The University of Florida’s Board of Trustees is expected on Wednesday to appoint Stuart R. Bell as UF’s next president, moving the former University of Alabama leader toward a state-level confirmation process that has become consumed of late by political fights over diversity, equity, and inclusion.
Bell’s nomination for the UF presidency amounts to a do-over for the board. About a year ago, the university’s trustees selected Santa J. Ono to lead the institution, only to see the former University of Michigan president pilloried over his past embrace of DEI. He was voted down last June by the state Board of Governors after a grueling and rancorous public interview. A university known for swagger has been walking with a limp ever since.
Given recent history, the stakes for Bell’s confirmation feel enormously high. In a telling sign of the times, the global reputation of a top-ranked public research university appears to hinge on whether a longtime administrator of limited national notoriety can convince the state’s political establishment that he is sufficiently hostile toward DEI and satisfactorily contrite about his past support of diversity programs. If Bell ends up with this big job, it will be as much about what he says he is not as what he says he is.
