Threat At New College: Sarasota Police On Campus During Board Meeting

SARASOTA, FL — As the New College of Florida’s Board of Trustees — including six new conservative board members recently appointed by Gov. Ron DeSantis — met Wednesday with faculty, staff and students, the Sarasota Police Department is assisting with a threat on campus, a spokesperson for the agency told Patch.

One of the new board members, Eddie Speir — founder of Inspiration Academy, a private, Christian, sports academy in Bradenton — received a death threat ahead of the board’s Wednesday morning meeting with faculty and staff, the Sarasota Herald-Tribune reported. Though the college suggested canceling the meeting, the new board members decided to go ahead with it anyway.

“New College Police Department is the lead on the threat investigation,” Genevieve Judge, SPD’s public information officer, told Patch. “There are Sarasota police officers on the New College campus per their request for our mutual aid.”

She wouldn’t provide additional details about the threat, and, instead, directed Patch to New College police for more information.

The conversation between students and trustees takes place on campus in the Sainer Pavilion from 1:30 to 2:30 p.m.

• Also Read: DeSantis Appoints 6 Conservative Trustees To New College Of FL Board

The New College Police Department told Patch it couldn’t answer any questions about the threat or protests on campus, saying all information requests had to go through the college’s communications office.

In an automated response from the communications office, the department said that “media access will be limited or denied during emergencies or other situations when it may become disruptive.”

Media access to classrooms, offices and residence halls without prior written permission from the college is prohibited, the office said.

Also, “all unsolicited interviews with students require that the media get a signed New College of Florida media release from the student,” the department added. “The College will review the release and grant or deny the right to use the content.”

Ahead of Wednesday’s public meetings, Provost Dr. Suzanne Sherman’s office emailed students about safety and media policies on campus.

“This week, there will be even more outside attention on our college,” she wrote in the email, which was shared with Patch by a New College student. “We want to share information about important college privacy and media policies to help address your concerns.”

She reminded students that New College has “a restrictive and request-based media policy.”

She wrote, “You have privacy rights and free speech rights. Our media policy is clear – it prohibits unsolicited interviews and requires the media to ask permission to interview you.”

Students were asked to share their media requests with the communications department.

Sherman also asked students to be “mindful” of what they share online, noting “your social media profiles can bring unwanted attention to yourself, family, friends and followers.”

During Wednesday’s meetings, the college put additional security measures, including bag checking and security wanding anyone entering the pavilion.

New College made headlines earlier this month when DeSantis appointed a slate of new conservative board members who clash with the college’s liberal philosophy.

In addition to Speir, the governor appointed:

• Christopher Rufo, a conservative activist known for challenging critical race theory and gender ideology,
• Matthew Spalding, a professor and dean at Hillsdale College, a conservative Christian college in Michigan,
• Charles R. Kesler, a government professor at Claremont-McKenna College in California, where the conservative movement in America is among his areas of expertise, and the author of several books, including “I Am the Change: Barack Obama and the Crisis of Liberalism,”
• Mark Bauerlein, an Emory University English professor who once described himself as an “educational conservative” to Reason magazine, and
• Debra Jenks, a New College alumna and attorney.

Ahead of Wednesday’s meeting on campus, Speir tweeted that his request to open the meeting with a prayer was denied by Mary Ruiz, the Board of Trustees chair, after she consulted with the board’s legal counsel on the matter.

New College did not respond to Patch’s request for comment about his prayer request.

Speir also said that DeSantis appointed the new trustees “to lead New College of Florida out of wokeness,” in a recent Substack newsletter he shared with his followers.

New College, a public honors and liberal arts college, touts itself as an institution that educates “free thinkers, risk takers and trailblazers,” according to its website.

It tells prospective students, “Your education. Your way. Discover a public arts and science education driven by your curiosity, career aspirations and individual learning style.”

But DeSantis administration hopes to eradicate concepts such as diversity, equity and inclusion, as well as critical race theory from the classroom at New College and other higher education institutions.

The governor’s communications director, Taryn Fenske, told Florida Politics that New College has been “completely captured by a political ideology that puts trendy, truth-relative concepts above learning.”

The governor’s communications director, Taryn Fenske, told Florida Politics that New College has been “completely captured by a political ideology that puts trendy, truth-relative concepts above learning.”

"It is our hope that New College of Florida will become Florida's classical college, more along the lines of a Hillsdale of the south," Florida Education Commissioner Manny Diaz said in a statement, according to the Sarasota Herald-Tribune.

Another new appointee, Rufo, tweeted “our agenda for transforming New College of Florida,” which includes abolishing “'diversity, equity and inclusion’ and replac(ing) it with ‘equality, merit and colorblindness,’” and hiring “new faculty with expertise in constitutionalism, free enterprise, civic virtue, family life, religious freedom, and American principles.”