{"id":125726,"date":"2023-04-11T17:38:37","date_gmt":"2023-04-11T21:38:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.thecollegefix.com\/?p=125726"},"modified":"2023-04-11T18:13:46","modified_gmt":"2023-04-11T22:13:46","slug":"new-college-employee-quits-rants-about-hillsdale-and-says-desantis-is-like-hitler","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thecollegefix.com\/new-college-employee-quits-rants-about-hillsdale-and-says-desantis-is-like-hitler\/","title":{"rendered":"New College employee quits, rants about Hillsdale and says DeSantis is like Hitler"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em><strong>He said he was just talking about burning down the college symbolically, not literally<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<p>The director of applied data science at New College is quitting in August rather than work for a university now run by conservative trustees appointed by Governor Ron DeSantis.<\/p>\n<p>Aaron Hillegass said he will not renew his contract because of his disgust at Gov. DeSantis\u2019 pledge to remake the liberal school. DeSantis <a href=\"https:\/\/www.thecollegefix.com\/desantis-taps-chris-rufo-other-critical-race-theory-opponents-as-florida-college-trustees-in-reform-shake-up\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">appointed<\/a> center-right academics and activists in January, including Hillsdale College Professor Matthew Spaulding and Mark Bauerlein, an editor at <em>First Things<\/em> and a former English professor at Emory University.<\/p>\n<p>Hillegass posted a letter where he ranted against Hillsdale College and said DeSantis is promoting \u201cfascism\u201d like that which &#8220;always precedes&#8221; events like Germany&#8217;s 1938 <a href=\"https:\/\/www.britannica.com\/event\/Kristallnacht\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Kristallnacht<\/a>, when Nazis under the leadership of Adolf Hitler vandalized and attacked synagogues and Jewish homes and businesses.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\">\n<p dir=\"ltr\" lang=\"en\">I was hired at New College of Florida (my alma mater) immediately before Governor Desantis replaced the trustees and president in an effort to make it &#8220;The Hillsdale of the South&#8221;. I just gave notice. <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/8mMZoK8uoA\">pic.twitter.com\/8mMZoK8uoA<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Aaron Hillegass (@AaronHillegass) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/AaronHillegass\/status\/1644695113778491392?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">April 8, 2023<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>\u201cHillsdale College is bad for America,\u201d Hillegass began his letter to New College President Richard Corcoran. The conservative Michigan college, according to the quitting data science director, \u201ccultivates prejudice against immigrants\u201d \u201cnon-Christians,\u201d \u201cminorities\u201d and LGBT people.<\/p>\n<p>It is \u201cfascism\u201d for DeSantis to try to remake New College into a classic liberal arts college like Hillsdale, according to Hillegass. He said if he was more \u201cpatriotic\u201d he would \u201cburn the college\u2019s buildings to the ground,\u201d a comment he later clarified.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\">\n<p dir=\"ltr\" lang=\"en\">I have been getting some requests for clarification, so I will give those in this thread. 1) The line about burning buildings is pretty mild. It says \u201cI\u2019m not going to burn down any buildings. I\u2019m just going to walk away.\u201d I believe that no one should burn down any buildings.<\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Aaron Hillegass (@AaronHillegass) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/AaronHillegass\/status\/1645410585696256002?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">April 10, 2023<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>But this \u201cfascism\u201d is not quite the violence carried out against Jewish people by Hitler and the Nazis according to the academic; however, it is similar to the \u201cbanal fascism\u201d that preceded \u201cKristallnacht-style fascism.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Because conservatives are now running the university, Hillegass said he hopes the school \u201cfails miserably and conspicuously.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>He is pulling a $600,000 pledge he made to support the school, he said.<\/p>\n<p>Under the new leadership of New College, the DEI office has been <a href=\"https:\/\/www.thecollegefix.com\/desantis-new-college-trustees-abolish-dei-office\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">abolished<\/a> and administrators have been <a href=\"https:\/\/www.thecollegefix.com\/provost-who-clashed-with-chris-rufo-at-floridas-new-college-steps-down\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">removed<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.thecollegefix.com\/conservative-trustees-fire-president-at-floridas-new-college-as-overhaul-begins\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">replaced<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cNew College of Florida has become the first university in the nation to abolish its DEI bureaucracy, ban coercive \u2018diversity\u201d statements and programming, and prohibit identity-based preferences in hiring, admissions, and other procedures,\u201d trustee and investigative journalist Christopher Rufo wrote on Feb. 28, as reported by <em>The College Fix<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong>MORE:<\/strong> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.thecollegefix.com\/pagan-alumni-of-floridas-new-college-upset-at-gov-desantiss-disruption-of-the-school\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Pagan New College alumni upset at DeSantis&#8217; &#8216;disruption&#8217; of school<\/a><\/p>\n<p>IMAGE: Aaron Hillegass\/Twitter<\/p>\n            <div class=\"article-truncate-control\">\n                <button class=\"show-complete-article\">\n                    Read More                <\/button>\n            <\/div>\n\n        ","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>He said he was just talking about burning down the college symbolically, not literally.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":170,"featured_media":125734,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1361],"tags":[48974,38968,43440,1346,5310,6451,48975,48478,30305,35662],"acf":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.thecollegefix.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/04\/AaronHillegass.Twitter72.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2Oh4L-wHQ","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thecollegefix.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/125726"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thecollegefix.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thecollegefix.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thecollegefix.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/170"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thecollegefix.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=125726"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/www.thecollegefix.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/125726\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":125745,"href":"https:\/\/www.thecollegefix.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/125726\/revisions\/125745"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thecollegefix.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/125734"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thecollegefix.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=125726"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thecollegefix.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=125726"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thecollegefix.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=125726"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}