Santa Ono, the sole finalist for University of Florida president, claims that "systemic racism is embedded in every corner of any institution," and says that "the only way to solve it" is for everyone to admit their complicity in racism and engage in BLM-style self-criticism. pic.twitter.com/T3KtRrvdyw
— Christopher F. Rufo ⚔️ (@realchrisrufo) May 19, 2025
"Everybody has implicit, um, bias."
That "um" is important. He was doing his part by being truthful. Maybe it's not a big part, but it's a part. These parts may add up. If everyone would just exhibit a tiny twinge of discomfort....
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66 comments:
Imagine a university without a president— utter chaos!
All of us are sinful. Confess sinners, and ye shall be saved.
sole solo santa uno
The problems go a lot deeper than struggle sessions at the university level.
https://www.orlandoweekly.com/news/florida-public-schools-tank-in-reading-and-math-performance-federal-report-says-38832972
Always criticize style. Never discuss content.
Diversity is an umbrella philosophy for class-disordered ideologies. DEI is systemic, institutional Diversity. #HateLovesAbortion
If everyone has implicit bias, maybe we should celebrate it, rather than fight the inevitable.
UF was arresting students for illegal assembly when other campus let the radicals run wild. Santa Ono is not worthy.
Go Gators!
Here's a guy who couldn't take the politics at U of Mich, now spouting-off about racism and BLM. If I was the U of Fla I'd stay as far away from this poser as possible.
Santa Ono is a Bond villain name.
As always, Loyal Democratic White Leftists are exempt.
Oh, no!
I bet that if you asked, he would confess to being both humbled and blessed.
Of course everyone has "implicit bias"! But it doesn't follow from there that, for instance, all white people carry internalized bias against black people, or vice versa. Our personal experiences create our biases. And, of course, the presence of bias, for or against a person or a group, doesn't mean that the person will act in accordance with that bias.
I am strongly biased against my choir director, because he took his position after the previous guy was more or less forced out. It's not the new guy's fault, but I have feelings nonetheless. I go to great lengths to hide my feelings about him, and I don't phone in my work. It doesn't change my feelings (or hasn't, so far), but whether my feelings dictate my actions is my decision, as long as I remain aware of them.
Baby Lives Matter? Out, out damn bias.
Talk about solipsism. “Racism” describes you if you disagree with Ono’s world view; “implicit bias” is what had been there after you capitulate to his world view.
So, you’d better capitulate to Ono’s world view.
Well he is half right. There is a lot of systemic racism out there.
But if you really examine it, you find things the Left don't want you to see:
- a lot.of it is systemic classism, which also affects poor whites;
- a lot of it is in polities run by black mayors, school boards, police chiefs, etc;
- a lot of MFs on the left are making a lot of money off it.
- so the solution would include poor blacks and whites getting together to toss out the Left and reject their detestable enormities.
Can't be having that!
JSM
Rufo is a National Treasure
Leftists control academia from Pre-K through post doc, so if there’s structural racism there, it’s their fault.
The part of me that is racist is my middle finger... See?
I was hoping this was satire.
My struggle session - a struggle to restrain from clobbering clowns like this guy.
Hopefully Florida will take a lesson from what this guy's mom did to the Beatles!
Had I and others like me realized that black activists snd white liberals were not interested in developing a color-blind society but instead were targeting a society that actively discriminated against the white middle class, I think I’d have shot Martin Luther King and Bobby Kennedy myself.
If she's the sole finalist, toss her out and start over.
I suspect Yoko has some influence here.
Seems to me the Florida Legislature controls the funding for the University and might have something to say if they award it to this guy.
For a minute there I thought he said 'systematic racism'.
"BLM-style self-criticism."
So- "Yo, racists give me some money. Now, everybody grab a brick and let's go smash windows and burn some buildings"- that kind of self-criticism?
When was this video from? 2020? I’m asking seriously because Ono left Michigan just after canceling D.E.I., an extremely unpopular move in Ann Arbor. He seemed to have developed a bit of a spine after the Palestine protesters continued to engage in threatening behavior and vandalism.
Pardon me for asking, but.... what exactly is a 'sole finalist'? A finalist in a competition of one? The selection committee needs to look at more than just their candidates.
Um, what if "implicit bias" is actually a default position one arrives at based on lived experiences, observation, and objective reasoning? Are we required to reject that and just go with someone else's unchallengeable assertions?
Good stuff, Big Mike @8:19am. Thanks for the chuckle.
"He was doing his part by being truthful." Right. Truly funny.
Everyone has implicit bias, but some more than others: research shows blacks favor blacks much more than white favor whites. Question, though: if the implicit bias remains implicit, and does not become explicit in behavior, what's the big deal? And if bias only matters when it leads to overt discrimination, why worry about implicit bias?
Former US Senator Ben Sasse from NE was the former UF President. His wife is sick so he quit. Also, allegations of too much spending. Who knows what really happened.
I can't imagine Gov. DeSantis allowing this guy to take the job.
Memo to Ono... go fuck a duck.
Michigan won the national football championship when he was president. Maybe Florida is hoping for the same thing.
Is Ron DeSantis on vacation in Patagonia or Antarctica?
Char Char Binks, Esq. said...
“Imagine a university without a president— utter chaos!”
Did said university let in 20 million “undocumented” students?
"Mr and Mrs Ono, what are you planning to name your son?"
"We're thinking.............Santa"
Aggie : "Pardon me for asking, but.... what exactly is a 'sole finalist'? "
I think, if I might use a technical term, it's an attempted "end run" round the process.
The process appears to be something like this :
The Board of Trustees of the U of F, appoints a Presidential Search Committee, which is supposed to produce candidates for the Board of Trustees to choose from. The Board of Trustees picks one, and the choice has to be confirmed by the "Board of Governors" - which is an offical State institution with members appointed by the Governor.
I'm guessing that as Florida has had GOP Governors (I mean real ones - not Charlie Crist) since 2011, the Board of Governors is largely composed of moderately conservative types. Not actual Rufo allies, but not lefties.
The Board of Trustees, I'm guessing, is middle of the road. And the Presidential Search Committee is woke. Hence the wokies want to force the Board of Trustees, and the Board of Governors, to pick a wokie President, by giving them no choice. I suspect they will fail.Either the position will remain open or de Santis will get the legislature to change the procedure, though he may be constrained by the Florida constitution.
It's basically a poor man's copy of the Church of England's scheme for ensuring that even Conservative governments appoint lefty bishops. As the Church of England is an established church, the UK government gets to ratify the Church's choice of bishop. The Church has to offer three people, and the government picks one. So the Church picks one - a routine lefty / greeny / open borders type; and then adds Chairman Mao and Joe Stalin as the two other choices. Not subtle, but subtler than the U of F's scheme.
As someone who actually attended that place 47 years ago I say No.This guy is not smart enough to run the shores of Lake Alice.
From Harmeet Dhillon via Instapundit:
[Buzzer] WRONG! This will get them in legal jeopardy.
As the US Assistant AG in the Civil Rights Division I suspect she’s right in the law.
Of course everyone has bias, both implicit and explicit. It’s human nature. It’s one of the reasons why we need critical thinking skills. Stop trying to stop the bias. Do better at training the next generation to think critically and embrace reality.
I was hoping this all was satire ... silly me.
Ono has taken a stand against DEI at U of M. Let me assure you, the woke within the university are flipping out about how Ono has betrayed U of M’s values by killing DEI here.
I’m so sick of this race thing. Why don’t we just take Dr. King’s advice.
I also question what a 'sole finalist' is -- does that mean he is therefore the new President? Or -- I might hope -- does this mean that they go back to the drawing board.
I'm curious as well how much money was thrown at Search Companies that provide Universities with their slate of potential candidates. They seem to have failed here if there's only one candidate left.
This guy shows verb : genuflect; 3rd person present: genuflects; past tense: genuflected; past participle: genuflected; gerund or present participle: genuflecting lower one's body briefly by bending one knee to the ground, typically in worship or as a sign of respect.
Post poem, by rehajm:
Ono is no tuna. Wahoo!
“That "um" is important. He was doing his part by being truthful.”
The “um” is his inadvertent admission that he knows he’s lying, so that’s sort of truthful. He needs to do a better job of repressing, though. People who speak the truth, even accidentally, tend to get cancelled.
"He seemed to have developed a bit of a spine after the Palestine protesters continued to engage in threatening behavior and vandalism. "
Then it occurred to him ; "they gonna break my rice bowl" so he made one decision. When the crowds disappeared back to the "quota today, quotas tomorrow, quotas forever."
It's refreshing to read, by the way, that the potential head of the Gators thinks that Systemic Racism is embedded within the BLM movement, the Southern Poverty Law Center, and the NAACP -- among other places.
"I’m so sick of this race thing. Why don’t we just take Dr. King’s advice."
Because it is easy to see the color of someone's skin, but impossible to see the content of his character. Does that help?
Of course, if the aspect of his character that chiefly concerns you is whether he is a robber, a rapist, or a murderer, the color of his skin is a helpful indicator.
I feel like "BLM style self criticism" is the last thing we need.
The video is from 2021 when he was at U. of British Columbia.
When people like that say "Everyone doing their part". They really do mean everyone. And enforcement is directly proportional to power. For those people, just talking about it is like they're watching those ASMR videos. Little commie shivers.
Santa 'Ono - a Hawaiian breeze. 'Ono means 'sweer.'
Having experienced a college when the President has checked out, I reluctantly conclude that it's the one administrative job that is actually essential. There needs to be a single person to choose among the priorities of the various sub-units or the whole thing turns into a "pandemonium" disaster like the Biden administration.
I wish I was exaggerating when I say that for a while policies pushed by the head of Buildings and Grounds were adopted (policies connected to neither buildings nor grounds) because of a strategic alliance the head of Finance.
Even a bad President is better than no President.
That said, this Ono guy comes across as being one of those people who is spineless with anyone who is more powerful and vicious (while self-righteously simpering) towards everyone who is less powerful than he is.
The problem with the academic "leadership" class is that they missed out on formative leadership experiences in their youth: no Boy Scouts, sports team captain, college fraternity officer, etc. (and certainly not military experience), so they have no idea how to get people to WANT to follow them and instead rely on endless, detailed, rigid written "policies" that aren't adaptable to even small changes in circumstances.
Another great example of how diversity is a weakness. If everyone is the same, don't need to worry about differences. Division only arises when you introduce foreign elements.
Speaking of Florida, here's a current hit piece on DeSantis from the Guardian.
I thought some of his supporters might enjoy the read.
Crap. Here.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/may/20/ron-desantis-florida-governor-fall
I remember when Santa Ono came down the chimney in '69 and gave us the Beatles' break-up.
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