Senate committee OKs Ron DeSantis picks for Florida Poly board

A Senate committee gave its approval for Gov. Ron DeSantis’ appointees to the Florida Polytechnic University Board of Trustees. DeSantis announced his appointments in October.

The appointees include University of Chicago Associate Professor Dorian Abbot, Manhattan Institute senior fellow Ilya Shapiro, former DeSantis staffer David Clark, retired logistics executive Clifford Otto and radar tech company owner Sidney Theis.

Their appointments received initial approval from the Senate Ethics and Elections Committee, with Democratic Sen. Tina Polsky opposing Abbot and Shapiro due to their rejection of diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) programs. DeSantis has railed against DEI in higher education.

Shapiro posted to X in October that the practice should be eradicated, according to the Tampa Bay Business Journal. And in early 2022 he was placed on administrative leave before he even began a job at Georgetown University Law School after he questioned a Joe Biden Supreme Court appointment, tweeting a suggestion that the President would appoint a “lesser black woman” to the bench, according to Inside Higher Ed.

Abbot got pushback from some faculty members and graduate students at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology after the prestigious school invited Abbot, a scientist who studies climate change and distant solar systems, to give a public lecture. Abbot had previously spoken out against affirmative action and diversity programs, according to the New York Times.

Otto is a registered Republican who had already been serving as a Trustee.

Polsky, during debate on the Florida Poly appointments, expressed concern that Abbot and Shapiro’s addition to the Board would make the state’s youngest public university and only STEM-dedicated public college akin to New College of Florida, which DeSantis remade in his image by appointing a slate of conservative trustees early last year.

The appointments are still subject to full Senate confirmation, though with a conservative supermajority, Polsky’s concerns are unlikely to be heeded.