Rufos at the gate
By 
A very redolent image of what Ron DeSantis is doing to higher education in Florida:
Hundreds of New College of Florida library books, including many on LGBTQ+ topics and religious studies, are headed to a landfill.
A dumpster in the parking lot of Jane Bancroft Cook Library on the campus of New College overflowed with books and collections from the now-defunct Gender and Diversity Center on Tuesday afternoon. Video captured in the afternoon showed a vehicle driving away with the books before students were notified. In the past, students were given an opportunity to purchase books that were leaving the college’s library collection.
Some discarded books included “Nine and Counting: The Women of the Senate”, “The War of the Worlds” and “When I Knew,” which is a collection of stories from LGBTQ+ people recounting when they knew they were gay. Several books from the GDC were retrienved by local activists before they could be taken for disposal.
[…]
March referenced Florida Statute 237 as the reason books could not be donated or sold. However, Florida law states that New College could dispose of state-funded personal property by “selling or transferring the property to any other governmental entity … private nonprofit agency … (and) through a sale open to the public.”
[…]
Natalia Benavides, a 21-year-old fourth-year student at New College, said books in the dumpster carried the college’s seal as well as a “discard” sticker on the spine. She watched the truck take the books away, and retained several books from the GDC before they could be thrown away.
When she asked officials whether they could donate the books, she said she was told that under state statute the college can’t donate books purchased with state funds.
Just flatly lying about what the law says lest anybody voluntarily obtain a book from the GDC’s collection and get cooties is a very DeSantis touch. And this is yet another reminder that Cornel West writing an op-ed claiming that DeSantis just wanted students to get a rigorous classical education flies over the line that divides “crank” from “disgrace.”
At this point, I wonder how long guys like Tommy Tuberville will bother to be a US Senator when they can make a lot more money being an Associate Vice Provost For Book Burning and Baseball Recruitment somewhere in the UF system instead.