Santa Ono tried to run from his DEI record and Florida's Board of Governors threw him out anyway.
Now the University of Florida just named Stuart Bell as its lone presidential finalist – and he didn't just tolerate DEI, he built one of the most aggressive diversity machines in the Deep South.
Conservative networks already have a 415,000-view opposition dossier on him and Florida hasn't even held the confirmation vote yet.
What Bell Actually Did at Alabama
Bell didn't inherit a DEI bureaucracy.
He created it.
After a string of racial controversies on campus in 2019, Bell personally stood up a presidential committee charged with building out the university's diversity infrastructure and expanding its reach across the state.
Diversity ambassadors fanned out into Alabama's historically Black counties.
Antiracism workshops became mandatory programming.
DEI goals moved to the center of faculty hiring.
The demographic results were exactly what Bell intended – black and Latino enrollment surged while the percentage of white students in the freshman class dropped nearly 10 percentage points.
By last fall, black students made up 14% of incoming Alabama freshmen, among the highest rates at any flagship public university in the country.
Then Alabama's Republican legislature passed a law banning DEI offices at public universities entirely.
Bell's answer was to rename his DEI division the "Division of Opportunities, Connections and Success" and hand the keys to Christine Taylor – the same administrator who had run his DEI operation for years.
John Sailer, director of higher education policy at the Manhattan Institute, put it plainly: Bell "founded the DEI office at Alabama and refused to fire DEI officers even when the legislature banned it."
That is the man Florida just named as its sole finalist to run UF.
The Same Network That Killed the Last Pick Is Already Mobilized
Santa Ono spent months trying to talk his way past his Michigan DEI record.
He wrote a Wall Street Journal op-ed calling the movement "more about ideology, division and bureaucracy, not student success."
The Board of Governors rejected him anyway.
Bell hasn't bothered to distance himself.
When the Supreme Court struck down affirmative action in 2023, Bell held a press conference and told reporters that diversity and inclusion remained a major part of his university's strategic plan and that his team was actively working to increase it.
That was his public stance after the Supreme Court ruled against him.
Sailer called Bell's record "dismal" within an hour of UF's announcement Monday and posted that the university board was "breaching protocol" to push him through as the lone finalist.
"If UF is looking for managed decline, Bell is an excellent choice," he wrote.
By Wednesday evening his thread had 415,000 views, and he told reporters more opposition research is forthcoming.
"At every turn Bell implemented policies that allowed that infrastructure to grow," Sailer said.
Ron DeSantis Endorsed Him Immediately and That Should Raise Questions
Here's where the math stops working.
DeSantis called Bell a "great selection" with his "full support" within hours of Monday's announcement.
Board of Governors chair Alan Levine – who holds three UF degrees and helped block Ono – said he wants the process to play out.
Sailer read the governor's speed as a tell, not a comfort.
"You don't ask the governor to weigh in immediately unless you think you need to come out swinging," he said.
Think about what's underneath that.
https://twitter.com/FLVoiceNews/status/2056837704772473310?s=20
Florida spent years dismantling DEI across its entire university system.
UF already eliminated DEI positions, shuttered diversity offices, and redirected $5 million previously earmarked for diversity programming.
The state rejected Ono specifically because conservatives didn't trust that his conversion was real.
Now the same system has nominated a man who built the DEI office, expanded it for a decade, and when state law finally told him to close it – handed it to the same person under a new name.
Either DeSantis has seen something in Bell's private conversations that his entire public record contradicts, or Florida's Republican establishment just made a very expensive bet on a man who has consistently done one thing while saying another.
The Board of Trustees votes June 11.
Sources:
- Garrett Shanley, "UF lost one president pick over DEI. Now similar questions are rising again," Tampa Bay Times, May 21, 2026.
- Jasper Smith, "The U. of Florida Rejected a Former DEI Champion. Will Stuart Bell Face the Same Fate?" Chronicle of Higher Education, May 20, 2026.
- Christine Sexton, "Some in Gator Nation are growling about UF presidential pick Stuart Bell," Florida Phoenix, May 19, 2026.
- Scott Yenor, "Going Woke in Dixie?" Boise State University, 2023.
