new college of florida – Techdirt (original) (raw)

School President Throws Library Dean Under The Bus After Florida College’s LGBTQ-Books-In-A-Dumpster Dumpster Fire

from the both-a-coward-and-a-liar dept

The fallout came fast and hard for New College of Florida and its administrators after multiple videos were posted of books dealing mainly with sexual identity and race found filling a dumpster behind the school library.

The immediate reaction from the school’s spokesperson, Nathan Marks, was nonsensical. Marks claimed two things, neither of them believable. The first was that this was just routine periodical “pruning” of books that were too damaged or otherwise unneeded by the school. The second was that it was illegal to notify students, staff, or other entities that this purge was happening so that they might be able to rescue some of the books slated for destruction.

As to the first part of his claim, it was immediately apparent most books were neither damaged or old. Instead, they were books retained by the school’s now-defunct Gender and Diversity Center — something that was axed as soon as Governor DeSantis stocked the school board with his personal picks.

The second part was blatantly false. The school was permitted by law to sell or give away the books to anyone interested in them. In this case, it simply chose not to because the far right school board saw the books as garbage and treated them as such.

Now, the flailing is even worse. A steady stream of criticism has forced the college to react. And it has reacted in the worst way possible. The worst way is personified by school president Richard Corcoran, who has decided to pin all of the blame on someone who likely had no control over the purge pushed by the school board.

A New College of Florida library administrator has been placed on leave after thousands of books were found in a dumpster on campus, a university spokesperson confirmed to News Channel 8.

Shannon Hausinger, dean of the library, was placed on leave after “the library did not follow all of the state administrative requirements while conducting the routine disposition of materials,” the spokesperson said.

Maybe Hausinger agreed with the purge. Maybe she didn’t. Either way, Corcoran has made her the scapegoat.

But that’s not all he did. He claimed the public was too stupid to recognize what happened here. As is almost always the case when public leaders get caught doing things they shouldn’t, Corcoran has chosen to blame the media and anyone else who might have disagreed with this move.

“Unfortunately, much of the coverage has been sensationalized, catering to the narratives of our critics,” Corcoran wrote in the letter. “While the optics of seeing thousands of books in a dumpster are far from ideal, it is important to understand the disposition of materials is a necessary process in libraries, and ensures that our collection remains relevant, up-to-date, and in good condition for our community’s use.”

To put this politely, that’s bullshit. The school board — the same one that shut down the Gender and Diversity Center — had a hand in this. We know this because at least one board member has admitted as much. Christopher Rufo — a board member personally appointed by Ron DeSantis — took to ExTwitter to crow about this purge of LGBTQ content, saying the quiet part as loudly as he could.

If you can’t see/read the screenshot, it features several shots of these books in the dumpster, accompanied by Rufo’s statement:

We abolished the gender studies program. Now we’re throwing out the trash.

And here’s what Rufo said after taking the college board position:

Earlier this year, Florida governor Ron DeSantis appointed a new board majority, including me, to New College of Florida and tasked us with a simple, but audacious, mission: take over the failing school, bring in new leadership, and transform the institution into a liberal arts college in the classical tradition.

The move caused a firestorm. Conservatives cheered it on as an essential step in recapturing democratic institutions. Progressives denounced it as a violation of some principle or another. But, whatever your opinion, one thing is certain: the takeover of New College has changed the dynamics of America’s culture war and, if successful, will provide a model for conservatives across the nation.

None of this is addressed in the school president’s letter to the college’s staff. This unfortunate truth is simply ignored and spun to make it appear as though it’s just a misunderstanding that has been inflamed by careless reporting.

But that was never the case. This was always about a conservative-majority board inflicting its preferences on the college, starting with the gender studies program and culminating in the shocking display of contempt that is hundreds of gender and race-related books being consigned to a dumpster and hauled away before any collective effort could be made to rescue literary works DeSantis’ hand-picked board considers trash.

Filed Under: book bans, censorship, chris rufo, free speech, new college of florida, richard corcoran, ron desantis, shannon hausinger, stop woke act

Florida College Throws Out A Bunch Of LGBTQ+ Books Just Because

from the licking-Ron-DeSantis'-elfin-boots dept

No doubt encouraged by the governor and state legislature’s hatred of anything not aligned with their hetero-first principles, a Florida college not only shuttered its Gender and Diversity Center, but threw out hundreds of books dealing with, you know, gender and/or diversity.

The Stop WOKE Act is likely to blame here, even if it’s not explicitly referenced by any of the college reps quoted in Steven Walker’s Sarasota Herald-Tribune article. The part of the law that tells private companies what they can and can’t discuss with their employees is completely dead, but the part covering publicly-funded schools is only mostly dead. And the state will continue blowing money defending the unconstitutional law because (1) it’s other people’s money, and (2) it really, really wants any small piece of this law to survive because legislators really, really want to keep making LGBTQ+ feel miserable and unwelcome in the Sunshine State.

The Gender and Diversity Center was shut down shortly after the school board obtained a conservative majority. The hundreds of books owned by the center were considered so valueless they were tossed en masse into the nearest dumpster.

A dumpster in the parking lot of Jane Bancroft Cook Library on the campus of New College overflowed with books and collections from the now-defunct Gender and Diversity Center on Tuesday afternoon. Video captured in the afternoon showed a vehicle driving away with the books before students were notified. In the past, students were given an opportunity to purchase books that were leaving the college’s library collection.

As always, the cruelty is the point. At any point prior to their removal, students, teachers, and other interested parties could have been told these books were going to be removed. But rather than do that, the books were thrown away as quickly and unceremoniously as possible. Some were rescued, but the footage embedded in the Herald-Tribune shows most of the books were hauled off to the nearest dump.

When contacted by the paper, college reps pretended this was just a routine “weeding” of the school library’s shelves. Even if this were true (and it clearly isn’t), the college could have informed students, teachers, and others so these books could find new homes and readers. But the college didn’t want anyone to have any access to content its board no longer considers worth reading.

College spokesperson Nathan March also claimed it was against the law to give away or sell the books to students or other interested parties. Reporter Steven Walker points out the falseness of this claim:

March referenced Florida Statute 273 as the reason books could not be donated or sold. However, FS 273 states that New College could dispose of state-funded personal property by “selling or transferring the property to any other governmental entity … private nonprofit agency … (and) through a sale open to the public.”

That makes it clear it was handled the way the majority of the board wanted it handled: a “weeding” that was anything but routine — one that mainly targeted gender and race-related books, all without giving anyone any notice this purge of unwanted content was going to be happening. It could have been handled in a way that didn’t give the appearance of a bunch of censorial asshats sitting around wishing they could have burnt them instead. But the school and its conservative board wanted to make it clear they thought these works literature were literally nothing more than trash.

Filed Under: book bans, florida, free speech, library, new college of florida, stop woke act