Alligator Alcatraz is a warning to illegal immigrants in the US: Leave now or end up here



OCHOPEE, Fla. — The mosquitoes were out in full force just before the sun rose on Tuesday in the Everglades. The shoulders of the two-lane road were packed with cars of media members doing live shots outside the Dade-Collier Training and Transition Airport, now known as Alligator Alcatraz.

Alligator Alcatraz has made waves in Florida and across the nation because within eight days, Republican Governor Ron DeSantis' administration worked with the Department of Homeland Security to build a temporary holding facility at the remote airport. While the site has many advantages, a primary deterrent from escape attempts or interference from open-border radicals are the state's famous swamps and the wildlife that resides in them.

'Voters in those states will go to their elected officials, "Hey, why aren't you helping the president like Florida's doing?"'

In attendance at Tuesday's grand opening of the facility were President Donald Trump, DeSantis, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller, and numerous state and federal officials. They presented a unified front to say: This holding site is operational, and if illegal aliens do not want to be held there, they can self-deport.

"They don’t have to come here. If they self-deport and go home, they can come back legally," Noem explained. "But if you wait and we bring you to this facility, you don’t ever get to come back to America. You don’t get the chance to come back and be an American again."

RELATED: 'It's beyond incompetence': Trump responds to Blaze reporter asking why Mayorkas and others have not been arrested

  Photo (left): Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images; Photo (right): Celal Gunes/Anadolu via Getty Images

Alligator Alcatraz is expected to hold up to 3,000 detainees, with first arrivals expected this week. Another state-run site near Jacksonville at Camp Blanding will hold 2,000 detainees. Most of those held in the sites are projected to be illegal immigrants who were arrested in Florida. The hardened tents are equipped with air conditioning, medical and legal staff are on hand, and detainees have access to showers and bathrooms. None of the wastewater will flow into the Everglades, being trucked out instead.

Trump praised DeSantis' Florida for setting the pace of cooperating with the federal government to help with mass deportations.

RELATED: 'Nowhere to go, nowhere to hide': Florida will have 'Alligator Alcatraz' for illegal aliens up and running in days

— (@)  
 

DeSantis is calling on Alligator Alcatraz to be a one-stop shop for the removal process of illegal aliens. Not only can they be processed out of the country there, the airstrip is also able to accommodate federal deportation flights.

When asked by Blaze Media whether other Republican-run states have reached out to his administration to learn how to set up something similar in their jurisdictions, DeSantis said not yet, as of Tuesday, but Trump's attendance at the grand opening will surely push the issue forward around the nation.

"When [Trump's] here saying this is going to be mission-critical, saying this is a force multiplier, then what will happen is voters in those states will go to their elected officials, 'Hey, why aren't you helping the president like Florida's doing?' ... Maybe they can't do as much as Florida, but if they even did a little bit, it makes a difference, and this stuff adds up," DeSantis said.

Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier, whose office led the creation of Alligator Alcatraz, told Blaze Media he wished people who were baselessly calling the detention site a "concentration camp" had more sympathy for the victims of illegal aliens.

"A couple weeks ago, we announced a lifetime sentence for an illegal immigrant that had grossly sexually abused a minor, a young girl, and trafficked her out to other people. These are the crimes we're seeing. At the end of the day, we believe in law and order. We're going to enforce immigration law," Uthmeier said.

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DeSantis Signs Provision Prohibiting State Agencies From Contracting With Media Censors

Florida’s FY 2026 budget includes a provision that prohibits state agencies from using taxpayer dollars to contract with advertising and marketing companies that act as or use “media reliability or bias monitors” services, like censorship group NewsGuard. The measure, included in a budget bill Gov. Ron DeSantis signed into law Monday, “prevents state agencies from […]

Voters loved the socialist slogans. Now comes the fine print.



Zohran Mamdani’s surprise victory over Andrew Cuomo in last week’s New York City Democratic mayoral primary catapulted a full-bodied Democratic Socialist program onto the national marquee. In his midnight speech, he claimed, “A life of dignity should not be reserved for a fortunate few.” His win marks Gotham’s sharpest left turn in a generation — and that’s saying something.

The recipients of his promise are slated to receive an economic makeover that treats prices as political failures. His platform freezes rents on more than 1 million apartments, builds 200,000 publicly financed “social housing” units, rolls out city-owned grocery stores, makes buses fare-free, and lifts the minimum wage to $30 by 2030, all bankrolled by roughly $10 billion in new corporate and millionaire taxes.

If Mamdani’s program collapses under its own weight, the case for limited government will write itself in boarded-up windows and outbound moving vans.

A week later, reality is beginning to set in.

Mamdani means what he says. On his watch, public safety would become a piggy bank. During the 2020 Black Lives Matter protests, Mamdani posted, “No, we want to defund the police.” He wasn’t being metaphorical. His current blueprint would shift billions from the NYPD into a new “Department of Community Safety” — even as felony assaults on seniors have doubled since 2019.

Mamdani’s program may feel aspirational to affluent progressives, yet to many New Yorkers it lands like an ultimatum.

Forty-two percent of renter households already spend more than 30% of their income on shelter; now they are told higher business taxes and a slimmer police presence are the price of utopia, which helps explain why tens of thousands of households making between $32,000 and $65,000 — the city’s economic backbone — have left for other states in just the past few years.

Picture a deli cashier in the Bronx. She’s not reading City Hall memos, but she feels the squeeze when rent rises and her boss mutters about new taxes. She doesn’t frame her frustration as a debate about “big government” — but she knows when it’s harder to get by and when it’s less safe walking home. The politics of the city aren’t abstract to her. They’re personal.

Adding insult to injury, the job Mamdani wants comes with a salary of roughly $258,750 a year — more than three times the median city household income — plus the chauffeurs, security details, and gilt-edged benefits package that accompany the office. Telling overtaxed commuters that their groceries will now be “public options” while banking a quarter-million dollars in guaranteed pay is the policy equivalent of riding past them in a limousine and rolling down the window just long enough to raise their rent.

Layer onto that record a set of statements many Jewish New Yorkers regard as outright hostility. Mamdani is one of the loudest champions of the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions movement; last year he pushed a bill to bar certain New York charities from sending money to Israeli causes and defended the chant “globalize the intifada,” drawing sharp rebukes from city rabbis. The day after Hamas massacred 1,200 Israelis on October 7, 2023, he blamed the bloodshed on “apartheid” and “occupation.”

All this lands in a metropolis with the world’s largest Jewish community outside Israel — about 1.4 million residents — whose synagogues, schools, and small businesses have weathered a steady rise in hate crimes. For them, a would-be mayor who treats Israel as a pariah and shrugs at chants of intifada isn’t dabbling in foreign policy; he’s telegraphing contempt for their safety and identity at home.

Republicans see an inadvertent gift. Mamdani’s New York will soon be measured against the lower-tax, police-friendly model many red states — especially my home, Florida — have advertised for years.

Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis’ Law Enforcement Recruitment Bonus Program has mailed more than 7,800 after-tax checks of $5,000 to officers relocating from 49 states, including hundreds from New York precincts, while Florida touts a 50-year low in index-crime reports and unemployment below the national average. IRS data shows Florida netted 33,019 New York households in the latest year, with average adjusted gross income near $185,000.

Project those trend lines a few years and Mamdani’s New York grows grim: a shrunken police force responding to more 911 calls; fare-free buses draining MTA dollars and stranding riders; municipal groceries undercutting bodegas until subsidies vanish; office-tower vacancies sapping property tax receipts just as social housing bills come due. The skyline still gleams, but plywood fronts and “For Lease” placards scar street level. Meanwhile states that fund cops, respect paychecks, and let entrepreneurs stock the shelves siphon away residents and revenue.

RELATED: Don’t let rural America become the next New York City

  Terraxplorer via iStock/Getty Images

Republicans running in 2026 scarcely need to draft the attack ads, yet they must pair fiscal sobriety with moral urgency — protecting the vulnerable, rewarding work, and defending faith. Mamdani’s primary victory shows romantic egalitarianism still electrifies young voters; statistics alone won’t counter a pledge of universal child care and rent freezes. This indeed won’t be a case of “promises made, promises kept.”

If his program collapses under its own weight, the case for limited government will write itself in boarded-up windows and outbound moving vans.

Should the city somehow thrive — safer streets, balanced books, real wage gains — progressives will demand that Congress replicate Mamdani’s policies nationwide. That is federalism at its most honest: two competing philosophies running side by side under the same national sky, with citizens free to relocate from one laboratory to the other.

For now, the lab results favor the model that backs the blue, protects the paycheck, and keeps the ladder of opportunity in good repair. Voters — and U-Hauls — are already keeping score. By decade’s end, the scoreboard will show which vision truly loved New York’s working families and which merely loved the sound of its own ideals.

‘One-Stop Shop’: Ron DeSantis Shows Off New Alligator-Friendly Facility For Illegals

'This is not our first rodeo'

Florida Moves Forward With ‘Alligator Alcatraz’ ICE Detention Center Over Objections From Democrat Mayor

The DeSantis administration 'appears to have already taken control' of the airstrip, basing the move on emergency powers invoked by a declaration on the illegal immigration crisis.

Santa Ono’s DEI disaster: Florida board stands firm, refuses to rubber-stamp controversial university nomination



Earlier this month, a former DEI-loving University of Michigan president suffered national embarrassment after Florida higher-ed officials voted against his nomination to become the next president of the University of Florida. The vote shows that the academic's professed change of heart on DEI was met with significant skepticism.

Earlier this month, Santa Ono — the former University of Michigan president who spent years advocating for diversity, equity, and inclusion only to distance himself from the woke philosophy in recent months — suffered national embarrassment after Florida higher-ed officials voted against his nomination to become the next president of the University of Florida. The vote shows that the academic's professed change of heart on DEI was met with significant skepticism.

Ono's failed nomination and the allegations of serious academic misconduct still hovering around several former Ivy League leaders indicate that far-left causes célèbres, especially regarding DEI, seem to have fallen out of favor even at the university level.

Perhaps more importantly, it seems the work of some high-profile university administrators is finally facing much-needed scrutiny.

RELATED: Harvard president Claudine Gay resigns in disgrace, paints herself as a victim of 'racial animus'

  Photo by Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images

All the right credentials, all the right politics

Santa Ono is a familiar face in higher education. At 62 years old, Ono has served as president at some of the most prestigious universities in North America: Michigan, British Columbia, and Cincinnati. He has a PhD in experimental medicine from McGill University, is an immunologist, and once worked as an associate professor at the Harvard School of Medicine.

And until recently, Ono had unapologetically embraced DEI. For instance, he stated that "systemic racism is embedded into every corner of any institution," claimed he and his family had been victims of systemic racism, and pledged to do "the work" of eradicating systemic racism from the University of Michigan through a program he called "DEI 2.0."

To his credit, Ono did withstand slings and arrows from UM radicals after he axed DEI 2.0 in March, following President Donald Trump's executive order banning DEI practices. However, he admitted to nixing the program mainly on account of "federal executive orders, guidance, and funding cuts bringing urgency to the issue," not because of any personal misgivings about it.

'I’m excited to be part of that.'

In early May, reports began to circulate that Ono was vying for the presidential position at the University of Florida, vacated last summer by Republican former U.S. Sen. Ben Sasse of Nebraska. The news that Ono was leaving UM shocked many since he seemed deeply committed to the school. Having just joined it in 2022, Ono then signed a contract in October that extended his tenure as president there until 2032.

RELATED: From Wuhan to Michigan: Feds nab ANOTHER Chinese scholar in alleged bio-material smuggling plot

  Photo by Michael Hickey/Getty Images

Still, announcements about Ono's candidacy published as early as May 4 revealed he was the only person the search committee had recommended for the Florida job. The UF Board of Trustees then voted unanimously to approve him on May 27.

Ono's confirmation at UF seemed all but assured.

He certainly expressed confidence. In an op-ed entitled "Why I Chose the University of Florida" published by Insider Higher Ed on May 8, Ono wrote: "Florida is building something truly exceptional. I’m excited to be part of that."

Then, Ono ran into Florida officials focused on removing leftist ideology from the state's university system.

Anti-woke board challenges Ono on DEI record

Since his re-election in 2022, Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis has worked hard to purge wokeness from all levels of education under his purview. As governor, DeSantis is entrusted with appointing individuals who share his values to the university system board of governors to oversee the state's 12 universities, including the University of Florida.

Ono seemingly understood that his previous promotion of DEI could harm his chances of landing a job in a state like Florida, which is wary of neo-Marxism, critical race theory, and DEI. So in the Inside Higher Ed op-ed, he copped to his erstwhile support for DEI, claiming he believed it was originally intended to ensure "equal opportunity and fairness for every student" but that it had unfortunately morphed into an agent of "ideology, division, and bureaucracy."

'He didn't have to do that.'

Ono — who four years ago penned an op-ed entitled "Universities Must Do More to Address the Climate Emergency" — further insisted he had "declined to politicize the institutions" he led and eschewed "ideological capture" at universities more generally. He then promised to uphold the "vision and values for public higher education" as expressed by Floridian leaders, ostensibly including DeSantis.

"If I am approved, UF will remain a campus where all students are safe, where differing views can be heard, and where the rule of law is respected," Ono pledged (emphasis added).

Gov. DeSantis, who said he found many of Ono's statements "cringe"-worthy but otherwise more or less stayed out of the nomination, deferred to those directly involved in the vetting process to determine whether Ono's change of heart on DEI was sincere.

"It’s their judgment that he’s really kind of reached the limit on the campus leftism," DeSantis told reporters, "and he would want to leave Michigan, where that is prevalent, to Florida, where it’s frowned upon, because he wants to be more in line with what Florida is doing and our policies."

RELATED: DEI-vestment: University of Florida sheds ‘inclusion’ for innovation

  Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis looks on during warm-ups prior to the Capital One Orange Bowl between the Florida Gators and the Virginia Cavaliers at Hard Rock Stadium on December 30, 2019, in Miami, Florida. (Photo by Mark Brown/Getty Images)

Ono continued to distance himself from his DEI-filled past during an interview with the University of Florida Board of Trustees on May 27, claiming that his opinions on systemic racism "evolved over time" and that no group or institution should ever be tarred with a "blanket definition or label."

The board of trustees was apparently so eager to make Ono the next UF president that they accepted Ono's explanations regarding his DEI "volte-face" with little skepticism, according to an op-ed from Scott Yenor and Steven DeRose. Yenor and DeRose characterized the BOT as "embarrassing" automatons who simply "nodded" along as Ono attempted to explain away his past.

Yenor and DeRose likewise described Ono as a "dishonorable man," a "fanatical opportunist," and an empty suit.

Yenor and DeRose were not the only ones alarmed by Ono's nomination. Florida Republicans in Congress — Sen. Rick Scott and Reps. Byron Donalds, Jimmy Patronis, and Greg Steube — all voiced their opposition to Ono, as did Donald Trump Jr., Charlie Kirk, and some members of the public.

The Florida board of governors apparently heeded those concerns. Paul Renner, a former speaker of the Florida House and a member of the BOG, told Blaze News that he was greatly "troubled" by the disconnect between Ono's "horrendous record on DEI" and his statements to the UF trustees.

"If you give an interview and everything you've said is directly contradicted by the public record, that's a problem, a problem of candor," Renner said.

Yenor, a political science professor at Boise State University and the senior director of state coalitions at the Claremont Institute’s Center for the American Way of Life, gave Blaze News a similar assessment of Ono.

"He changed his view on a whole host of issues at a convenient time in order to get a job," Yenor explained. "That shows that his convictions are for sale."

Because of Ono's seemingly shallow convictions, DeRose likened him to a "political windsock," borrowing the imagery from another source.

Ono did not respond to a request for comment from Blaze News.

Renner and his fellow members of the board of governors used their interview with Ono in the first week of June to challenge him on his DEI record as well as other issues.

Governor Carson Good, for example, pressed Ono on his decision to require UM students to receive COVID boosters as late as 2023. Despite his background in immunology and experimental medicine, Ono claimed he had simply followed the recommendation of UM health officials, stammering that he is "basically a mouse doctor."

"I don't think he's a strong leader," Renner reiterated to Blaze News, characterizing Ono instead as "opportunistic."

"He's not in the camp of somebody who felt like they had to [promote DEI] to keep their job," Renner continued. "He did it with his own face in a lot of these videos. He cut professional productions that talked about two spirits and transgenderism and thinking beyond the binary."

"He didn't have to do that."

Yenor seems to agree, telling Blaze News that Ono is "not someone who's taken any lumps for changing his views" on DEI.

In response to a request for comment, a DeSantis administration official gave Blaze News the following statement: "The governor appointed people to the Florida Board of Governors who are conservative and aligned to use their judgment, and he had confidence in their ability to be able to discharge this responsibility."

'A very, very, very easy decision'

Ultimately, only six members of the board of governors voted in favor of Ono's nomination. Meanwhile, Renner, Good, and eight other governors voted against it.

That 10-6 vote marked the first time in the BOG's 22-year history that members had rejected a candidate for university president. It may even have been the first vote of its kind in American history.

Most liberals and their allies in the media bewailed the politics involved in the BOG's decision.

'Many of the repudiations that Dr. Ono took were only taken after it was clear he was being seriously considered for the University of Florida job.'

The Gainesville Sun brooded that Ono was "grilled" over so many "flashpoints in the culture wars" — DEI, so-called climate change, and gender-related interventions for minors — that have been "waged by Florida's ruling conservatives."

"It’s an absolute embarrassment. The political questions that were being asked portends more politics in the process and less focus on academics," howled Amanda Phalin, a former BOG member and a current business professor at UF, according to the Miami Herald, which also claimed Ono had been "clearly caught off-guard" by the BOG's questions.

"Because of your insistence on performative politics, you chose to question him repeatedly on hot button political issues and then refused to accept his thoughtful answers," fumed another UF professor, Dr. Michael Haller, who self-identifies as an "ally" of non-heterosexual people, according his X bio.

"No qualified apolitical leader will ever come near our campus again with an eye on sitting in a leadership role."

RELATED: Pro-Palestinian students at University of Michigan force their way into 'locked' admin building, several arrested: Report

  Podcast host Dan Senor moderates a session with WashU Chancellor Andrew D. Martin and University of Michigan President Santa Ono at the ADL Never Is Now event at Javits Center on March 3, 2025, in New York City. (Photo by Bryan Bedder/Getty Images for Anti-Defamation League)

However, Zack Smith of the Heritage Foundation — who, as a trustee of the University of West Florida and Pensacola State College, knows something of the nomination process — denied that Ono was ambushed by the BOG.

"The concern many people had [was] it didn't seem so much as a 'road to Damascus'-type conversion as it did a conversion of convenience, where many of the actions, many of the repudiations that Dr. Ono took were only taken after it was clear he was being seriously considered for the University of Florida job," Smith explained to Blaze News.

When asked whether members of the BOG faced undue pressure from high-profile Florida conservatives to block Ono's nomination, both Smith and Renner disputed that such pressure would have influenced the governors' vote one way or the other.

"If you look at the members of the board of governors," Smith said, "they are not wilting wallflowers themselves. Many have experience in state government and a host of different industries as well, and so I doubt that they were pressured by anyone."

Governor Renner confirmed that "there was a crucible" but added that the heat comes with the BOG territory: "If you don't like pressure on an issue like this, don't sign up for the job."

"For me, this was a very, very, very easy decision."

'Unprecedented'

Because the BOG vote to block Ono's nomination was so "unprecedented," it likewise revealed another problem with the higher-education system: The process to select a university president has seemingly been little more than political theater.

A school typically hires a search firm that then crafts a carefully worded job description that, according to Yenor, will attract a particular candidate or a particular type of candidate — likely one who shares their values. The University of Florida, for instance, may have signaled a preference for DEI-supporting prospects like Ono by hiring SP&A, which describes itself as "a boutique woman- and minority-owned executive search firm."

In Florida, once a board of trustees votes on a candidate, he or she is then passed along to the state board of governors, who until Ono have apparently rubber-stamped every nominee they've been asked to consider.

'Thank you so much for saving the University of Florida.'

Several sources indicated to Blaze News that the BOG was right to be concerned about Ono and to treat his hearing not as a pro forma exercise with the result already predetermined but as an opportunity to vet his true personal and professional character.

"I think the board acted appropriately to ask some very hard, very serious questions of Dr. Ono," Smith said. "Their final sign-off approval was placed there for a reason."

Yenor claimed that the Ono case may yet show that "the era where people defer to the experts is over."

The UF Board of Trustees, especially Chair Mori Hosseini, which had just voted unanimously in support of Ono, blasted the BOG for rejecting his nomination. Hosseini — who has donated generously to Florida Republicans in the past, including more than $1 million to DeSantis' failed presidential bid — called the decision "deeply disappointing."

"You all decided today is the day you’re going to take somebody down," Hosseini told the BOG directly.

RELATED: Florida first lady gives hint on possible run for governor

  Florida Gators national championship men's basketball team meets with President Trump at the White House. Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

By contrast, Renner told Blaze News that while he did receive multiple complaints from UF associates about his vote against Ono, some UF faculty members secretly expressed their appreciation for stymieing the Ono nomination. "Thank you so much for saving the University of Florida," he recalled them saying.

For his part, Ono remains loyal to the University of Michigan, the school he ditched in favor of the University of Florida. Though he acknowledged in his resignation message some disagreement with the UM Board of Regents, as of Wednesday afternoon, Ono's X profile still has the hashtag "Go Blue!" In fact, there's even an outside chance that he could stay at the school as a member of the faculty.

The University of Michigan did not respond to a request for comment from Blaze News.

The sources who spoke with Blaze News did not share any insights as to who may be on the radar screen for the UF presidential vacancy, but most are optimistic that the right candidate is out there.

Renner indicated that he or she may be found within traditional academic circles. "There's good people out there," he explained. "I hope they do the right thing the next time around. But if it's the same thing, guess what? It's going to be the same answer. So I hope a message has been sent to pick somebody who is an actual leader on this issue and has all the academic credentials they want."

DeRose and Smith, by contrast, believe that the school should consider candidates outside of academia. DeRose claimed UF must look for a leader from another industry to demonstrate a true commitment to "education reform."

"Florida doesn't need a president who's just now evolving on DEI. They need the anti-DEI 2.0 president," he explained. "You're not going to find that from people who have traditional backgrounds in academia."

"There certainly are other good candidates out there," Smith claimed, "if they kind of widen their search net."

Editor's note: Matthew Peterson, the editor in chief of Blaze News, is a Washington fellow for the Claremont Institute.

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‘Rarely has a suit been this empty’: The rise and fall of Santa Ono



Florida’s Board of Governors on June 3 rejected Santa Ono for president of its flagship school, the University of Florida. This came just one week after the University of Florida’s Board of Trustees unanimously approved Ono. In what is typically a procedural process, it marked the first time in the 22 years since the Board of Governors was established that it had rejected a candidate in this fashion. It was a blow for not only Ono but also for the board itself.

How did Ono nearly get approved as the University of Florida’s next president? The short answer is the almost childish simplicity of the Board of Trustees — and especially its chairman, Mori Hosseini. They created a situation where only an establishment education administrator like Ono could be selected.

Ono turned out to be a fanatical opportunist who serially abdicates responsibility — a man without honor or integrity.

On October 29, 2024, Hosseini announced the formation of the University of Florida’s presidential search committee. In January 2025, the committee selected SP&A, “a boutique woman- and minority-owned executive search firm,” to lead the search. (SP&A is currently conducting the presidential search at the University of South Florida as well.) Soon thereafter, the search firm created a presidential prospectus that made clear it sought a candidate with “professional and administrative” experience at a “research university or comparable setting,” though others with doctorates or those who had “national or international scholarly and administrative success outside academia” could be considered.

This job description stacked the deck against hiring anyone from the realm of politics or administration, which had been the pool from which Florida selected university presidents in recent memory. Manny Diaz, Florida’s director of the Department of Education, who oversaw Florida’s rise to become the No. 1 state for education, was thus ineligible to serve as the University of Florida’s next president. No one contacted Diaz about the job. Members of Florida’s Board of Governors and Chancellor Ray Rodrigues, head of the State University System of Florida, were ineligible, too. Former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo? Also out of the running.

We can only speculate about how the deck was stacked. SP&A colluded with campus stakeholders, especially faculty, when the firm was retained. Together, they developed the criteria necessary to hire a Santa Ono. The faculty and search firm won when the search committee approved the job description for the next University of Florida president, either through negligence or prestige envy.

Conservative backlash

The University of Florida’s Board of Trustees named Ono the sole finalist on May 4, and they set May 27 as the date to vote on his candidacy. A flurry of activity followed. Gubernatorial candidate and U.S. Rep. Byron Donalds (R-Fla.) came out against Ono on May 6. Libs of TikTok and DC_Draino posted viral videos of Ono talking about systemic racism in his previous jobs. A group called @CommiesOnCampus posted what it termed “Eight Hours of Ono” videos on May 16. Floodgates were opened when op-eds from Peter Wood, Maya Sulkin, Karol Marcowicz, and Joy Pullmann appeared. Christopher Rufo hit the issue hard as the board’s vote neared. More videos were unearthed on transgender issues. All hands were on deck.

— (@)  
 

The University of Florida’s Board of Trustees could not ignore what was unearthed. Instead, the board scripted a portrayal of Ono as a recent convert to the Florida way. They conducted a carefully orchestrated “interview” on May 27, where members threw questions at Ono like a circus performer would throw peanuts at an elephant about to perform.

The board’s members embarrassingly nodded as they asked prepared questions about Ono’s volte-face and extracted implausible pledges of future good behavior. His evolution was a marketing scheme for the willingly duped. When asked if he thought universities were inherently racist, Ono admitted that his thinking “evolved over time:” “I think it’s actually counterproductive to call any group of people or institutions with some sort of blanket definition or label.” When asked if he still believes in implicit bias, Ono confessed he “would not make those kinds of statements or label different groups of people in that way.” Before, he wanted to cultivate activists; now, he wanted institutional neutrality. Such meager pledges were good enough for the board, and they voted unanimously to approve him as the University of Florida’s 14th president.

By this point, only Mori Hosseini and his board seemed to favor of Ono. Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.) and Rep. Jimmy Patronis (R-Fla.), Rep. Byron Donalds (R-Fla.), and Rep. Greg Stuebe (R-Fla.), along with Charlie Kirk and Donald Trump Jr., all criticized the pick.

— (@)  
 

The meeting that roasted Ono

Not since Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-N.Y.) grilled Ivy League presidents has there been a more effective questioning of leftist academic leaders than at the Florida Board of Governors. Florida’s former speaker of the House, Paul Renner, developed a casebook against Santa Ono and shared it on X before the hearing. Others had their own approaches. All were serious, sustained, and impressive.

— (@)  
 

A leftist sat in a chair and could not evade tough questions. Unlike the University of Florida’s Board of Trustees, the Florida Board of Governors used the time to question Ono — not simply about his flip-flopping, but also about how he understands wokeness. Rarely has a suit been this empty.

The Board of Governors consistently showed how Ono’s conversion of convenience raised deep questions about his judgment and leadership.

Board member Carson Good asked Ono a series of simple, devastating questions. Ono had established an anti-racism task force when president at the University of Michigan. “What do they mean when they say anti-racism?” Good asked. Ono’s answer: “I’m an immunologist, so that’s not my specific area.” Good asked about decolonization, whiteness, the original sin of racism, and inclusive history.

With each question, Ono retreated with apologies, disclaiming any expertise — or even knowledge — of what he was advocating. His entire career stood for promoting radical diversity, equity, and inclusion policies, but now — apparently — he did not know what they meant! His excuse was that he had simply parroted the words of campus leftists.

Good even asked about Ono requiring that students at the University of Michigan get COVID-19 booster shots as late as 2023. Again, Ono retreated behind leftist campus committees. His chief health officer and a committee made the decision. “I’m a scientist,” Ono said, but they are “actually doctors” who made the recommendation.

Good had laid the trap. “You’re an immunologist, and wouldn’t an immunologist know better than an M.D.?” Ono’s answer: “I’m basically a mouse doctor.” Good’s point was powerfully put. What kind of an academic leader governs according to an ideology he does not understand — or farms out policy questions to committees while forswearing responsibility?

Opponents of DEI have long suspected that the embrace of DEI among university leaders is more opportunistic than fanatical. Ono turned out to be a fanatical opportunist who serially abdicates responsibility — a man without honor or integrity. The board of governors voted 6-10 to reject his candidacy.

Shame and worse should fall on those who supported him after this deeply humiliating questioning. Shame and disqualification for other offices should fall on the University of Florida’s Board of Trustees for failing to ask questions about Ono’s leadership failures and poor judgment.

Toward a sustainable offense

All honor goes to Florida’s Board of Governors, who acted to stop a dishonorable man from becoming president of Florida’s flagship university — and the highest-paid public university president in the nation. The University of Florida can still undertake necessary reforms. Its future president can still select deans and other academic leaders who are instinctively aligned with higher education reform, remove corrupt programs, and reimagine schools and colleges for serious purposes.

Defeating Ono at the board of governors level was a successful Hail Mary — but that is not an argument for designing higher education reform around such drastic measures. Florida needs a sustainable offense.

RELATED: DEI is on its last legs, but the right risks keeping it alive

  Photo by JEFF KOWALSKY / AFP) (Photo by JEFF KOWALSKY/AFP via Getty Images

The University of Florida’s Board of Trustees has proven unequal to the task. Perhaps its leaders think they could drive reform through a lukewarm president from the board level. Perhaps its leaders are embarrassed by conservative efforts at higher education reform. Perhaps they cannot imagine what serious reform would even mean. Whatever the reason, some changes in personnel are necessary at the board.

Did the Board of Trustees Vice Chair Patel, who chaired the search committee, know about Ono’s radical record? Did he inform his fellow trustees about it before selecting Ono as the sole finalist? If the answer to either of these questions is no, then Patel should be removed from the board for cause, either for incompetence, misfeasance, or failure to disclose essential information.

Many more Onos

We welcome converts to the anti-DEI crusade, but those converts must have demonstrated skin in the game. They must have burned the boats or made enemies for their new stance. Converts must go to accreditation meetings and disavow DEI principles in front of those who hold them. Ono only disavowed DEI in front of supposed critics, with a handsome salary as a reward. “Never mind” — that’s not close to being good enough to show a change of mind.

Yet the biggest error lay in the search firm and its collusion with faculty about the job description. The Board of Trustees was either childishly naïve or in on it when it approved a job description requiring the hiring of a conventional academic leader. Conservative academic leaders will often lack experience, since they are critics of our corrupt and corrupting modern higher education system. We should seek aligned, ambitious, and competent people, not “experienced” leaders. Be not impressed with presidents from prestigious universities.

Preventing the bad is not the same as getting the good. Nowhere is the deep state more of a reality than at modern universities. Board of trustees members simply cannot be hometown boosters if they want reform and a good president. They must be suspicious and determined from start to finish. Florida’s Board of Governors displayed these virtues and acted accordingly.

Ono is out. But there are plenty of Ono clones looking for the job — and next time they will disguise themselves better.

Editor’s note: This article was published originally at the American Mind.

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Stephen A. Smith FLIRTS with Republican presidential bid



Stephen A. Smith has been making headlines lately, and it’s not for his reporting on ESPN. Rather, the sports commentator has been making the podcast rounds and teasing the idea of running for the presidency in 2028.

And on a recent episode of the “PBD Podcast” with Patrick Bet-David, Smith appeared to suggest that he wouldn’t be opposed to running as a Republican.

“100% that in 2028, if you run, you will run as a Democrat,” PBD said, addressing Smith.

“The only reason I say that, is because I don’t think that I’d have a snowball's chance in hell of running as a Republican. I think JD Vance, the Marco Rubios of the world, even the Ron DeSantises of the world have that on lock, number one,” Smith replied.


“Number two, the party is not as in disarray as the Democratic Party. Number three, even though I’m a centrist, and I’m a registered independent,” he continued, “I would have voted for Nikki Haley if Ron DeSantis hadn’t pissed me off with the whole slavery, ‘there’s good parts about slavery’ comment.”

“I might have voted for him. That was my issue with him. Trump, obviously, it’s behavior more so than anything else, but I had no problem with Nikki Haley. I’m friends with Governor Chris Christie, former governor of New Jersey,” he added, before explaining that “if a third party had a chance of winning an election,” that would be how he’d run.

“I don’t like leaning far right or left, and I think both sides pull you dramatically in their direction,” he concluded.

BlazeTV host Jason Whitlock doesn’t like where he sees this going.

“That’s fascinating. Now, he’s just thrown in a new angle here, in my opinion, running as a third candidate,” Whitlock says, speculating, “so maybe his play is, and their play is, if we can get him out there as a centrist and pull enough men away from the Republican Party, it may open a door for the Democrats.”

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