Heavy-handed political interference poisons FAU search | Editorial

When the presidential search committee at Florida Atlantic University chose three finalists to be the school’s next leader, the immediate reaction spoke volumes about the state of higher education in Florida. The talk was about the politician who did not make the cut.

To the pleasant surprise of many, especially FAU faculty and students, it appeared that for once, a search was conducted without the usual backroom deals run by Gov. Ron DeSantis and his cabal that runs higher education.

The reason for the sense of relief was the absence of one name: Randy Fine, a Republican state representative from Palm Bay. A former casino gambling executive with an MBA from Harvard, Fine is the only Jewish Republican in the Florida Legislature and he opened doors for DeSantis in the Jewish community in the governor’s first race in 2018.

Fine also is second only to DeSantis as the most polarizing figure in Florida politics, with a pronounced vindictive streak.

Fine, 49, told the Sun Sentinel he was encouraged to pursue the FAU job by DeSantis; the governor’s office called Fine a “good candidate.” Despite DeSantis’ repeated political manipulation in university hiring, few considered Fine a serious candidate. Because university presidential search records are secret, we cannot know for certain that Fine even applied, though “a state representative” did, according to FAU.

A disastrous choice

Fine would be a disastrous choice to run FAU. The Florida university with the most diverse student body should not be led by an ideologue and political bomb-thrower who attacks the LGBTQ community, demonizes drag shows and abuses his office with threats to use the budget as a club to punish his critics. Nothing about Fine suggests he would be a unifying campus leader, and he would face a deeply hostile faculty and student body.

A presidential search committee stocked with DeSantis supporters obviously agreed. The panel trimmed the field of 63 applicants to three: Vice Admiral Sean Buck, superintendent of the U.S. Naval Academy; Michael Hartline, dean of the College of Business at Florida State University; and Jose “Zito” Sartarelli, former chancellor of the University of North Carolina at Wilmington.

Two days after FAU announced its finalists, State University System Chancellor Ray Rodrigues sent a letter to search committee chairman Brad Levine, citing two “anomalies” in the selection process and ordering a suspension of the search “to obtain the facts.”

Rodrigues said the search panel, at a closed meeting, improperly conducted a straw poll listing their six top candidates and that the poll was sent to AGB Search of Washington, D.C., a search firm under contract to FAU.

‘The letter of the law’

As the Sun Sentinel reported, Levine said FAU general counsel David Kian guided the process, which Levine called “appropriate to the letter of the law.”

At those meetings was Alan Levine, a search committee member who serves on the Florida Board of Governors, which oversees the state university system. Alan Levine criticized a consultant’s use of a straw poll in the search for Florida State’s president two years ago, and he called for that search to be suspended.

“I have a very public history about being concerned with secret votes,” Levine told the Sun Sentinel Editorial Board Monday. He declined further comment, saying he did not want to obstruct Rodrigues’ review, but that it is routine for presidential picks to turn contentious.

“There’s always pressure in these searches,” he said.

The other “anomaly” Rodrigues cited was that a candidate was asked about sexual orientation. It was part of a survey by the search firm without FAU’s knowledge or participation.

An FAU associate professor who also applied for the presidency, William Trapani, told the editorial board that he too was asked about his sexual orientation and other personal questions in what AGB Search called a “diversity questionnaire.” Trapani said the demographic questions were anonymous, confidential and voluntary, and for the search firm’s use only.

Suspicious timing

The timing of Rodrigues’ letter, after the finalists were announced, raises obvious red flags, and the “anomalies” look like political cover to ensure a different result.

They are a very thin basis upon which to scuttle a long-dormant search for FAU’s new leader. FAU officials should forcefully challenge this interference and defend the integrity of their university — and themselves. The search committee should fully explain AGB Search’s use of a straw poll.

But state officials have no credibility attacking the secrecy of a search after insisting on unprecedented secrecy by passing a state law exempting presidential searches from public record, which has led to a succession of backroom political deals on campuses across the state.

DeSantis orchestrated the selection of former Nebraska Sen. Ben Sasse as the sole finalist for president of the University of Florida, the state’s premier institution. The governor then stage-managed a dismantling of New College of Sarasota, packing the college’s board with like-minded conservative ideologues and installing ex-House Speaker Richard Corcoran as president. Most recently, the search for a president of South Florida State College unraveled, as finalists withdrew and the board plucked, seemingly out of nowhere, a pro-DeSantis lawmaker, state Rep. Fred Hawkins of St. Cloud.

The secrecy is more troubling in the FAU case. For one thing, the public should know which search committee members support Fine. We don’t know for sure, but a logical starting place is with Barbara Feingold, who is also vice chair of FAU’s Board of Trustees.

She gave $10,000 last October to Fine’s political committee, Friends of Randy Fine, as he plotted a state Senate campaign, and gave another $1,000 to his House campaign in 2016, state records show. (FAU did not respond to our request to interview Feingold.)

The Sun Sentinel Editorial Board consists of Editorial Page Editor Steve Bousquet, Deputy Editorial Page Editor Dan Sweeney, and Editor-in-Chief Julie Anderson. Editorials are the opinion of the Board and written by one of its members or a designee. To contact us, email at letters@sun-sentinel.com.