Gov. Ron DeSantis has said he won’t get involved in UF’s presidential search. But under a recent rule, the state university system’s Board of Governors, seven of whom are DeSantis appointees, must approve UF’s presidential finalists before they’re publicly announced.
The board amended presidential search regulations, passed in October, that now require the Board of Governors to approve the search committee’s list of proposed finalists before it’s sent to the UF Board of Trustees. The amendment makes the Board of Governors chairperson an automatic search committee member and expands board representation by allowing it to appoint a board member and an at-large designee. The at-large designee is not intended to be a fellow board member, but rather a faculty member, trustee or other university affiliate.
The change, which essentially gives the board veto power over any candidate, comes amid a fraught time for university presidencies and top-level searches across Florida’s higher education system. Board members moved to change the search regulations after Florida Atlantic University called off its presidential search last year following accusations of political favoritism, gender discrimination and violations of state search laws.
Florida Agricultural and Mechanical University and UF are looking for new presidents after financial controversies embroiled the respective institutions. FAMU’s president resigned in July after bungling a fraudulent $237 million donation from a Texas-based hemp farmer. The state subjected Ben Sasse, UF’s former president, to an audit after The Alligator reported on his outsized spending habits in August.
Board of Governors Vice Chair Alan Levine, a former UF trustee, said his experience with the 2012 search process to replace former UF President Bernie Machen highlighted why the changes to the regulation were necessary.
During the search, he said the general counsel asked each trustee to meet with the finalists individually in a private hotel room in Washington, D.C. At the end of the day, the trustees reported their preferred candidate to a search firm rather than openly discussing it during an official committee meeting.
After Levine shared his concerns with former Florida Gov. Rick Scott, the university called off the search, according to Levine.
“I literally flew right to Tallahassee,” he said. “For members of the board [and] for search firms, to basically structure a search in a way designed to keep the public from really knowing what's going on until the decision is already made, struck me as very wrong.”
A decade later, Levine saw a similar situation play out while serving on FAU’s presidential search committee. The June 2023 search violated the Sunshine Law when votes for candidates weren’t properly recorded, which gave committee members no way to verify the accuracy of the election. The Sunshine Law requires public board and commission meetings to be open to the public and minutes at those meetings to be taken.
Then came the charges of political favoritism.
Then-State Rep. Randy Fine, a Republican, publicly claimed the governor’s office was courting him for the position for about a month and said he was a shoo-in for the job. But when the search committee announced finalists, Fine’s name wasn’t on the list.
Hours later, the chancellor of the state university system requested the search be called off. The university decided to start from scratch based on advice from general counsel.
Fine, now a state senator and campaigning in a special election to serve in the U.S. Congress, declined to be interviewed.
The state report on the investigation into FAU’s search found parts of it did not comply with the presidential search regulation or Florida’s Sunshine Law. The amended regulation aligns with a 2022 law that created a public records exemption for parts of the presidential search process, like keeping confidential information that could identify applicants until the search committee narrows the field to three finalists.
Previously, board members serving on search committees couldn’t voice their concerns about a candidate to their colleagues until after finalists were announced. Earlier involvement, Levine said, ensures candidates aren’t advanced only to be rejected later.
He said the new regulation eases applicants’ concern about public exposure and prevents competitive candidates from withdrawing or not applying altogether. Under the board’s rules, search committees must now submit at least three finalists unless there are “exceptional circumstances.”
Board of Trustees criticism
Brian Lamb, the Board of Governors chair, said in a Sept. 18 board meeting the changes to the regulation weren’t an overstep. Instead, he said, they would make the presidential selection process smoother and more transparent — a challenge he described as one of his “biggest frustrations” during his time as chair.
“I can personally attest to every single president sitting around this table — their contracts, their processes, the trustees involved — and I can tell you we are not performing at an elite level,” he said.
But university trustees have criticized the regulation, saying it’s a blatant lack of trust.
Mori Hosseini, the chairman of the UF Board of Trustees, argued the new regulation diminishes trustees’ power and signals a lack of trust from the state. But members of the Board of Governors said the amendments increase transparency, protect applicant confidentiality and simplify the presidential search process.
“Make no mistake about that — the board of governors is more and more less trusting of the board of trustees,” Hosseini said. “It’s almost as if the board of trustees is not doing its job.”
Hosseini, a former board of governors chairman, also disagreed with the two-person board representation on the search committee.
“We call [the board of trustees] boots on the ground,” he told the governors. “Let them do the work because you’re at 30,000 feet. You’re not there every day.”
Hosseini did not respond to an emailed list of questions sent by The Alligator Feb. 1.
Other university board chairs expressed similar concerns. Florida State University’s board chair Peter Collins said with regulations like this one, the board was “eating away bit by bit at the board of trustees’ role.”
Presidential search committees are typically made up of 15 members representing the board of trustees, students, faculty, administrators and alumni, who are appointed by the board of trustees.
Political influence
While the board of governors assured the trustees they would only act as background help, tighter oversight of presidential searches by the board could give DeSantis more leverage in state universities given his ability to appoint 14 of the 17 board members.
State Sen. Lori Berman (D-26), a member of the Florida Senate’s higher education committee, said DeSantis was “pretty responsible” for the selection of Ben Sasse as UF president and has played an “outsized role in the governance” of state universities.
“The Board of Trustees should be the ultimate decision-maker,” Berman said. “[They] are obviously closest to the university, and they know what's most important for the university.”
During UF’s last presidential search, Ben Sasse was presented as the sole finalist after the other two dropped out. Because UF’s search committee named Sasse the only known candidate for the job, Berman said, his ascension to the presidency had already been decided.
DeSantis’ chief of staff, James Uthmeier, guided Sasse through the search process, according to POLITICO. In an interview with UF trustees, Sasse denied DeSantis’s role in his appointment, saying he did not have contact with the DeSantis administration during his search.
DeSantis has avoided directly saying he wasn’t involved in Sasse’s selection. He said he would let the trustees lead the search effort because he had confidence they were going to “do something really, really good.”
State Sen. Shevrin Jones (D-34), also on the higher education committee, said he “has no faith with anything that comes out of [DeSantis’] mouth.”
He said he expects the process that put Sasse in UF’s presidential seat will happen again.
Jones said he thought the amended regulation “absolutely limits the autonomy of the search committee” and argued it should be the faculty and students who hold the most authority to select their president with the board of trustees acting as a referee.
“How do you begin to turn your institution around in this 21st century of education when individuals who are being selected are being selected because they're friends of the governor, or they have done favors for the governor,” he said. “You don’t need a search committee if you’re going in this direction.”
Five other state senators, four Republican and one Democrat, who are also on the higher education committee, didn’t respond to calls and emails requesting comment.
Contact Grace McClung at gmcclung@alligator.org. Follow her on X @gracenmclung
Grace McClung is a third-year journalism major and the university administration reporter for The Alligator. In her free time, Grace can be found running, going to the beach and writing poetry.
