The newly appointed conservative board of trustees at the New College of Florida once again flexed its muscles and denied early tenure to five faculty members Wednesday, prompting a longer-tenured trustee to quit.

The six conservative trustees, appointed by Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL) earlier this year, have vowed to remake the small public college into a bastion of classical liberal arts education over the loud objections of the college's faculty and students. The school has long been known as a liberal enclave that consistently ranked as among the friendliest schools to gay and transgender students.

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The board voted 6-4 to deny tenure to the five professors at the behest of interim college President Richard Corcoran, who previously served as the speaker of the Florida House of Representatives and was DeSantis's first commissioner of education. The board had previously fired Corcoran's predecessor within weeks of the new appointees taking office.

Corcoran noted that the professors were all applying for tenure a year early in a memo urging the board to reject the tenure applications. The college's interim president said the new direction of the school necessitated a delay in approving tenure and said the professors could apply again next year.

mbr/Sarasota Herald-Tribune/Mike Lang/AP

“You’ve got a brand new president, a brand new provost. You have literally a change in direction,” Corcoran said. “Let’s just defer it one year.”

The board's action prompted Matthew Lepinski, a holdover trustee that was not among those appointed in January and a professor at New College, to quit abruptly.

“I’m very concerned about the direction that this board is going and the destabilization of the academic program, and so I wish you the best of luck, but this is my last board meeting, I’m leaving the college,” Lepinski said, before walking out of the meeting.

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Conservative activist and one of the board's new trustees, Christopher Rufo, reacted to Lepinski's departure in a tweet, saying he looked forward to recruiting the professor's replacement.

"I wish Dr. Lepinski well and look forward to recruiting his replacement," Rufo tweeted. "We are restoring classical liberal arts education at New College and any faculty that prefer the old system of unfettered left-wing activism and a rubber-stamp board are free to self-select out."