Florida’s Battle of the Boards

A power struggle between boards is threatening to upend the University of Florida’s presidential search.

Earlier this month, the UF Board of Trustees voted unanimously to hire Stuart Bell as president, despite an online campaign to tank his candidacy over concerns about his support of diversity, equity and inclusion efforts when he was president of the University of Alabama from 2015 to 2025. Trustees dismissed the criticism, and Bell vowed he wouldn’t “bring DEI or woke back.”

His appointment seemed poised to move ahead despite concerns Florida U.S. Sen. Rick Scott, a Republican, raised last month about the search process, alleging it lacked transparency and public input. Scott also flagged the highly unusual agreement UF Board of Trustees Chair Mori Hosseini struck with interim president Donald Landry, who will receive a $2 million payout if he doesn’t get the permanent position.

Bell was supposed to go before the Florida Board of Governors for a final confirmation vote this week. But Alan Levine, the chair of that board, wrote in a letter to State University System of Florida Chancellor Ray Rodrigues that Bell will not be up for a vote at the two-day meeting. Levine’s letter did not mention DEI but rather concerns about Hosseini’s influence at UF.

In the letter, later posted online by conservative DEI critics, Levine wrote that he had questions about the powers being delegated to Hosseini, who negotiated the lucrative exit package for Landry. Levine wrote that through a review of recent board practices, he learned that trustees had delegated significant authority to Hosseini, which he found to be problematic and “inconsistent with best practices in governance and which again seem to run afoul” of FLBOG regulations.

Levine said the board will not vote on UF matters while it is “out of compliance” with FLBOG regulations. But even as he took aim at Hosseini, Levine did not close the door on Bell.

“I realize this may create some controversy, but that is not the intent,” Levine wrote. “Dr. Bell deserves the opportunity to have his nomination considered on the merits, based upon his established track record and his presentation before the [Board of Governors]. To be clear, this action should not be construed by anyone to be a statement about Dr. Bell or his candidacy.”

But as Levine thrust, the UF board parried.

Board Vice Chair Rahul Patel, who led the Presidential Search Advisory Committee, cast Levine’s move to delay the vote on Bell as purely political, unfair and harmful to the University of Florida campus community.

“Let’s be clear. By Chairman Levine’s own admission, this delay has nothing to do with Dr. Bell. A unanimously selected presidential candidate and the State of Florida’s flagship university are being drawn into a dispute unrelated to his candidacy,” Patel wrote in a message posted by UF.

He framed Levine’s actions as an overreach, writing that the delay “is a consequential action that should be decided by the Board of Governors as a body, not by a single individual acting alone.”

In light of the delay, Patel announced that UF has called a meeting to hire Bell as interim president “so that the university can continue moving forward while this issue is addressed.” Now a meeting to hire Bell in an interim capacity is set for Monday evening.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, a Republican and major Hosseini beneficiary, previously voiced support for Bell. But amid the recent controversy, the usually outspoken DeSantis has been conspicuously quiet. Last week, however, Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier’s office wrote in a letter to the Board of Governors that the UF board was not out of compliance and that “Levine’s assertions are not a legally correct basis” for delaying the scheduled confirmation vote.

Uthmeier also batted away criticism from Chris Rufo, a conservative provocateur and former New College of Florida board member, who called for UF to halt the hiring process and for an investigation into Hosseini over “potential conflicts of interest related to his real estate holdings.”

Uthmeier, a DeSantis appointee, has defended Hosseini.

“You can debate Stuart Bell’s candidacy, but if you want to defame and smear a good man’s name, you’re going to have a real problem with me. Embarrassing that you’d take these baseless allegations at face value,” Uthmeier wrote to Rufo in a social media post last week.

Many critics have noted that Uthmeier has his own sweetheart deal at UF, where he earns $100,000 a year as an adjunct professor at the law school. (Scott also flagged that deal, raising concerns about “a pattern of malfeasance in UF’s hiring and contracting processes.”)

Now, following the letter from Uthmeier’s office, Levine is under pressure to move forward on Bell. However, the current FLBOG meeting agenda does not include a vote to confirm Bell.

If the Florida Board of Governors ultimately upends UF’s presidential hire, it will be the second time in as many years that it has tanked such a search. Last year the board rejected hiring Santa Ono, the former University of Michigan president, despite unanimous approval by UF trustees. Like Bell, Ono had sought to distance himself from his past support of DEI. While Ono was ultimately unsuccessful, Bell’s candidacy remains alive but embattled amid the power struggle.