Today’s first story hit close to home. This weekend, my hometown paper, the Gainesville Sun (a New York Times affiliate), ran a story headlined, “Trump Jr. latest to slam selection of Santa Ono for University of Florida president.” Hurricane season arrived early this year, in the form of a massive controversy over the leading candidate for University of Florida president (with the fakest sounding name yet).

Santa Ono —or ‘Oh, no!’ to his critics— boasts elite-level diversity credentials, having been born in Canada to Japanese parents, making him a walking DEI unicorn. Meanwhile, the University of Florida, my alma mater, is Florida’s flagship university, the crown jewel of our public college system, a deep-south research Behemoth and the state’s anchor for international recognition.

Mr. Ono sits poised on the precipice of final approval, the lone surviving candidate. He was recently and unanimously approved by UF’s Board of Trustees, and is now up for a vote this week by the State’s Board of Governors— the last step.

To say Ono is fluent in wokese is like saying Joe Biden flowed with quirky personal anecdotes (before he lost his marbles). While at Michigan, Ono pushed his ambitious “DEI 2.0” plan, and oversaw a diversity office once considered to be the forefront of the nation’s academic DEI movement. Ono once declared that prestigious U. Michigan was built on stolen lands that really belong to wild indians or something. He allegedly understands what “two-spirited” means —no mean feat of metaphysical gymnastics— and built out Michigan’s vast DEI infrastructure.

Until he didn’t.

Starting about 18 months ago, Ono claims he had a DEI epiphany which caused a whiplash-inducing about-face. “The fact is some of my past remarks about DEI do not reflect what I believe,” Ono explained, “and that evolution did not take place overnight and it was shaped over a year and a half of thinking, discussions, listening to faculty, staff and students.”

It’s just like how Obama was against gay marriage until he was for it.

Ono’s critics claim that, not coincidentally, 18 months ago was around the same time that Ono was invited to consider running UF. The implication is that Ono’s epiphany was he could make a lot more money at Florida. I couldn’t verify the timing, but it is fair to assume these kinds of searches take a while. Eighteen months doesn’t seem unreasonable.

On the other hand, UF’s previous president, Ben Sass, only announced his departure last July. He left suddenly and unexpectedly, giving just three weeks notice. He said he needed to care for his wife, Melissa, 55, who tragically suffered acute epilepsy and early dementia. Jab status: unknown. Sass did a commendable job for the school, and the couple is perfectly lovely.

To put it bluntly, conservative critics can’t stand Ono. Florida seems like the last place a former Canadian DEI champion should be given the keys to the Sunshine State’s academic kingdom. Here’s Trump Jr.’s tweet, which provided the Gainesville Sun with its narrative hook:

Curiously, the progressive Sun’s story was packed with conservative criticism and didn’t even try to defend Ono, apart from including his “evolutionary” quote. Similarly, the far-left Miami Herald ran a suspiciously “reassuring” weekend story headlined, “‘Loyalty pledges’: New UF president’s $15M contract ties pay to DeSantis’ agenda.

Ono stands to receive the highest salary ever paid to any public university President in Florida history— $3 million a year. But, “President-elect Santa J. Ono’s contract,” the Herald reassured critics, “includes an unusual clause that may ease some of his right-wing critics’ biggest concerns: His job performance — and potentially his pay — will be tied to how well he upholds educational reforms championed by Gov. Ron DeSantis.”

In other words, they’ll dock his pay if he starts up with the DEI stuff again. Or at least, that’s the idea.

It was a major milestone in anti-DEI history. The Herald called the contract’s “unusual clause” unprecedented. “Beyond traditional benchmarks like student success and research output,” the Herald reported, “Ono will be judged on his cooperation with the governor’s Office of Government Efficiency (known as ‘Florida DOGE’) and how effectively he combats attempts to spend funds on diversity, equity, and inclusion.”

Between his recent DEI “evolution” and the “unprecedented clause,” the Trustees clearly think Ono’s woke tendencies will be sufficiently shackled. Nevertheless, conservative critics smell a rat. They clearly disagree, and a dramatic showdown at this week’s Board of Governor’s vote is inevitable.

A similar contretemps erupted over Ben Sass’s hire. Sass was a never-Trumper who voted for Trump’s impeachment while he was in Congress. He got primaried for that little act of protest, transitioned to president of a medium-sized private college, and then came straight to UF. You can imagine the howls of protest about Sass’s hiring. Yet Sass is now widely credited with having done a solid job of unraveling UF’s own vast DEI architecture. So.

My analysis of Santa Ono’s prospective presidency is much simpler. At Michigan, Ono enforced strict college vaccine mandates well into 2023. As late as May, 2023, students living on campus had to submit proof of receiving the bivalent omicron booster or have an approved exemption.

In a LinkedIn post just two months ago, Ono glowingly commemorated the 70th anniversary of the Salk polio vaccine, describing it as “safe, effective, and potent,” and endorsed the University of Michigan’s role in that signature moment in ‘public health’ history. So, he loves the jabs.

I easily found many examples of online criticism of Ono’s pandemic policies during that late unpleasantness. For example:

So, Gretchen Whitmer-approved President Ono was a covid tyrant in Canada even before he graduated to Michigan. Ono’s enthusiastic enforcement of coercive biomedical policies is a pattern, not a one-off. And unlike his DEI evolution, Ono has never questioned or even slyly distanced himself from the mask and jab mandates.

The University of Florida doesn’t need a president who’s just now evolving on DEI, and still hasn’t evolved on coercive medicine. At UBC and Michigan, Ono didn’t just follow the mandates—he led them. That’s not leadership. That’s obedience.