Last Tuesday Florida’s Board of Governors rejected Dr. Santa Ono for president of its flagship school, the University of Florida (UF). This came just one week after UF’s Board of Trustees (BOT) unanimously approved Ono. In what is typically a procedural process, it marked the first time in the 22 years since the Board of Governors was established that it had rejected a candidate in this fashion. It was a blow for not only Ono, but also UF’s BOT.
How did Ono nearly get approved as UF’s next president? The short answer is the almost childish simplicity of UF’s BOT, and especially its chairman, Mori Hosseini. They created a situation where only an establishment education administrator like Ono could be selected.
On October 29, 2024, Hosseini announced the formation of UF’s presidential search committee. In January 2025, the committee selected SP&A, “a boutique woman- and minority-owned executive search firm” to lead the search (SP&A is currently conducting the presidential search at the University of South Florida as well). Soon thereafter, the search firm created a presidential prospectus that made clear they sought a candidate with “professional and administrative” experience at a “research university or comparable setting,” though others with doctorates or who had “national or international scholarly and administrative success outside academia” could be considered.
This job description stacked the deck against hiring anyone from the realm of politics or administration, which had been the pool from which Florida selected university presidents in recent memory. Manny Diaz, Florida’s Director of the Department of Education who oversaw Florida’s rise to become the No. 1 state for education, was thus ineligible to serve as UF’s next president. No one contacted Diaz about the job. Members of Florida’s Board of Governors (BOG) and Chancellor Ray Rodriguez, head of the State University System of Florida, were ineligible too. Former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo? Ineligible.
We can only speculate about how the deck was stacked. SP&A colluded with campus stakeholders, especially faculty, when they were retained. Together, they developed the criteria necessary to hire a Santa Ono. The faculty and search firm won when the search committee approved the job description for the next UF president, either through negligence or prestige envy.
Damaging Ono
UF’s Board of Trustees named Ono the sole finalist on May 4, and they set May 27 as the date to vote on his candidacy. A flurry of activity followed. Gubernatorial candidate and U.S. Congressman Byron Donalds came out against Ono on May 6. Libs of TikTok and DC_Draino posted viral videos of Ono talking about systemic racism in his previous jobs. A group called @CommiesOnCampus posted what it termed “Eight Hours of Ono” videos on May 16. Floodgates were opened when op-eds from Peter Wood, Maya Sulkin, Karol Marcowicz, and Joy Pullman appeared. Chris Rufo hit the issue hard as the BOT vote neared. More videos were unearthed on transgender issues. All hands were on deck.
UF’s BOT could not ignore what was unearthed. Instead, the BOT scripted a portrayal of Ono as a recent convert to the Florida way. They conducted a carefully orchestrated “interview” on May 27, where members threw questions at Ono like a circus performer would throw peanuts at an elephant about to perform.
BOT members embarrassingly nodded as they asked prepared questions about Ono’s volte-face and extracted implausible pledges for future good behavior. His evolution was a marketing scheme for the willingly duped. When asked if he thought universities were inherently racist, Ono admitted that his thinking “evolved over time.” “I think it’s actually counterproductive to call any group of people or institutions with some sort of blanket definition or label.” When asked if he still believes in implicit bias, Ono confessed he “would not make those kinds of statements or label different groups of people in that way.” Before he wanted to cultivate activists; now he wanted institutional neutrality. Such meager pledges were good enough for the BOT, and they voted unanimously to approve him as UF’s 14th president.
By this point, only Mori Hosseini and his BOT seemed to be in favor of Ono. Florida’s Senator Rick Scott and congressmen Jimmy Patronis, Donalds, and Greg Stuebe, along with Charlie Kirk and Donald Trump, Jr., all criticized the pick.
The BOG Hail Mary
Not since Elise Stefanik grilled Ivy League presidents has there been a more effective questioning of leftist academic leaders than at the Florida Board of Governors. Paul Renner, former Florida Speaker of the House, developed a casebook against Santa Ono and shared it on X before the hearing. Others had their own approaches. All were serious, sustained, and impressive.
A leftist sat in a chair and could not evade tough questions. Unlike the UF BOT, the Florida BOG used the time to question Ono not simply about his flip-flopping, but also how he understands wokeness. Rarely has a suit been this empty.
The BOG consistently showed how Ono’s conversion of convenience raised deep questions about his judgment and leadership.
BOG member Carson Good asked Ono a series of simple, devastating questions. Ono had established an anti-racism task force when president at a previous university. “What do they mean when they say anti-racism?” Ono’s answer: “I’m an immunologist, so that’s not my specific area.” Good asked about decolonization, whiteness, the original sin of racism, and inclusive history. Each time Ono retreated with apologies, disclaiming any expertise or even knowledge of what he was advocating for. His entire career stood for promoting radical DEI policies, but now he did not know what they meant! His excuse was that he had simply parroted the words of campus leftists.
Good even asked about Ono requiring that students at the University of Michigan get COVID booster shots as late as 2023. Again, Ono retreated behind leftist campus committees. His chief health officer and a committee made the decision. “I’m a scientist,” Ono said, but they are “actually doctors” who made the recommendation. Good had laid the trap. “You’re an immunologist, and wouldn’t an immunologist know better than an M.D.?” Ono’s answer: “I’m basically a mouse doctor.” Good’s point was powerfully put. What kind of an academic leader governs according to an ideology he does not understand? Or farms out policy questions to committees while forswearing responsibility?
Opponents of DEI have long suspected that the embrace of DEI among university leaders is more opportunistic than fanatical. Ono turned out to be a fanatical opportunist who serially abdicates responsibility, a man without honor or integrity. The BOG voted 6-10 to reject his candidacy.
Shame and worse should fall on those who supported him after this deeply humiliating questioning. Shame and disqualification for other offices should fall on UF’s BOT for failing to ask questions about Ono’s leadership failures and poor judgment.
Toward a Sustainable Offense
All honor goes to Florida’s BOG, which acted when few others did to stop a dishonorable man from becoming president of Florida’s flagship university, and the highest-paid public university president in the nation. UF can still undertake needed reform. Its future president can still select deans and other academic leaders who are instinctively aligned with higher education reform, remove corrupt programs, and reimagine schools and colleges for serious purposes.
Defeating Ono at the BOG level was a successful Hail Mary—but that is not an argument for designing higher education reform around Hail Marys. Florida needs a sustainable offense.
UF’s BOT has proven unequal to the task. Perhaps its leaders think they could drive reform through a lukewarm president from the board level. Perhaps its leaders are embarrassed by conservative efforts at higher education reform. Perhaps they cannot imagine what serious reform would even mean. Whatever the reason, some changes in personnel are necessary at UF’s BOT.
Did the BOT Vice Chair Patel, who chaired the search committee, know about Ono’s radical record? Did he inform the BOT about it before selecting Ono as the sole presidential finalist? If the answer to either of these questions is no, then Patel should be removed from the BOT for cause, either for incompetence, misfeasance, or for hiding essential information from the BOT.
We welcome converts to the anti-DEI crusade, but those converts must have demonstrated skin in the game. They must have burned the boats or made enemies for their new stance. Converts must go to accreditation meetings and disavow DEI principles in front of those who hold them. Ono only disavowed DEI in front of supposed critics of DEI, with a handsome salary as a reward. “Nevermind”—that’s not close to being good enough to show a change of mind.
Yet the biggest error lay in the search firm and its collusion with faculty about the job description. The BOT was either childishly naive or in on it when it approved a job description requiring the hiring of a conventional academic leader. Conservative academic leaders will often lack experience, since they are critics of our corrupt and corrupting modern higher education system. We should seek aligned, ambitious, and competent people, not “experienced” leaders. Be not impressed with presidents from prestigious universities.
Preventing the bad is not the same as getting the good. Nowhere is the deep state more of a reality than at modern universities. BOT members simply cannot be hometown boosters if they want reform and a good president. They must be suspicious and determined from start to finish. Florida’s BOG displayed these virtues and acted accordingly.
Ono is out. But there are plenty of Ono clones looking for the job—and next time they will disguise themselves better.