Florida Board Of Governors Rejects Santa Ono As UF President. Flip-Flopping On DEI, Politics Cost Him The Job

On Tuesday, the Florida Board of Governors voted against confirming former Michigan President Santa Ono to the same position at the University of Florida in a 10-6 vote. 

Over the past month, university officials have been parading Ono around the Gators campus at different speaking engagements, thinking that it would be just a formality that he would be voted as the next President of the school. 

Now, just one week after Florida's Board of Trustees voted unanimously to approve Santa Ono as university president, it all came to a screeching halt. 

After being questioned by the Board of Governors for almost three hours on Tuesday about his past approval of DEI programs on the University of Michigan campus, along with his allowing of a pro-Palestine encampment for nearly a full month that led to multiple protests, the group decided against Ono being confirmed. 

While Ono did decide to close DEI offices at the University of Michigan, it came at a time of public pressure, while at the same time, President Donald Trump signed an executive order that targeted DEI programs. 

"The Office of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (ODEI) and the Office for Health Equity and Inclusion (OHEI) will close," the statement read. "The DEI 2.0 Strategic Plan, the umbrella strategy for schools, colleges and units, will be discontinued, along with DEI 2.0 unit plans, related programming, progress reporting, training and funding.  Individual leads, who have supported DEI efforts in schools, colleges and units, will refocus their full effort on their core responsibilities."

Many of those on the Board of Governors were not convinced that he would follow the plans laid out by Florida governor Ron DeSantis, which called for him to cooperate with the governor's Office of Government Efficiency, while also saying he must hire university employees who were ‘firmly aligned’ with the State of Florida's approach. 

This comes at a pivotal time for the University of Florida, as it looks for a new President to take over for interim Kent Fuchs. The problem for Santa Ono is that his views on political aspects of his time at Michigan seemed to flip-flop as much as a college football playoff committee voting on the 12th best team in the country. 

Santa Ono Couldn’t Be Trusted By Board Of Governors On DEI, Politics

When he was announced as the only finalist for the Florida position, Ono went back on his support of DEI programs that were established at the University of Michigan. He has recently said that he now believes those programs actually did more harm to the school, which was a reverse of his thoughts while he was the President of Michigan. 

"I'm excited to be the leading edge of return in education at the University of Florida and in the state of Florida," Santa Ono last month. "The fact is some of my past remarks about DEI do not reflect what I believe, and that evolution did not take place overnight, and it was shaped over a year and a half of thinking, discussions, listening to faculty, staff, and students and their thoughts on the DEI program." 

Santa Ono has also caught flack from the political community, with current U.S. Senator Rick Scott saying he had ‘serious concerns about Santa Ono’s nomination'. 

"But over time, I saw how DEI became something else — more about ideology, division and bureaucracy, not student success," Ono wrote, adding that he eventually limited DEI offices at Michigan. "I believe in Florida’s vision for higher education," Santa Ono wrote in the Inside Higher Ed, according to AP. 

Also, Donald Trump Jr. posted on X that the decision makers had lost their minds over the potential hire. 

"WTF! Have the decision makers at @UF lost their minds!??? This woke psycho might be a perfect fit for a Communist school in California, but how is he even being considered for this role in Florida? Every single member of the Florida Board of Governors should vote against him!!!"

Also, Ono allowing the pro-Palestine encampment to stay on Michigan's campus for nearly 30 days led to harsh pushback from campus officials, along with those against his hire at Florida.  

Santa Ono was set to be the University of Florida 14th president, and the move by the Board of Governors to reject his nomination was the first of its kind. 

Now, it seems as though the flip-flopping of Santa Ono has left him without a job, after resigning from Michigan last month. 

That's what happens when you try to change your stance, just to get a job. It was going to be hard for folks at the University of Florida, along with leaders in the state, to believe that he was actually a changed man who could lead the school into the future.