Speaker 1: Welcome back to the nonprofits everyone. And you know, something
Speaker 1: weird is going on into college down in Florida, and
Speaker 1: I don't want to talk too much about it because
Speaker 1: John Rona Bush has all the skinny and he's going
Speaker 1: to fill us in on it. What do you got
Speaker 1: for us, John.
Speaker 2: Well, Today we have a story of censorship and criminal
Speaker 2: neglect by a college and the recently stacked board that
Speaker 2: now runs that college, now taking a once secular school
Speaker 2: dedicated to education and turning it into a Christian nationalist
Speaker 2: hate factory. So New College as it's called, did what
Speaker 2: they were told to do and wokeism in colleges that
Speaker 2: have state funding. So they were the first test case
Speaker 2: of this. In this case, the new board eliminated the
Speaker 2: Office of Diversity and Equity and gender Studies program, so
Speaker 2: they took all the resource books and materials and threw
Speaker 2: them in a dumpster. Claimed they were following the law.
Speaker 2: They only back pedaled on these already completed acts when
Speaker 2: the press pointed out that that law doesn't say what
Speaker 2: they claimed it does. Lies Always when the spokesperson from
Speaker 2: this sort of event knows they have been caught and cornered,
Speaker 2: they lie. And then when they give them another excuse,
Speaker 2: they lie again, and when that's debunked, they'll lie again.
Speaker 2: So it smells very familiar to me. The very idea
Speaker 2: of academic freedom has been discarded by this board of
Speaker 2: directors intentionally. The student body and activists, when they became
Speaker 2: aware of the intentional destruction of educational materials, managed to
Speaker 2: save some of the resources before they were carded off
Speaker 2: to be destroyed. The students, of course, had a different
Speaker 2: idea of what this was. The story is from Sarasota
Speaker 2: Herald Tribune by Stephen Walker on August fifteenth, twenty twenty four.
Speaker 1: Thanks John, I know you had looked into this story
Speaker 1: a little bit. Can you for listen on how these
Speaker 1: books got to where they got to.
Speaker 2: You're you're muted muted?
Speaker 3: Uh? Yeah, Basically, John covered it pretty thoroughly. The New
Speaker 3: College of Florida scraps, the Gender University Center and Fox
Speaker 3: a bunch of books off campus without giving the students
Speaker 3: uh the opportunity to buy or collect any of them,
Speaker 3: which is strange because typically when the library does this process,
Speaker 3: they're calling weading, which is taking out books that are
Speaker 3: out of date and replacing them with books that are
Speaker 3: up You know, the updated versions of those books. That's
Speaker 3: what they're saying. They were doing with the you know this,
Speaker 3: this dumbster full of books. It just happened to all
Speaker 3: be GDC Gender Diversity, Gender and Diversity Center books because
Speaker 3: there just.
Speaker 1: I don't want to cut you off, but wasn't there
Speaker 1: something about a donation box.
Speaker 3: Yeah, So what ended up happening was they got moved
Speaker 3: from this dumpster into a donation box behind the building,
Speaker 3: which is located, not to worry, several feet away from
Speaker 3: the dumpster that they were originally in. So it's clearly
Speaker 3: a separate, you know container.
Speaker 1: I think that was I have a feeling it was
Speaker 1: kind of planned, and I wonder if they, if they
Speaker 1: really did put these books into the donation box, how
Speaker 1: many people who did not agree with this program came
Speaker 1: along and went, oh, I can keep this book as
Speaker 1: I'm walking by. As long as it takes me to
Speaker 1: walk by the dumpster, I'm going to keep this book.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 1: That was a concern for me, Infidel. What were your
Speaker 1: concerns about this?
Speaker 4: Yeah, Well, other than the obvious that pretty much any
Speaker 4: time you're on the side of book banning, you're probably
Speaker 4: not on the right side, and that I like both
Speaker 4: of you, I definitely think this is something that was planned.
Speaker 4: They were going to go ahead and dump these books,
Speaker 4: get these out of there, follow the rules, get get
Speaker 4: get this taken care of and they didn't expect the
Speaker 4: blowback that they received from it, you know. And you know,
Speaker 4: and I kept thinking that previously they've told the students,
Speaker 4: but they didn't this time. So that right there tells
Speaker 4: me something. And I do find it interesting that Shannon Hausinger,
Speaker 4: she's the New College of Florida's dean of the library
Speaker 4: for the for the college that you know, they they
Speaker 4: have taken over. This used to be a more liberal
Speaker 4: college and now it's getting you know, pretty much desanticized.
Speaker 4: And so her job was to get this taken care
Speaker 4: of it. And I think that now that this blowback's occurred,
Speaker 4: she's been placed on leave. And the truth is is
Speaker 4: that the only reason I think that she's on leave
Speaker 4: is because they needed to blame it on somebody. So
Speaker 4: blame it on the new dean of the library. Move on,
Speaker 4: because it's so I have been there since February, and
Speaker 4: you know, they're trying to imply it that these books
Speaker 4: were happen because of a failure to community of communication.
Speaker 4: But we had people like Christopher Rufo bragging that we
Speaker 4: abolished a gender studies program. Now we're throwing out the trash.
Speaker 4: And he also bragged the first public university in America
Speaker 4: to begin rolling back the encroachment of gender ideology and
Speaker 4: queer theory on its academic offerings. This is a very
Speaker 4: concerted and deliberate attempt, and to view it as anything
Speaker 4: else other than censorship, I think at best is being naive.
Speaker 4: But no, this is just more of the same. Let's
Speaker 4: pretend that the others, whoever they are this week, doesn't exist.
Speaker 4: And now it's you know, gender studies. We've got to
Speaker 4: pretend that doesn't exist. Let's get them in the trash.
Speaker 4: As Zach de Larroca said, from raising against a machine,
Speaker 4: they don't got to burn the books, they just remove them.
Speaker 4: So that's exactly what they're doing here, just get them out. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I agree. I did do a bit of a deep
Speaker 1: dive into New College to find out a little bit
Speaker 1: more about him. I didn't know anything about him. I
Speaker 1: thought they were a private college at first, but it
Speaker 1: turns out that they started out as a Christian college
Speaker 1: in nineteen sixty but they were taken over by the
Speaker 1: state of Florida in sixty five, so they are no
Speaker 1: longer a private college. They are a public college in
Speaker 1: twenty twenty three, is it? Desant disappointed? The six conservative
Speaker 1: members to the college board, and four of them don't
Speaker 1: even live in the state. One of them, I don't
Speaker 1: even think is qualified to be on a college board.
Speaker 1: He's just a conservative activist. I'm not sure why he's
Speaker 1: there at all. But these are the people that Fantis
Speaker 1: put in charge to change this. I was reading I
Speaker 1: was reading the story and it mentioned that they were
Speaker 1: trying to pattern it after a private school in another state,
Speaker 1: and I jokingly said, what are they trying to make
Speaker 1: it Hillsdale College in Michigan. And as I started duping,
Speaker 1: doing a deep dive, I found out that that was
Speaker 1: exactly what they were doing. They were trying to make
Speaker 1: it like Hillsdale College in Michigan. So if you don't
Speaker 1: know who Hillsdale is, go look him up. It's pretty sad. Jonathan.
Speaker 1: I know you had a lot more concerns about this,
Speaker 1: and I know you know a little bit about Sarasota
Speaker 1: in the community here there you want to fill us
Speaker 1: in on that.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, Sarasota is a really it's a nice city,
Speaker 2: and it tends to to to be fairly liberal because
Speaker 2: it's an artist community. It's you know, it's an artist community.
Speaker 2: There's a lot of and cultural center basically, and it's
Speaker 2: a very, very kind of erudype place. It's not a
Speaker 2: place where there's a lot of necessarily visible pop poverty,
Speaker 2: at least not in the city itself. They have a
Speaker 2: lot of art stores things like that, when they have
Speaker 2: some fairly expensive sort of like their own rodeo drive.
Speaker 2: So this is not the place you would think really
Speaker 2: to see conflicts about this sort of thing. And they
Speaker 2: said activists saved some of the books. Not a surprise
Speaker 2: to me, because I think when the city finds out
Speaker 2: what's going on, they'll probably have quite a few people
Speaker 2: not happy with the university. So and probably already do.
Speaker 2: Now this is a historic thing, and they have their
Speaker 2: share of the moms for liberty types who want to
Speaker 2: ban any book that says anything other than what they
Speaker 2: wanted to say. You know, it's just that in this
Speaker 2: city like Tampa, which is kind of the blue spots
Speaker 2: on the Florida map, it's not easy for people to
Speaker 2: get through these things due to their particular boards on things. However,
Speaker 2: when you get the heavy hitters from Tallahassee moving in,
Speaker 2: it gets a little harder to maintain your individual city feel.
Speaker 2: And so there are a lot of dishonest fear mongers
Speaker 2: and lying, dishonest fear mongers that get in the way
Speaker 2: with much of the what I consider a decent place,
Speaker 2: even though they do have a lot of WU but
Speaker 2: that doesn't scare me as much as this Christian nationalists.
Speaker 2: We're going to hit them where it hurts kind of stuff.
Speaker 2: This college is in Sarasota, like I said, a city
Speaker 2: with an artist commu community, so you can imagine that
Speaker 2: it's not quite as conservative as the rest of the state.
Speaker 2: And so it was I think important to make a
Speaker 2: statement in Florida to get this college to be the
Speaker 2: first one they actually tried this experiment with, and right
Speaker 2: now it's winning. However, every one of these types of
Speaker 2: initiatives from Florida that I know of so far have
Speaker 2: failed in federal court. So we'll see what happens with this.
Speaker 2: And I really do hope and I think they probably
Speaker 2: already know about it, that the Freedom from Religion Foundation
Speaker 2: or some of the the ACLU and then you know,
Speaker 2: do something about this. But they're very busy right now.
Speaker 2: We're nationwide, so you know.
Speaker 1: What your legal action can they take here? Are they
Speaker 1: breaking the law at all? I don't know that they are.
Speaker 1: You know, I don't know that there is legal action
Speaker 1: to take.
Speaker 2: Actually, I think runs a foul of some of the
Speaker 2: discrimination laws. I'd be it might be a stretch, but
Speaker 2: they're deliberately targeting a minority group, so that is a
Speaker 2: very that's breaking federal law.
Speaker 1: Are they targeting the group though, or are they targeting
Speaker 1: a program that they say is no longer a valid
Speaker 1: program for the school? When they do it saying I
Speaker 1: don't know, I don't know that they're actually doing anything
Speaker 1: legally wrong. And I know these guys got a bunch
Speaker 1: of lawyers behind them, and I know these lawyers aren't
Speaker 1: always right, but in this case, I'm usually pretty good
Speaker 1: at calling these things, and I honestly don't see anything
Speaker 1: legal that they can sue over here. I really don't.
Speaker 2: Well, there is there's a couple of federal laws that
Speaker 2: this is breaking. Whether it's not, it's not it's worth
Speaker 2: it to do that, but there is a question of
Speaker 2: academic freedom as well. But the people actually said they
Speaker 2: were doing this to get rid of students who were
Speaker 2: pushing LGBTQ plus ideology. I literally said it. They literally said,
Speaker 2: we're being bigoted here and we're going to do this
Speaker 2: because we want to. And this is not a private college.
Speaker 2: A private college could get away with that. A state
Speaker 2: funded college will not if they if they want to
Speaker 2: push it, however, it might not be somebody who would
Speaker 2: be pushing that, who would be filing a lawsuit, may
Speaker 2: not be doing it, do it because they know it's
Speaker 2: going to be a slog right.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I actually wanted to bring that up because Christopher Rufo,
Speaker 1: one of the people at DeSantis placed on the board.
Speaker 1: I have a quote here from them. Oh boy, I
Speaker 1: just lost it. Give me a second. Here it is
Speaker 1: the student body will be recomposed over time. Some current
Speaker 1: students will self select out, others will graduate, will recruit
Speaker 1: new students who are mission aligned. So I mean he's
Speaker 1: basically saying, we want to get rid of all these
Speaker 1: liberal students and we want to bring in people who
Speaker 1: think the same way we do.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 1: Rufo also happens to be the one guy I didn't
Speaker 1: think was qualified to be on the board. Eli, what
Speaker 1: do you think of this idea of reading out the students.
Speaker 3: Well, as you just described it, that is like to
Speaker 3: accept students who are mission aligned. That is like private
Speaker 3: school type speak. Like the last segment we did was
Speaker 3: was private schools acting like public schools. Now we got
Speaker 3: a public school acting like a private school, and it's
Speaker 3: that's just so sinister to me. And I feel like
Speaker 3: I use that word more on a nonprofits than I
Speaker 3: do like any other time in my life. But it's it.
Speaker 3: There's a couple of things here that I want to
Speaker 3: touch on the school. They respond by I mentioned earlier
Speaker 3: denying that the books, that all of the books in
Speaker 3: the dumpster belongs specifically to the Gender University Center. It
Speaker 3: just happened to be the overwhelming majority of them because
Speaker 3: they just happen to not have that program anymore. But
Speaker 3: as we've already established it, this is for the purpose
Speaker 3: of getting rid of those students, and when they're basically
Speaker 3: restricting access to public education by discriminating against and trying
Speaker 3: to get rid of students that are in marginalized groups.
Speaker 3: So I think I can see what you were saying
Speaker 3: a minute ago. Kelly. How's it's difficult to tell. Is
Speaker 3: it ethically wrong, I think absolutely yeah. Is it legally wrong,
Speaker 3: I'm kind of yeah. I'm with you there, Like I'm
Speaker 3: not sure. But when you look at it from the
Speaker 3: lens of you know, they are restricting access to education
Speaker 3: to already marginalized groups by further marginalized, by actively marginalizing them.
Speaker 3: I think Jonathan has a point. There's some discrimination, you know,
Speaker 3: if not laws, at least regulations and anti discrimination programs.
Speaker 4: I don't.
Speaker 1: I just don't know. Like, if they got rid of
Speaker 1: the Latin studies could have a Mexican community group to them,
Speaker 1: I don't think that would Bosh and I think we're
Speaker 1: looking at the same thing here. I understand that the
Speaker 1: group that the studies is based on is a minority group.
Speaker 1: They're a very maligned minority group as well, But I
Speaker 1: don't think that just getting ready of the studying program
Speaker 1: is attacking the minority group itself. And I think that's
Speaker 1: where we're going to run into some legal questions here.
Speaker 3: Well, if they if they get rid of studies because
Speaker 3: they don't have a Latin teacher, that's one thing. If
Speaker 3: they get rid of Latin Studies because they want to
Speaker 3: get rid of Latin students or Latino or Latina students.
Speaker 3: That's a completely different matter, and that would be discrimination.
Speaker 1: They're not saying they want to get rid of lg
Speaker 1: They have not come right out and said that that's
Speaker 1: part of what they're doing these things. We know what
Speaker 1: we I mean, we can pretty much see what's going
Speaker 1: on here. But if we're going to take this apart,
Speaker 1: we have to prove that this is what they were doing.
Speaker 1: And I don't know.
Speaker 2: When when this board member openly states that that's the
Speaker 2: reason for it and.
Speaker 1: Want the LGBTQ students here.
Speaker 2: So he openly stated that he's replacing those students because
Speaker 2: there they are not the type of students they want.
Speaker 4: I understand what he's saying, and I believe Kelly understands.
Speaker 4: I know Kelly understands what he's saying. The problem is
Speaker 4: is that, yes, is it morally reprehensible, Yes, should it
Speaker 4: be legal? But you understand that we're in Florida, a
Speaker 4: state that we're hearing this type of mentality becomes legal statute.
Speaker 4: You know, when we talk about a lot of these programs,
Speaker 4: we're talking about a state government that's actually enforcing, endorsing
Speaker 4: and pushing these types of programs. So when it comes
Speaker 4: down to legality on a state level, I don't see
Speaker 4: any question on a state level. When it comes down
Speaker 4: to a federal yes, look, this guy is hideous, Christopher Rufo.
Speaker 4: I mean it isn't just as it is horrendous view
Speaker 4: on LGBTQ. He made the comment that New College previously
Speaker 4: enrolled too many women and turned it into a social
Speaker 4: justice ghetto. This guy is a terrible human being. This
Speaker 4: guy is someone who shouldn't be in charge of anything,
Speaker 4: much less educating students. Because yes, you're right, Jonathan, he
Speaker 4: wants people he can mold into a mindset that you
Speaker 4: and I both despise and loathe for good reason, because
Speaker 4: we want children to go into a mindset of learning
Speaker 4: to think for themselves and to make those conclusions. And
Speaker 4: he's not and so yes, but does he say LGBTQ?
Speaker 4: Does he explicitly say no? And reality is I don't
Speaker 4: think it's illegal. But I think that the reason it's
Speaker 4: important for us to bring this up is because we
Speaker 4: need to remind people that, hey, remember back when they
Speaker 4: pass these laws to say don't say gay, and where
Speaker 4: we pass these laws about racism and all this. This
Speaker 4: is what happens. You get booked, you get educational material
Speaker 4: thrown into the trash like garbage because that suits their purposes.
Speaker 4: And that is the most disgusting thing I can say.
Speaker 4: But is it illegal? Okay, maybe that's not the most
Speaker 4: discussed thing, because I don't think it is. And that
Speaker 4: is completely reprehensible.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 1: And since you just a point.
Speaker 2: Of information on that that don't say gay bill was
Speaker 2: overturned in the federal court.
Speaker 1: And well I wanted to mention that something about that too.
Speaker 1: Christopher Rufo was a big backer and supporter of that bill.
Speaker 1: This is the same guy who's now in charge of
Speaker 1: his college was pushing that built.
Speaker 2: So yeap.
Speaker 4: Fortunately, I'm not talking about legal statute. Yeah, I'm not
Speaker 4: talking about legal statute. I'm talking about this is the
Speaker 4: mentality in which we see the authoritory in view that
Speaker 4: DeSantis is pushed onto Florida for years now has been
Speaker 4: this intolerance squared and and what.
Speaker 2: Happens when we get when he was governor, but and
Speaker 2: that Marco Rubio got his uh senatorial election won by
Speaker 2: the same sort of rhetoric. So they're they're they're the
Speaker 2: politicians in the state of the Republican. Uh, well, I
Speaker 2: can't say that the conservatives have taken over the state
Speaker 2: the last ten years or something.
Speaker 1: You know, you've been pretty silent throughout this whole segment.
Speaker 1: You got something you'd.
Speaker 3: Like to have? No, I started, I had a little
Speaker 3: bit to say, started off that little TIFFs there, and
Speaker 3: I kind of just watched it unfold.
Speaker 2: That was fun.
Speaker 1: It was better is when we have those little tests.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that was enjoyable.
Speaker 1: And I'm going to have to wait until next year
Speaker 1: now for that punch John over it too.
Speaker 3: So I did find this quote. I think I agree
Speaker 3: with this person's sentiment. Faculty chair Amy Reid, who seems
Speaker 3: to be on the position of not agreeing with tossing
Speaker 3: away these books. She says throwing books away is throwing
Speaker 3: away democracy, which I think is a really silly thing
Speaker 3: to say. But I agree with her sentiment and that
Speaker 3: it's like and I said before, censoring information, hiding information,
Speaker 3: and getting rid of it is not the right way
Speaker 3: to teach people, like the right thing. It's the right
Speaker 3: way to teach them what you want them to learn,
Speaker 3: but it's not the right way to teach them the
Speaker 3: right thing. And I wouldn't quite say that it's strong
Speaker 3: away democracy, but it's it's definitely not conducive to an
Speaker 3: educated society.
Speaker 4: That's how to think, not what the thing exactly. They've
Speaker 4: got theirs upside down.
Speaker 2: But they.
Speaker 1: Can also say the same thing on their side too.
Speaker 4: Right, Yeah, and I understand that. And with that in mind,
Speaker 4: I understand that, you know, and the bottom line is
Speaker 4: consistently throughout history, once again, I have to say that
Speaker 4: the side wanting to limit information is consistently on the
Speaker 4: wrong side. History doesn't tend to go. You know, those
Speaker 4: people that tried to keep this secret from everybody else,
Speaker 4: they were the awesome people that we all loved and respected. No,
Speaker 4: usually they're the people that are keeping something for their
Speaker 4: own control, are their own power, are their own self interest? So,
Speaker 4: and I think that's what we're seeing here. We're seeing
Speaker 4: people want to remake this college like they want the
Speaker 4: world around them the look, and they don't give a
Speaker 4: shit about people who don't fit into that mold. Yeah,
Speaker 4: if they don't fit the business model, yeah, they'll they'll
Speaker 4: check out.
Speaker 1: Oh well, I know, go ahead, do you like?
Speaker 3: I can't kill you? I love how because you brought
Speaker 3: this up? Andredelle, I want to mention it. I love
Speaker 3: how like every time we get on here, we talk
Speaker 3: about how like, no, stop hiding information from kids, give
Speaker 3: it to them. Someone gets in the comments every single
Speaker 3: time at time and starts calling us groomers. And I
Speaker 3: think that's fucking disgusting because what you do when you
Speaker 3: start calling people groomers that are like, hey, let's like
Speaker 3: be open and honest about information and like teach kids
Speaker 3: real stuff, You're giving cover to real groomers and real
Speaker 3: people that are actually trying to harm people. And it's
Speaker 3: fucking disgusting. So get in the comments, say whatever you
Speaker 3: want to argue with me, I'll argue back with you,
Speaker 3: because that's fucking ridiculous.
Speaker 4: You're taking away the impact of what those word, that
Speaker 4: word means. When they start throwing words around like that,
Speaker 4: they're devaluing not only those words, but they're devaluing the
Speaker 4: experience of people who've had to be on the receiving
Speaker 4: side those those type of disgusting behaviors. So they should
Speaker 4: be ashamed of themselves for so frivolously throwing away or
Speaker 4: throw out out a word like that just because well,
Speaker 4: I don't agree with you. It's disgusting.
Speaker 1: I'm actually kind of glad you brought that up, because
Speaker 1: I was going to end the segment with this. You know,
Speaker 1: we love to hear from our viewers, and we want
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