TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (AP) — For years, political scientist Scott Yenor has advocated for overhauling colleges and universities, which he has argued undermine traditional American families by encouraging women to pursue careers and put off childbirth.
Now Yenor may get a chance to implement his policy proposals, after Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis appointed him to the board of the University of West Florida, a public school in Pensacola with about 14,000 students.
The Republican governor’s appointment of Yenor and four others to the UWF Board of Trustees this week comes two years after DeSantis stacked the board of another public school, New College of Florida, in what critics called a hostile political takeover. Within weeks, New College’s new board fired the sitting president and then replaced her with a former state lawmaker and ally of the governor.
A professor at Boise State University, Yenor has written extensively on what he sees as the dangers of diversity, equity and inclusion efforts in higher education as well as the declines of traditional marriage and birth rates in the U.S. He’s also a former fellow at The Heritage Foundation, which proposed Project 2025 as a policy blueprint for a hard-right turn in American government and society.
Speaking at the National Conservatism Conference in 2021, Yenor detailed what he sees as the “evils” of feminism, labeled “independent women” as “medicated, meddlesome and quarrelsome” and decried colleges and universities as “the citadels of our gynecocracy” — a form of government run by women.
“If we want a great nation, we should be preparing young women to become mothers,” Yenor said, “not finding every reason for young women to delay motherhood until they are established in a career or sufficiently independent.”
Yenor argued that higher education “delays growing up,” saying that college and universities are “indoctrination camps” that society should de-emphasize in order to make progress on “family matters.”
“Every effort must be made not to recruit women into engineering, but rather to recruit and demand more of men who become engineers. Ditto for med school and the law and every trade,” Yenor said.
“If every Nobel Prize winner is a man, that’s not a failure. It’s kind of a cause for celebration,” he added.
Yenor did not respond to questions from The Associated Press about his past statements, but said he supports DeSantis’ education agenda.
“An education system shapes the culture. Our current education system, with its divisive DEI policies and ideological monoculture, has produced an ever-worse culture,” Yenor told the AP in an email, saying Florida’s education system is better off because of DeSantis’ policies.
Chasidy Hobbs, an Earth and environmental science instructor and president of UWF’s faculty union, called the comments “disheartening” and “offensive.”
“My most important work of my life was being a mother,” she said, “while also working as a professional woman in a career that I find almost as important as motherhood — to help the future generation learn to think for themselves.” But she added that she looked forward to working with the new board.
Julia Friedland, the governor’s deputy press secretary, said the new board members will “break the status quo” and “help refocus the university on the core mission of education.”
She did not respond to questions about Yenor’s previous statements on women in higher education.
In articles and speeches, Yenor has labeled DEI as a “grave and gathering danger to national unity and state governance,” called for eliminating certain disciplines like African Diaspora Studies and said even departments of History and English could be on the chopping block. He’s also advocated for sex-segregated education and called for banning state employees from collecting data on the basis of race or sex.
Yenor and the other new appointees to UWF’s 13-member board must be confirmed by the Florida Senate.
___ Kate Payne is a corps member for The Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on undercovered issues.
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