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-Land of the Free

Onooo! Florida Board of Governors blocks appointment of former U. Mich president Ono

2025-06-04

[DetroitNews] The Florida Board of Governors voted Tuesday against the confirmation of former University of Michigan President Santa Ono as the University of Florida's next president, blocking the incoming UF president selection for the first time in its history amid sharp criticism from conservatives.

The University of Michigan hired him from the University of British Columbia, which had hired him from the University of Cincinnati, where he was much liked. But nothing interesting was happening here in those days. He’s a second gen. academic, having been born in Vancouver while his naturalized American father professed there for a few years, giving him birthright citizenship in both countries. By training he is apparently a pretty good immunologist.

The board, which oversees the state's universities, voted 10-6 against Ono following an hours-long meeting during which the governors grilled the former UM leader about hot-button topics, including diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) policies and gender-affirming care during his tenure in Michigan. In late March, Ono immediately shut down two DEI offices at Michigan and an effort dedicated to DEI, shifting the resources to other student programs.

The board's rejection came after the University of Florida Board of Trustees voted unanimously in May to approve Ono as the school's 14th president. Prominent conservatives, including Donald Trump Jr. and Republican U.S. Sen. Rick Scott of Florida, raised questions about Ono before the vote over pro-Palestinian protests, climate change efforts, gender ideology and DEI programs at the UM and his previous academic posts.

One of the governors, Carson Good, said after speaking with students, professors, alumni and Michigan Medicine doctors, he thought Ono was "great about coming forward, giving speeches, going to football games, being transparent." Still, he ultimately voted against the confirmation, saying the "philosophical difference is just too far."

At one point during the meeting, Good asked Ono whether doctors in the medical schools at either UM or the University of British Columbia, where Ono served as president from 2016-22, had ever "cut off minor boys' genitals or girls' breasts" as part of gender-affirming care programs.

Ono said he couldn't answer that question accurately because "I don't have a complete encyclopedic knowledge of everything that's happened."

Good also grilled Ono about a prior comment the former UM president had made, asserting that racism is one of America's "original sins." Good said, per Christian doctrine, original sin can only be escaped by a "total rebirth, total uprooting with divine intervention."

"I regret the use of those words. … I should have been precise," Ono said.

He was merely parroting the common wisdom in academia at the time instead of doing the intellectual work.

Ono's proposed contract included a number of ideological requirements, such as how well he stopped programs that focus on DEI. He was to cooperate with Gov. Ron DeSantis' Office of Government Efficiency — similar to the office created by President Donald Trump — and appoint other university officials and deans who are “firmly aligned” with Florida's approach.

James Finkelstein, a George Mason University Professor Emeritus of Public Policy who has tracked UM presidential developments, said “from the start of today’s Board of Governors meeting, it was evident that Dr. Ono’s appointment was in serious jeopardy, despite the earlier unanimous endorsement from the University of Florida’s Board of Trustees.”

“The opposition was coordinated, strategic and well-prepared. Dr. Ono seemed caught off guard and struggled to reassure skeptical board members of his sincerity in shifting away from DEI-related initiatives," Finkelstein said. “His rejection signifies a symbolic victory for the MAGA movement and highlights the growing politicization of leadership in higher education. If there’s a lesson for any sitting university president: Never (leave) your current position without having a signed contract in hand.”

Always good advice if it’s an option.

Ono announced via a May 4 letter addressed to the university community that he was the lone finalist for the top job at the University of Florida. He made clear that he planned to accept if confirmed by the board, but the letter contained no formal resignation from his post at the University of Michigan.

The search for the Florida job will start over. What happens with Ono remains unclear, including whether he could return to UM. Ono is a vision researcher, and his new UM contract that was approved last year included increased university support for Ono's laboratory by $1.4 million. A UM spokesperson didn't immediately respond Tuesday to a question about Ono's status at the university.

Last month in Michigan, the UM regents appointed Domenico Grasso, chancellor at UM Dearborn, as interim president on May 8, with immediate effect, and affirmed the appointment at a May 15 meeting.

When initially reached for comment by a Detroit News reporter on Tuesday, University of Michigan Regent Jordan Acker referred to a post he made on X shortly after the news of Ono’s rejection broke. That post quoted the author Fran Lebowitz and read: “He doesn’t believe in anything — just auditions for approval in whatever room he’s in.”

The Japanese culture emphasizes that the nail that sticks up gets hammered down. President Ono was clearly careful not to stick up, no matter his private opinions.

Pressed on whether the UM board would consider letting Ono return to Ann Arbor, Acker told The Detroit News: “A Michigan person will run Michigan."

In a letter sent Monday to Florida board members and posted online, Sen. Scott accused Ono of “failing to uphold the most basic standards of leadership” by allowing an encampment set up by pro-Palestinian student protestors to stand for nearly a month while UM president. The police clearing of the encampment was criticized by some students and professors on the Ann Arbor campus.

Scott was the latest official to voice his opposition to Ono, joining Florida Republican U.S. Reps. Greg Steube, Jimmy Patronis and Byron Donalds, who is a candidate for governor.

Writing in Inside Higher Ed, Ono said he supported DEI initiatives at first because they aim was “equal opportunity and fairness for every student.”

“But over time, I saw how DEI became something else — more about ideology, division and bureaucracy, not student success,” Ono wrote, adding that he eventually limited DEI offices at Michigan. “I believe in Florida's vision for higher education.”

DeSantis, a Republican who has pushed reforms in higher education to eliminate what he calls “woke” policies such as DEI, did not take a public stand on Ono but did say at a recent news conference that some of his statements made the governor “cringe.”

Ono faced similar pointed questions at Tuesday's meeting — especially from former Republican state House speakers Paul Renner and Jose Oliva — prompting board member Charles Lydecker to object to the procedure.

“We have never used this as a forum to interrogate. This is not a court of law. Candidly, this process does not seem fair to me," Lydecker said.

Oliva, however, questioned how to square Ono's many past statements about hot-button cultural issues with his more conservative stance now that he sought the Florida job.

“Now we are told to believe you are now abandoning an entire ideological architecture," Oliva said. “We are asking someone to lead our flagship university. I don't understand how it becomes unfair.”

Ono was questioned about a rule requiring UM students to be vaccinated against COVID-19. The mandate was updated in 2023 to include only students residing on campus in Ann Arbor. The Florida officials said that it was far later than they would have expected a vaccine requirement to have remained in effect.

Wasn’t that a statewide legal thingy required the governor or the legislature to change? Did he, as a mere university president have the power to impact that himself?

"We (in Florida) think of COVID being from March of 2020 to, like, July of 2020," said Good, noting Ono's background as an immunologist.

Ono said the mandate was recommended by both a chief health officer at UM and a committee "who are much more qualified than I — because they're actually doctors, I'm a scientist — to make that decision."

Meh. Doctors, God bless ‘em, are downstream consumers of scientific research. As a medical researcher, particularly as an immunologist, it should have been his expertise the doctors relied on to make their determinations.

Posted by:Anguper Hupomosing9418

#3 Medicine could be science but has decided to be a politicized pseudo science.

See the declaration that BLM demonstrations do not pose a risk with respect to the Wuhan pandemic while other demonstrations do.

See the denial of the empirically observable fact that the human species has exactly two sexes without putting forward any compelling evidence for this denial.

Posted by: Elmerert Hupens2660 2025-06-04 16:48

#2 By training he is apparently a pretty good immunologist.

If he was any good, he wouldn't go into administration.

Posted by: Grom the Affective 2025-06-04 13:17

#1 Excellent observation! "Meh. Doctors, God bless ‘em, are downstream consumers of scientific research."

Posted by: Whiskey Mike 2025-06-04 10:36

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