend school in Tallahassee, according to Hialeah state Rep. Alex Rizo — so, as interim president, Diaz has been commuting between the two cities, which are roughly 200 miles apart.
Rizo, who said he has been “best friends” with Diaz for more than 25 years, said shuffling between cities is similar to life as a state lawmaker, where “there’s a lot of commuting, and it’s a sacrifice.”
Asked how Diaz will manage this back-and-forth travel going forward, Rizo said, “You’d have to ask him.”
Diaz did not respond to requests for comment.
Think-tanks take over
While Florida law does not require university trustees to live in the state, it says “the Governor and the Board of Governors shall consider diversity and regional representation.” But in the DeSantis era, trustees have also become less rooted in their local communities.
Increasingly, these governor-appointed board seats are going to conservative think-tanks, like Heritage or the Manhattan Institute, or alumni from right-wing Christian colleges, such as Hillsdale College, based in Michigan.
At Florida’s New College, trustee Christopher Rufo, a senior fellow at The Manhattan Institute, has led the charge to make big changes.
In 2023, Rufo described New College as the “opening move in a conservative counterrevolution.”
Rufo lives in Washington state.
Heritage Fellow Adam Kissel, one of two UWF Heritage appointees, lives in West Virginia. That physical distance, however, has not limited his reach deep into the school’s academic affairs.
Email records, obtained by The Tributary, show that Kissel has been closely reviewing UWF course syllabi, and reading materials used by professors, and then requesting that the university make changes.
“I am concerned that American Lit I does not teach works in the canon as advertised,” Kissel wrote to the provost, Jaromy Kuhl, on July 16, 2025. “It includes only three little-known works and ignores everything else in American literature from the beginning through the Civil War period.”
Kissel has also been pushing for the removal of certain courses from the general education requirements that count toward an undergraduate degree. In August, Kissel convinced the board of trustees to remove an astronomy course titled “Life in the Universe.”
Kissel criticized the course as “speculative.”
The new reality in Florida
Statewide, other big changes to higher education are happening — with the Heritage Foundation leading the way.
One example: Florida is moving away from traditional college accrediting agencies and is instead launching an alternative accreditor, in partnership with five other southern states. The Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025 specifically criticizes traditional accreditors and faults the agencies for supporting diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives.
Accreditors also serve as the unofficial “police” of college quality. In the past, accrediting agencies have disciplined colleges for excessive political interference, failure to meet academic standards, or for excluding faculty from important university decisions.
The new alternative accreditor, the Commission for Public Higher Education, prioritizes “a focus on student outcomes, not inputs” and “a reduction of unnecessary bureaucracy, opacity, and expense,” according to its mission statement.
Heritage’s Project 2025 recommends a “radical overhaul” of accreditation requirements, and in June, DeSantis boasted that Florida’s new accreditor will break up “the activist-controlled accreditation monopoly.”
President Trump campaigned on the same issue, promising, “Our secret weapon will be the college accreditation system. …When I return to the White House, I will fire the radical left accreditors that have allowed our colleges to become dominated by Marxist Maniacs.”
Project 2025 also recommends a ban on the instruction of “critical race theory,” which emphasizes America’s history of racism, and eliminating legal protections for the LGBTQ+ community.
That’s the new reality in Florida, where professors fear being punished for discussing systemic racism, and LGBTQ+ protections have noticeably disappeared on campus.
At UWF, Diaz was picked as the sole finalist for the president’s job from a field of more than 80.
A Heritage fellow, Zack Smith, headed UWF’s presidential search committee. Smith also serves on the UWF board of trustees, where he is joined by Heritage fellow Adam Kissel.
Smith has become a man of some influence in the Florida Panhandle.
In addition to spearheading the UWF presidential search, Smith is also a DeSantis-appointed trustee at Pensacola State College. Additionally, Smith moonlights as a contributor for the Heritage Foundation’s Daily Signal website.
In that role, Smith has staunchly criticized the city of Pensacola for allowing a drag queen show to take place at the city-owned Saenger Theatre.
The drag show, which took place on Dec. 23, was the only sellout performance at the Saenger Theatre last year.
Smith blasted the drag queen event as an “atrocity,” while also calling it “blasphemous.”
The Heritage Foundation declined to comment for this story. Smith did not respond to an email and text message seeking comment.
Kissel, reached by phone, requested that The Tributary send questions in writing. He did not respond to those written questions.
Politicians replace academic leaders
If UWF hires Diaz permanently, as expected, he will become the fourth Republican politician running a public university in Florida – joining Nuñez, Florida Atlantic University President Adam Hasner, and New College President Richard Corcoran — meaning that one-third of the state’s university system will be led by ex-GOP lawmakers.
The chancellor of the system, Ray Rodrigues, is a former Republican lawmaker as well.
In Florida and across the nation, most college presidents have historically hailed from academia. Fewer than four percent of college presidents nationally come from a public sector or “government” background, according to the most recent American College President Study, which is produced by the American Council on Education.
Some Florida lawmakers have pushed back against the growing political influence in the presidential-search process.
Miami Rep. Daniel Perez, the Republican House speaker, told Florida’s board of governors in March that the state must avoid “a spoils system for a select few.”
“Requiring that the leaders of institutions with a multi-billion-dollar budget be chosen in an open and competitive process is a moral and fiscal imperative,” said Perez, who has his district office on the FIU campus.
In Pensacola, Diaz’s selection as the sole finalist for the UWF job has prompted significant pushback in the conservative-leaning community.
During a public forum held at UWF last month, Diaz tried to win over the skeptics — while acknowledging he lacks a PhD.
Diaz told the campus community he has “full respect for all of my colleagues here, in faculty and administrative, that have achieved that.”
But Diaz added that his prior experience writing legislation in Tallahassee and running the Florida Department of Education as commissioner has value, too.
“I do think that there are other skills that are really pertinent to this position,” he said.
A raft of changes
Since July, when Diaz assumed the presidency on an interim basis, he has grabbed firm control of the university — and quietly pushed its identity in a more conservative direction.
Some examples:
- UWF, under Diaz, closed its Office of Campus Culture and Access, formerly the Office of Equity and Diversity.
- Diaz hired an alum of conservative Hillsdale College as his chief of staff and VP of strategic initiatives.
- Under Diaz, the university has moved to strip LGBTQ+ protections from both the student code of conduct and the collective bargaining agreement with faculty. The student-geared changes became final last month.
- While students were away on break, Diaz ordered the removal of “all-gender restroom” signs from bathrooms on campus. Removing accommodations for transgender individuals is a Republican Party priority.
- Diaz, who championed charter schools and other public-school alternatives in the legislature, moved swiftly to add a charter school on campus.
The changes to the student code of conduct were publicly opposed by many UWF students, and also by alumni like Jeff Nall, who has decades of management and public-relations experience.
“It’s not only harmful, it’s hateful,” Nall said. “It’s un-American, and it’s un-Christ-like.”
Nall said the university’s weakened LGBTQ+ protections contradict what he was taught as a graduate student on the Pensacola campus.
“The whole master’s program dealt with strategic communication and leadership,” Nall said. “It was just an underlying theme that the best practice for success, in an organization, large or small, public or private, is to have everyone’s voice at the table.”
Diaz has described the code of conduct changes as necessary to comply with state law. At the recent public forum, Diaz told students that he inherited the issue, which he said began under the former president.
But Diaz’s predecessor, Martha Saunders, denied any involvement.
“I did not participate in the development of the recent revisions to the student code of conduct, but I would remind the university that words do matter,” Saunders said. “Removing specific groups from a list of protected classes can create an unintended impression that those students are less valued. That’s not who we are. A stronger and clearer approach would be to affirm that the institution does not tolerate discrimination against anyone. Period.”
A university charter
The embrace of charter schools, private school vouchers, and other public school alternatives is an area where Diaz’s policy goals are strikingly similar to the goals of the Heritage Foundation.
In 2024, while he was still education commissioner, Diaz sat down with Heritage Foundation President Kevin Roberts for a detailed one-on-one interview, in which both men expressed support for dismantling the U.S. Department of Education and combating perceived liberal bias in what America’s students are taught.
“Public education doesn’t mean that it’s a government-run school,” Diaz told Roberts in the interview. “It means that it’s available to the public.”
Roberts ended the talk by praising Diaz for doing an “exceptional” job as Florida’s education commissioner.
Florida has consistently ranked atop the Heritage Foundation’s “Education Freedom Report Card” — in part because of its expansive school-choice options.
To celebrate this recognition, the Florida Department of Education’s main office in Tallahassee placed a blue-and-gold “Heritage Foundation” banner in its lobby.
The banner features a very-large “#1” and the words “four years in a row!”
Last month, Diaz was questioned by the public about how UWF would operate its proposed charter school. The new president responded that UWF would partner with an outside company, but he said the proposal is “still in the conversation phase” and “may or may not be a charter.”
That same day, Somerset Academy — a charter school chain with ties to a company that previously employed Diaz as an administrator — boasted on its website about its new “university” school.
“Opening January, 2026,” the website stated. “A Private Elementary School location on the beautiful University of West Florida Campus.”
Earlier this week, Diaz provided a statement to a Pensacola TV station, emphasizing that nothing has been finalized.
“There is currently no charter school operating on the University of West Florida campus, nor has one been approved,” Diaz said. “UWF is in the exploratory stages of preparing an enrollment application that would first require approval by the UWF’s Board of Trustees and subsequently the Florida Department of Education.”
Michael Vasquez is an investigative reporter at The Tributary. He can be reached at michael.vasquez@jaxtrib.org.
