Leftists having long cemented their hold on higher education in America, some of our leaders — Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, for one — are trying to turn things around. DeSantis has been trying to wrest some of the state’s colleges away from “progressive” control, and a flash point has been the New College of Florida. Higher ed publications keep whining about how awful things are at that school now.

In today’s Martin Center article, Bruce Gilley, who is a visiting professor at the New College, explains that all that leftist whining is much ado about almost nothing, since little has actually changed.

He writes,

The efforts by Florida governor Ron DeSantis to revive an intellectually moribund higher-education sector in the state, including his reconquista at New College, are worthy acts. But the Left’s obsessive focus on New College tells us more about the manias of the intellectual establishment than it does about the likely impact of this tiny institution—or, for that matter, about the entire 12-university state system in Florida and its 430,000 students.

Gilley observes that there have been some good developments on campus (such as the formation of a C. S. Lewis Society), but the leftist faculty still struts around proudly. It recently passed a resolution against immigration enforcement on campus, for example.

He continues,

What did I learn from a year at New College? Reform efforts in American higher education need to be aligned with what matters to a flourishing civilization. What do matter — what, in other words, remain overwhelmingly reliable and powerful propellants of civilization — are parenting, families, K-12 preparation, sports and business endeavors, educational norms, faith communities, work, cultural leadership, literary life, and public reverence for the past and our inherited institutions. This means that if places such as New College are to make an impact, they have to reach beyond the classroom.

Quite right. We have a long, long way to go.