DeSantis maintains support for Senate-refused trustee at UWF

Gov. Ron DeSantis is taking a second try to get Adam Kissel on the University of West Florida Board of Trustees.

Kissel appeared before two Senate committees seeking confirmation to the position earlier this year and received a “recommend refuse to confirm” each time. The full Senate never took up his appointment, requiring the governor to reappoint him to keep serving.

In a Friday afternoon news release, DeSantis announced he was reappointing Kissel, who has remained on the board since the governor first named him in January, and added Edward Fleming, a Pensacola attorney, to the board.

Senators rejected Kissel, a West Virginian and Heritage Foundation fellow, citing concern with his lack of ties to the state; for advocating defunding public universities; and suggesting the GI Bill led to over-enrolled four-year colleges.

Now, Kissel can serve on the board at least until the Senate reconvenes next year, when it can vote again whether to confirm or reject him.

DeSantis shook up the Pensacola institution this winter when he and the university system’s Board of Governors, primarily appointed by him, placed eight new members on the UWF board. Those members faced extensive questioning by senators and two of them resigned before they could be confirmed.

Senators took issue with the appointees’ lack of local ties and their support of the now-resigned chair, Scott Yenor, a professor in Idaho who faced backlash for proclaiming that LGBTQ+ practices bring “dreaded diseases” and labeling career-oriented women as “medicated, meddlesome, and quarrelsome.” The bipartisan Jewish legislative caucus called Yenor “antisemitic.”

Kissel told a Senate panel that ultimately voted against him that he agreed with “probably everything” in the education section of Project 2025, a nearly 1,000-page document released last year led by Heritage detailing conservative ideas for the incoming U.S. president. It recommends dismantling  federal student aid programs, eliminating diversity efforts, and expanding public funding for private and home schools.

Kissel received his bachelor’s degree from Harvard and master’s from the University of Chicago. He served as deputy assistant secretary for higher education with the U.S. Department of Education during President Donald Trump’s first term.

Since the heated Senate questionings, UWF President Martha Saunders announced her resignation and the Board of Governors has approved Education Commissioner Manny Diaz Jr. to serve as interim president starting in July.