MAGA diehards are speaking out against Dr. Santa Ono, the sole finalist candidate to become the University of Florida, claiming that he’s too ideologically “woke” because he has spoken in favor of diversity, equity, and inclusivity (DEI) efforts. However, the university’s Board of Trustees is unanimously supporting him — as is Florida’s anti-DEI Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) — despite the backlash.
Ono is a Canadian-born Japanese-American immunologist PhD who has served as the president for the universities of Michigan, British Columbia, and Cincinnati. During his time overseeing the University of Michigan from October 2022 to May 2025, the school shut down its DEI office and ended its DEI plans in response to the U.S. president’s aim to end DEI initiatives in federally-funded schools. He also broke up a weeks-long pro-Palestinian on-campus encampment, arrested 40 pro-Palestinian student-protestors, and overturned the student government for demanding the school divest from Israeli investments.
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Now, Ono stands to earn $3 million annually as the University of Florida’s president, which would make him one of the highest-paid university presidents in the nation, The New York Times reported — and right-wingers are upset.
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Rep. Byron Donalds (R-FL), who is running to become his home state’s next governor, recently wrote via X, “Florida cannot afford to inject wokeness into our flagship university. This selection must be blocked and the search committee must start over.” His post contained Fox News video footage of Ono praising the University of Michigan’s DEI efforts and calling racism one of the United States’ “original sins.”
The anti-LGBTQ+ social media account Libs of TikTok, run by Chaya Raichik, recently referred to Ono as a “social justice activist,” writing, “He says it makes him very happy that students have become political activists to fight systemic racism and campus should be a place for creating cultural change to behaviors and laws to fight racism. He wants to turn students into BLM {Black Lives Matter] activists. How is this happening.”
Raichik’s post included a video of Ono praising the current generation of students for actively working to dismantle racism.
Charlie Kirk, founder of the young conservative group Turning Point USA, shared Raichik’s post and wrote, “Under no circumstances should this lunatic be allowed to be the President of the University of Florida. Governor DeSantis, who has been great on education, must intervene immediately.”
Anti-LGBTQ+ “right-wing propagandist” Christopher Rufo — a former visiting fellow for domestic policy studies at The Heritage Foundation, the right-wing think-tank that created Project 2025, the largely anti-LGBTQ+ blueprint for the U.S. president’s second term — also opposes Ono’s hiring.
Rufo — who has long opposed anti-racist education and claimed that LGBTQ+-inclusive educational policies “groom” children into sexual abuse as part of a right-wing campaign to funnel public taxpayer funds into private schools — wrote, “Santa Ono, finalist for the University of Florida presidency, promised students that he would ‘strive to make sharing [his] pronouns part of regular introductory greetings’ and start ‘centering the voices’ of ‘Two-Spirit, transgender, and non-binary people.’ Full woke.”
Santa Ono, finalist for the University of Florida presidency, promised students that he would "strive to make sharing [his] pronouns part of regular introductory greetings" and start "centering the voices" of "Two-Spirit, transgender, and non-binary people." Full woke. pic.twitter.com/50bvTDhfsw
— Christopher F. Rufo
(@realchrisrufo) May 22, 2025
However, while state Gov. DeSantis has agreed with Rufo and Kirk in the past, he said he trust’s Ono’s hiring at the University of Florida. “I trust the people that were involved in that process. They were trustees that I’ve appointed, that have performed exemplary for the state of Florida in those capacities,” the governor said earlier this month.
The university itself has also stood by Ono. On Thursday, Mori Hosseini, chair of the Board of Trustees, and Trustee Vice Chair Rahul Patel told the university community in an email that a “handful of external voices have sought to question Dr. Ono’s alignment with Florida’s vision for higher education,” Raw Story reported.
“Dr. Ono is not shifting his views to fit Florida. He has been evolving his perspective over time — before UF [University of Florida] ever approached him about this role…. He brings a decisive break from the progressive orthodoxy that has gripped too many elite campuses — one that UF has resisted and risen above. He recognized the toll that ideological excess was taking — on campus culture, academic standards, and institutional trust — and made a clear and courageous choice: enough is enough.”
Hosseini and Patel called Ono the “right person to accelerate UF’s upward trajectory and help make it the undisputed leader among America’s public universities.” Rufo called the trustee’s statement “absurd,” adding, “he has a decade of statements in support of BLM, DEI, trans, and climate radicalism.”
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