A Miami superyacht lawyer and New College of Florida alumnus has claimed he was the one to light the flame that ended in the governor’s takeover of the public liberal arts college.
The tiny college of 650-some students in Sarasota, Florida, recently found itself at the center of the nation’s culture wars in the runup to the 2024 presidential election as Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis took aim at the school and what he sees as the woke politics of higher education.
In January, the governor appointed multiple trustees to the board who aim to change the liberal arts college into an ultra-conservative institution, according to DeSantis’ own chief of staff. The trustees promptly ousted the school’s president, replacing her with a DeSantis ally.
ADVERTISEMENT
As alumni frantically organized efforts to help students fight back, and dug into the question of how it was that their school had a target painted on its back by power players in national conservative politics, many say Robert Allen—a 1978 New College graduate and prior trustee with longtime ties to the GOP—was busy hitting the phones to dampen resistance.
Allen is the founder of a firm which claims on its website to cater to the monied yacht industry—“from buyers and sellers of pleasure yachts to manufacturers, brokers, maritime insurance providers and lenders.”
Multiple alumni said that during Allen’s campaign of prolific Facebook posts (which some alums characterized as trolling) and hours-long conversations, he claimed to have helped orchestrate the takeover in order to save the school from ruin.
“I’m the one who brought the governor’s attention to the school, had him fill the board with trustees, you know, and made him believe that this could be a jewel of the South,” graduate Jeanine Ashforth said Allen told her in a phone call.
“He was engaged [in] what this other member of the New College Facebook community characterized as psyops, or psychological operations, trying to distract the community,” said S. Eben Kirksey, an alumnus working to battle changes at the school and who was also contacted by Allen.
Allen told The Daily Beast to “stay tuned” for news of big donors to the school, that he recommended names of potential trustees to “those close to the governor” and that he encouraged some to apply—but that he wasn’t a troll.
Instead, he said, he was trying to save the school: “It had no future, so I tried to give it a future,” he said. “And the way that I tried to give it a future was by suggesting that we should fill the vacancies.”
He did not provide any proof of his outreach to the DeSantis administration. DeSantis’ office did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
But even the governor, the new trustees, and Allen himself have admitted that the college’s takeover is more than just about finances.
DeSantis’ own chief of staff said that they aim to turn the school into a southern version of Hillsdale College—a conservative Christian university, which Allen boasted has a “waiting list and “core curriculum.”
Allen told The Daily Beast that he took issue with what he perceived as a lack of Republican professors at the college, and that both test scores and standards for admission were low.
According to the U.S. News & World Report, New College of Florida is the fifth best public liberal arts school in the country.
“Half the applicants admitted to New College of Florida have an SAT score between 1120 and 1340 or an ACT score of 23 and 29,” reads the website. “However, one quarter of admitted applicants achieved scores above these ranges and one quarter scored below these ranges. “
Allen blamed the takeover on both the college’s administration and staff for poisoning connections with state officials—and for not asking for his help when the board had vacancies to fill.
“Knowing of my relationship with the DeSantis administration, no one reached out to me,” complained Allen, stressing the word “for advice on who might serve and could build a bridge.”
Multiple alumni pushed back on Allen’s apparent gripes and stressed that New College is academically rigorous and well known for its high rate of Fulbright scholars.
When asked whether he supported Christopher Rufo—perhaps the most controversial new trustee—and which trustees he suggested were ultimately appointed, Allen would not say, and even took a slight backstep.
“I may disagree with some and disagree with the approach that some initially took, okay,” he told The Daily Beast, “But I support them all. Each has a role to play and you know, everything happened very quickly .”
While it is the latest flashy public stunt in his war on education, New College wasn’t DeSantis’ first target as he tries to change the face of the state’s schools.
The powerful Florida governor has long been taking aim at Florida’s K-12 education system—supporting new laws such as the “Don’t Say Gay” bill and the “Stop W.O.K.E. Act,” which have hamstrung teachers’ abilities to talk about subjects like race and gender.
He also rejected an initial proposal for an African American Studies Advanced Placement course, saying it lacked “educational value” and has faced accusations of book-banning as teachers scramble to be in compliance with new laws.
But more recently, his aim has been higher, at college-level studies.
Before laying siege to the New College Board of Trustees, he had requested data from public universities about their diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives.
But DeSantis took his war on public education to new heights when he appointed six New College trustees, many with connections to ultra-conservative national organizations such as the Claremont and Manhattan institutes.
Rufo, in particular, has been a main antagonist in the misleading conservative battle against Critical Race Theory—an accepted academic framework which acknowledges systemic racism.
Another, Eddie Speir—who owns a religious secondary school where Allen’s child plays tennis—claimed he wanted the president gone and teachers fired. Days later, President Patricia Okker was replaced by DeSantis favorite Richard Corcoran, who was given a hefty raise to a salary of nearly $700,000 a year.
Speir told the Sarasota Herald-Tribune, which first reported on Allen’s involvement in the New College overhaul, he had been contacted and encouraged by Allen to become a trustee.
According to reporting by the Herald-Tribune, Allen had traveled to Sarasota before and after Okker’s firing, attending a dinner with trustees and meeting with a New College administrator who was considered for interim president before Corcoran took the helm.
When Allen reached out to fellow alumni fighting the changes happening at the school, some said they balked at what they saw as a juxtaposition between conservative claims of fiscal responsibility and paying so much for a new college president—something Allen told The Daily Beast he supported.
“I asked him, ‘If your argument is that the school is in such dire economic straits, if Republicans only care about return on investment, and the school is not returning on investment, then how can you take a million dollars out of the school?’” said Ashforth, who had spoken with Allen during his outreach campaign to alumni. “Like shouldn’t Corcoran …drop his salary down to $1? You know, out of solidarity.”
The New College Foundation has not yet confirmed the additional funds to pay Corcoran.
Multiple graduates also said that Allen had constantly battled more liberal alumni on Facebook—earning the reputation of someone who trolled a popular private alumni Facebook group.
“I felt like, you know, he was definitely overstepping, reaching personal boundaries in repeated messages and calls,” said Kirksey, of his experience.
Kirksey shared the text of a Facebook message in which Allen extended a request to connect while bragging of his connections to multiple New College power players and heavy-hitting Florida politicians like the governor.
"I know what happened, why it happened and how it happened,” he wrote.
"In short, there is no one in the New College community who knows the DeSantis administration as well as I do. Likewise there is no one in that administration that knows the college like I do either," the message also read.
Allen called claims of boundary-crossing “ridiculous,” insisting he contacted one or two alumni who were “overreacting” to the trustee appointments, but conceded he engaged with arguments online, saying he was “attacked” and “responded.”
But for many alums, although some are open to hearing from people like Allen, they are not overreacting: They believe their school is a testing ground for larger efforts by DeSantis on his road to the presidency, and will fight until the end against what they view as the dismantling of their beloved school.
“We’re just ground zero,” said Ashforth. “This is not just a 700-person school, we’re just the first test right?”
