Incendiary Rhetoric at New College of Florida | City Journal
Hillegass s rhetoric might be over the top, but it reveals something fundamental about the nature of contemporary politics. The American Left, which has achieved hegemony in academia, would rather destroy a university than cede control of it to the Right. They do not believe conservatives are wrong; they believe conservatives are evil, and that this evil should be violently opposed. Without such resistance, Hillegass argued, Florida would descend into totalitarianism. When a governor guts the leadership of a state school in an effort to make a facsimile of Hillsdale, that is fascism, he wrote. Not the shocking Kristallnacht-style fascism, but the banal fascism that always precedes it.
This is fantasy. Hillegass and the young protesters, who work, live, and study in unprecedented peace and prosperity, are play-acting an imaginary historical drama designed to win fawning coverage on MSNBC, not to stop Governor DeSantis from building concentration camps on the beaches of the Sunshine State. In contrast to his fevered rhetoric, Hillegas feels no sense of practical urgency. In his resignation note, he states that he wants to stick around until his contract expires in August. But if Florida is perched on the verge of fascism, shouldn t he get out now? If he truly believes the college is irredeemable, why continue to teach in its buildings until the semester ends?
I would encourage Hillegass to get on with it. At New College, we are building a classical liberal arts institution, in which there is no place for those who cannot differentiate between classical liberalism and political fascism. The faculty of New College need to be stewards of a great tradition, not arsonists of an eternal present.
Christopher Rufo.