Gavin Newsom visits with Florida college students at center of Ron DeSantis culture war

Gov. Gavin Newsom, finishing his first trip Wednesday under the banner of a national campaign to speak out against red state policies, met with students of New College of Florida, the small liberal arts school that has become a culture war flashpoint under Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis.

The public college in Sarasota, known as a “community of free thinkers, risk takers and trailblazers,” has become a target in DeSantis’ crusade against higher education, which he depicts as a bastion of so-called “woke” liberal ideology.

On Jan. 6, the Republican governor effectively seized control, placing six conservative allies on the college’s board of directors. They include GOP activist Christopher Rufo, who orchestrated right-wing attacks on critical race theory. Once a little-known, graduate-level framework for the study of racism’s impact on American institutions, it became a conservative rallying cry, with baseless claims that it had been introduced into K-12 education as a form of anti-white indoctrination.

The new board forced out the president of the college and replaced her with DeSantis’ former education commissioner. It also reportedly voted to abolish the college office handling diversity, equity and inclusion programs.

Newsom met with about two dozen students and faculty at a public library near the campus.

“I’m crawling out of my skin for you,” Newsom told the group, according to the Sarasota Herald-Tribune. “I want you to know you’re not alone. You matter.”

Newsom condemned DeSantis’ “zest for demonization,” and said that their school has become a symbolic battle ground for right-wing culture wars.

“This isn’t about you,” he said. “It’s about a movement they want to export everywhere else.”

Asked to comment on Newsom’s visit, DeSantis spokesperson Bryan Griffin told the Associated Press in an email that the Florida governor “is focused on getting Florida’s public institutions of higher learning refocused on academics and truth. Stunts from political opponents don’t matter and have no effect.”

The visit wraps up Newsom’s fourth day on the road with his wife and children, traveling to Republican-controlled states “where freedom is most under attack,” according to a recent campaign ad.

Newsom was in Mississippi on Sunday with Jackson Mayor Chokwe Antar Lumumba, a progressive fighting to make changes in his red state. In Arkansas, he met with Chris Jones, a Democrat who lost last year to Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders, and high school students who have organized against Sanders’ education overhaul.

On Tuesday, Newsom was in Alabama with Bryan Stevenson, a civil rights attorney and founder of the Equal Justice Initiative, a Montgomery-based nonprofit committed to ending mass incarceration.

The ideological battle between Gavin Newsom and Ron DeSantis

Newsom’s visit to New College of Florida comes about a month after DeSantis, a likely 2024 presidential candidate, spoke at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in Simi Valley. There he touted his record in Florida as an antidote to the “woke mind virus” of Democrats like Newsom.

Although Newsom denies any White House ambitions, he has spent the past year promoting Democratic messages outside of California and working to raise his national profile as a progressive leader. He has used his platform to call for stricter gun control laws, protection of LGBTQ rights and the establishment of California as a safe haven for abortion access.

Newsom has also adopted a more aggressive demeanor, attacking DeSantis and Texas Gov. Greg Abbott on Twitter, in interviews, with newspaper and TV ads — and even billboards. Last summer, he also aired an ad on Fox News claiming “freedom is under attack” in red states such as Florida.

Newsom used the same rhetoric again last week when he announced the launch of a new political fundraising committee, known as Campaign for Democracy. Newsom seeded the group, which he said aims to boost Democratic candidates in red states, with $10 million from his own campaign fund.

In a tweet on Wednesday afternoon, Newsom said “There is an all out assault on public education that is happening in red states across the country.”

“Books banned. Teachers silenced. Students intimidated,” the tweet continued. “DeSantis’ war on New College has done nothing but hurt its students & threatened their education.”