Observations From the 4/26 Rally
By Stephen Schwager and Eddie Speir
(This account is from Stephen Schwager’s perspective outside the Board Meeting that Eddie Speir was attending.)
High-energy, quite-good music greeted our arrival at the rally preceding the Board of Trustees meeting on Wednesday, March 26, 2023. About three dozen people gathered on the steps of Hamilton, waved homemade placards with a variety of interesting slogans and phrases, and moved to the music. We sat at a table under an umbrella for a few minutes and a student asked politely to join us. Another student riding a long-board wearing a dress circled and stopped to greet the other student, and the two hugged and chatted about their pronouns and identities.
The atmosphere was amiable and filled with camaraderie. Plenty of pizza, water, and snacks were available, and the weather was pleasant, with a nice breeze. Considering there were no classes that day, we were surprised the crowd numbered maybe 100 students, faculty, alums, and other community members.
When the speakers began taking turns at the microphone, a common theme emerged. At least a half dozen people proclaimed that New College of Florida and the state of Florida itself are now akin to 1930s Nazi Germany. One particular speaker, a man who introduced himself as “clergy” (apologies, but we did not get his name) and appeared to be wearing a kippa (a Jewish skullcap), made several none-too-subtle references to “banning books” today (another common theme) and the actions of the Nazis, and where such actions lead (“wink, wink”). Another speaker made a specific reference to the Holocaust.
We wonder if it would surprise the rabbi (if, indeed, he was a rabbi) and the other speakers, who assert that NCF and our state are on the verge of genocide and ethnic cleansing on an unprecedented scale, that their words trivialize the Holocaust and the memories of the 6 million Jews murdered by the Nazis and their collaborators. The International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s definition of anti-Semitism, which denounces Holocaust trivialization, has been signed onto by well north of 500 important institutions and organizations worldwide, as well as more than three dozen nations, including the U.S., the U.K., Canada, Spain, Germany, Uruguay, and Argentina.
Almost every speaker deployed similar hyperbolic language, and many added some colorful cussin’ to emphasize the urgency of the matter and the lateness of the hour. A few speakers warned breathlessly of the present danger of Governor Ron DeSantis, and – gasp! – the possibility of a President DeSantis painting vivid pictures of DeSantis-driven totalitarian darkness descending on our country. There were, of course, the predictable recitations of Woke tropes and dogmas, like “cis-gender patriarchy,” “white supremacists,” “Christian nationalists,” “colonialists,” “systemic racism,” “transphobes and homophobes.”
Understandably, the speakers wanted to get their supporters fired up and energized. And heated rhetoric is typical in today’s political discourses. But we wonder if the speakers, especially the non-student adult speakers, and those cheering them in the crowd, truly believe their wild assertions. Do these adults, who should know better, truly labor under the belief that fascist Nazis have captured Florida? Do they fearfully anticipate jack-booted, goose-stepping thugs marching through the state committing Nazi-like depredations and atrocities?
Or are these adults purposely hurling mendacious propaganda to frighten, anger, and activate younger, highly impressionable students? In either case, this facile, nonsensical sophistry is causing actual harm. Othering an “enemy” and filling people with fear of and rage against said “enemy” is a common cult tactic and has no place on a genuinely tolerant, open-minded college campus.
On an ironic note, we noticed two homemade signs that illustrate some of the incoherence of the rally. One person’s sign read, “NCF Is Nerds and Geeks, not Jocks and Greeks.” A few feet away, another person’s sign read, “NCF Welcomes Everyone!”
Well, apparently, not “everyone.”
A final observation and thought. One speaker, an adult non-student, praised NCF’s LGBTQIA+ students for their amazing bravery. She said that she was “humbled” to be among them. This brought to mind a different demonstration of bravery by college students. When the Civil War erupted in 1861, more than 400 students from a small, classical liberal arts college in the Midwest volunteered for the Union Army. This college had been at the forefront of the abolition movement. The towering Frederick Douglass spoke at the school praising the students, faculty, and administration’s contribution to fighting the scourge of slavery. This college also stood at the forefront of women’s rights, becoming in the 1850s only the second institution of higher learning in the country to award four-year degrees to women.
Of the 400-plus student-soldiers who volunteered, 15% did not return to school after eradicating slavery and the Union victory in 1865. Those sixty young men were killed in action. They gave their last full measure of devotion fighting true evil and lay buried on battlefields soaked in blood. No other college or university in America had a higher percentage of students who wore the Blue and fought to free the slaves and preserve the nation. Four of this college’s students earned the Congressional Medal of Honor, our nation’s highest military award.
That small, midwestern school thrives today and is called Hillsdale College.
I’ve learned something crucial: these people, the ones screeching about Nazism and fascism, are sincerely not interested in conversation (their accusations give lie to their claims of a willingness to listen). I’ve taken them at their word--their supposed desire for dialogue--multiple times and been genuinely shocked by their unwillingness to engage in anything other than the usual insults and denigration, the pettiest of insults and most extreme forms of dehumanization. I’m not going to give them that benefit of the doubt anymore. I sincerely love and respect them--from a position that is, ultimately, beyond my capacity as a mere mortal. I find this strength in Christ. May they find the same peace. But this is no longer a simple matter of disagreement--it is a war on a higher level. And, at some point, you have to embrace the hatred they send your way--to acknowledge that, in the most powerful of kingdoms, you’re battling for something more meaningful than mere campus reform. I am truly glad to have the opportunity to fight this battle--and I’m not anywhere near the prospect of surrender.
Here’s my takeaway having watched a student be inundated with hatred and called horrific names merely because he is a traditionalist. There is a nasty, crude bunch of adults and a smaller nasty loud wing of students here at New College who cannot admit defeat. Because no matter how much they rudely curse those in power, or yell during board meetings as if they are at a wrestling match, they reveal their essence: an ugly inability to accept the loss of control of New College.
End of story. They act like a hive of wasps that have been hit and therefore attack, as if hurting assures victory. It doesn’t. It’s over.
Frankly I cannot believe the legislature let a college fall this far out of line before acting. Out of line means not being able to maintain enough students to keep the school viable! But this college did not keep the financial situation viable and they are paying the price for failure. It’s that simple. You can’t tell by the slants in the media, but that’s not factual. That’s politics.
A conservative administration has decided to act to save a small college. Allow old-fashioned true Western Canon values and traditional courses to become the essence of New College. At New College, the numbers show a rejection of politicized courses because there are not enough students to keep open the school. Let’s see what a return to independent, apolitical scholarship and rigorous academic programs can produce for honors students here . That’s not Fascism! That’s a return to the nobility of Reason over the ugliness of a coming dark ages.