The Florida Board of Governors has rejected former University of Michigan president Santa Ono for the presidency of the University of Florida in a vote on Tuesday. Ono is considered one of the architects of the DEI lunacy that has infected America’s higher education system.
“This is a massive win for conservatives — and an act of courage by the board,” conservative activist and Critical Race Theory expert Christopher Rufo wrote in a Tuesday X post.
The six members of the Board who voted for Ono were outnumbered by ten who voted no, according to the Chronicle of Higher Education senior writer David Jesse.
“The Florida higher education system Board of Governors rejects the hiring of Santa Ono as University of Florida president. Vote was 6 yes, 10 no,” Jesse said.
Ono, who the Wall Street Journal acknowledges as “one of the primary authors of the DEI playbook in higher education,” was also rejected by the University of Florida Board of Trustees on May 27 — but that time, with a unanimous vote.
Notably, Ono was also “the architect of a vast DEI apparatus” while serving as president of the University of British Columbia, before his tenure at the University of Michigan.
In 2021, Ono launched the President’s Task Force on Anti-Racism and Inclusive Excellence, and later boasted of the initiative’s strategic plan having become “a standard that is emulated around the world.”
The former university president hailing from Vancouver, Canada, also preached DEI ideology within the campus community, proclaiming in 2020 that the U.S. needed to “dismantle the tools of oppression and white supremacy that remain prevalent and entrenched in our everyday systems.”
Ono also suggested that simply implementing DEI initiatives were not enough, saying you “cannot take your foot off the pedal” when it comes to eliminating what he called “systemic racism,” which he bizarrely claimed had become “embedded in every corner of any institution.”
In addition to being DEI-obsessed, Ono has also been a vocal proponent of fully divesting from oil, gas, and similar fields, declaring in his 2023 inaugural address at University of Michigan that “above all,” the school needed to address climate change, which he called the “existential challenge of our time.”
During Ono’s tenure at the University of Michigan — which has a long history of anti-Israel activism on campus — Ann Arbor police arrived at the school to investigate the reported beating of a Jewish student, which authorities suspected to be a potential crime of “bias.”
“This history of politicization explains why Ono failed to meet the moment during last year’s antisemitic convulsions in Ann Arbor,” the Wall Street Journal noted.
Alana Mastrangelo is a reporter for Breitbart News. You can follow her on Facebook and X at @ARmastrangelo, and on Instagram.
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