I am not sure how many people who visit here have seen the republican debate? But during it DeathSantis was bragging about how since he banned woke and passed the “don’t say gay laws” for Florida schools and the state was forcing kids away from higher education and into trade schools, how improved and better Florida schools / education was. Yet here is proof that bigotry and hate plus regressive policies on tolerance, acceptance, and enjoyment of higher learning can harm the students of Florida! And as the article notes, knowing this result was coming DeathSantis is desperately trying to do away with the tests entirely, preferring to use a home school / religious based test that is not recognized as valid by any schools except religious based ones. Hugs. Scottie
New rankings show Florida students are posting some of the lowest SAT scores in America. We’re talking 46th place. Down another 17 points overall to 966, according to the combined reading and math scores shared by the College Board.
Florida trails other Southern states like South Carolina and Georgia. We trail states where more students take the test, like Illinois and Indiana. We somehow now even slightly trail Washington, D.C. — a district long maligned as one of the supposedly worst in America, where all students take the test.
This should be an all-hands-on-deck crisis. Yet what are Florida education officials obsessing over? While other states focus on algebra and reading comprehension, Florida’s top education officials are waging wars with teachers about what kind of pronouns they can use.
DeSantis, you will recall, wants to do away with the SAT and replace it with a so-called “Classic Learning Test.”
Florida SAT scores have plummeted again. We’re now 46th in America. And all the state’s top education officials have to offer are culture wars – and tweets like “Cry more!” and “Just dumb.”
SAT scores on reading and math continue dropping for Florida students.
But don’t worry— the DeSantis administration made sure to expand ‘Don’t Say LGBTQ’ to 12th grade and to remove trans students from school sports, so everything will be fine. pic.twitter.com/VeDgoqnOZe
The damage he’s done will manifest in the years to come. When there’s no employment, no education, no insurance, no tax payers, they’ll realize what a mess he made.
It’s more than an oddity that uber Red states are the lowest in ranking in health care teen pregnancies education and economics well being. Using it as over lay to GOP MAGA types it sort of encompasses all
Yup. I never imagined we could have a worse governor than Jeb….then along came Rick the 5th, who was & is awful. Then along came this piece of human excrement, nodding to Jeb & Rick….”hold my beer”.
In the 50’s, my father was a VP at a Florida college. Before I came along, he moved his family out. He predicted in the 70’s to me Florida would be last in education. He had no idea that it would be this type of republican education that would cause it. He felt it was government not supporting public education, so I guess he was right about Republicans too. He was a new deal democrat. . Maybe George Soros will spend to push a mass mailing to all Republican run states on how their education sucks.
I was an elementary student for almost five years in the late 50’s early 60’s. When we moved to Ohio I was behind in almost all subjects but, luckily, I caught up quickly. Florida education has never been outstanding as far as I know…but it seems it was better then than now!
DeSantis wants to rig it so that mis-educated Florida students can’t get accepted to any out of state colleges and universities. Keep ‘m stupid and they’ll vote for republicans.
State Superintendent of Public Instruction Ryan Walters is considering legal action against a Wisconsin-based group calling for his resignation, he said last week.
“To think they’re going to continue to bully teachers is outrageous,” Walters said, referring to the Freedom from Religion Foundation. “The options we’re looking at are very wide, very broad. Could be legal memos. Could be lawsuits.”
Walters and the FFRF took turns calling each other bullies after the organization complained to Prague Public Schools about Christian prayers being including in the elementary building’s daily activities. The district agreed to discontinue the prayers.
Parents in Prague are upset after finding out that their kids have been going to Bible studies at school, given Bibles, and have had a morning prayer over the intercom the past couple of weeks at Prague Elementary School. “There are kids who are either getting picked on or bullied because they don’t believe these things and aren’t choosing to be a part of these bible studies,” said one parent, who wanted to remain anonymous.
“From how I understand it is that the kids went to the Guidance Counselor and the Counselor helped organize it and get it going but the kids had to lead it, it’s a loophole in the law.” The anonymous parent has four kids who go to Prague Elementary and said one came home with two Bibles and told her she was headed to school to learn about God. She also said that every morning over the intercom there was a morning prayer because all of the kids “wanted to do it,” according to school staff.
State Superintendent Ryan Walters took to social media voicing his opinion on the Prague Public School District’s decision to stop daily prayer broadcasts.
“We’re going to continue to fight for religious liberty and religious freedom here in the state of Oklahoma,” said Walters. The fallout comes after News 4 talked to parents upset their children had been going to Bible study and prayer was being done over the intercom, both actions the Freedom from Religion Foundation says are unconstitutional.
The Freedom from Religion Foundation is calling for Walters to resign. The Prague School District released a statement stating its leadership “is dedicated to following the law and protecting the rights of every student to freely exercise his or her religion.”
Walters appeared here last month when he joined the Trump campaign to “stop the cancer of teachers unions.”
In August, Walters approved far-right PragerU’s climate change-denying, anti-LGBTQ, racist videos for use in Oklahoma public schools.
The FBI is currently investigating Walters’ department for misspending $1.7M in education funds on items such as “kitchen appliances, power tools, furniture, and entertainment.”
Walters has posted a ranting video in which he baselessly claimed that China is secretly funding Tulsa’s public schools. His claim was immediately denounced by Tulsa officials.
In June, Walters appeared here when he announced that Oklahoma’s public schools will soon have a mandatory daily prayer, the mandatory posting of the Ten Commandments in classrooms, and a mandatory high school course in “Western civilization.”
In July, Walters declared that Oklahoma public school students will be taught that the infamous 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre was not inspired by racism.
Many expect Walters to run for governor when fellow Christian nationalist Gov. Kevin Stitt is term-limited out of office. He recently headlined at the Family Research Council’s annual far-right “Pray, Vote, Stand” summit.
In the video below, Walters rages that it’s “outrageous” for groups such as the FFRF to “weaponize lawsuits” against mandatory Christian indoctrination in public schools. Watch the clip.
OK Schools Chief says he will allow prayers to be read over loudspeakers in schools, and when the Supreme Court ruled it was unconstitutional they “weaponized the govt against christianity. When they pulled prayer in schools in 1962, what we’ve seen is moral decay.” pic.twitter.com/DNy8yDnUlF
Oh I hated that stupid argument. The flip side of that was “Well, I’m straight, and I can’t just marry anyone that I want, and neither should you.” I would say that even my 8 year old niece understand marriage better than you.
They actually believe this country was based on christian religion, when the opposite is true, our forefathers wanted religion out of government completely.
The majority of those that stay have no other choices. They aren’t the brightest kids, they have been isolated all of their lives, they likely haven’t been educated even to the most minimal of standards but they can recite the bible. The mean ones are the smart ones that are groomed for leadership. They are taught that they a superior in every way, yet when they look upon what their elders say is their legacy they see a failing business model and must choose between the message of their faith and death by fire for their enemies; which would be us.
It was this way back in Pilgrim days. Mandatory. They’d come fetch you against your will if you failed to show up for your weekly brainwashing session.
It’s not his money at risk and it’ll get him elected governor. (This what Greg Abbott has done in Texas to try and get himself elected prez someday, I’m convinced of it.)
“We’re going to continue to fight for religious liberty and religious freedom here in the state of Oklahoma,” said Walters.
The freedom to coerce non-believers? To single out and stigmatise anyone who doesn’t go along with his denomination’s interpretation of whatever? I wonder if he keeps it up, will we see a drastic lowering of the grades of any student who doesn’t participate?
The freedom to sabotage a kid’s entire future because they / their parents don’t follow your dogma?
And in today’s Washington Post, there is a hearing in the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals to decide whether parents may “opt-out” of lessons for their children if the lessons are in any way related to LBGT issues.
So you know where this is going — parents have the right to exempt their kids from anything about LBGT issues, but have no right to exempt them from christian religious training.
You want prayer? Go to church. School is for education, not indoctrination. Every American has the right to go to church and pray. Every child has the right to education without superstition.
Isn’t it amazing how “religious zealots” squall like a baby when their ability to force their religious ideas upon others gets challenged!!! Walters is a perfect poster boy for the riddance in government of religious rethuglicans.
You know, I stand behind people believing what they want in this nation, but what is wrong with these Christians who can’t keep it to themselves? Why do they have to keep pushing their beliefs onto everyone else? They’re exhausting. Do what you want at home but this is a free country, NOT a Christian nation.
“Bully”? It is actually bullying to force kids to bow to your God, especially when there are probably non-Christians among the student body who should never be forced to worship someone they don’t believe in.
“When the homosexual comes out of the closet and he is bragging about his activities, demanding not only acceptance, but endorsement, that is a nation that God is taking his hand off of. And that’s exactly who we are.
“Here’s a principle that I want you to never forget: Sin often begins manifesting itself even by the transformation of your characteristics. About 80 percent of the time before a homosexual opens his mouth, you can see by the look on his face that he’s—I won’t say the word ‘gay’; it almost slipped out—a sodomite will always reflect it in his countenance. And if he doesn’t naturally, he’ll learn it by those he hangs around with.
“We are spending billions of dollars to keep these sodomites alive, and we should out of compassion. But it can be cured overnight by repentance, by a change of lifestyle.
“There will be certain death among those who’ve been practicing, but I believe God would so reveal himself that we’d find the cure and instead of just keeping them alive with drugs, they’d find a genuine cure if they hadn’t already aborted the one that had the cure.” – Prominent evangelical Rick Scarborough.
Scarborough has a long history of launching virulent attacks against LGBTQ people, calling them “sodomites” and declaring that AIDS is God’s “judgment as a result of an immoral act,” while insisting in 2015 that “God would probably give us the cure for AIDS today” if the U.S. stopped supporting gay rights. Kirk’s Turning Point USA and several other right-wing organizations—including Liberty Counsel, Patriot Academy, ACT for America, and Liberty Pastors—have partnered with Scarborough and his Recover America organization.
Scarborough last appeared here in October 2015 when he produced a copy of the Obergefell ruling during a sermon, threw it to the floor, and proceeded to walk on it. The screenshot above is from his recent appearance on Mike Huckabee’s TBN show.
Rick Scarborough complains that "we are spending billions of dollars to keep these sodomites alive," claiming that "they’d find a genuine cure" for AIDS if gay people would simply repent and "if they hadn’t already aborted the one that had the cure.” https://t.co/BD5M8citpGhttps://t.co/3cye58kVWJpic.twitter.com/NSemf5p3HZ
PREVIOUSLY ON JMG: Rick Scarborough says he’s willing to burn to death to stop gay marriage. Rick Scarborough leads Christian coalition which declares willingness to go to prison over same-sex marriage. Rick Scarborough says God would be “perfectly justified” in nuking America because we have gay ambassadors. Rick Scarborough suggests filing a class action lawsuit against homosexuality itself.
”We are spending billions of dollars to keep these sodomites alive…”
Just as WE are spending billions to keep heteros alive, and children educated, and for the military, and roads & bridges through our taxes and insurance. It’s what our society does.
You know who doesn’t pay for most of those? CHURCHES
Rick Scarborough is equating homosexuality with sodomy. Scientific research has shown that many str8 men enjoy butt sex with their wives and girlfriends while having little to no interest in doing it with other men.
We know that the majority of sodomitical buttfucking is heterosexual. While a much smaller percentage of them do it, there are lots more of them than us, so the actual numbers are greater.
His harangue is not only crazy and immoral, he’s condemning a big number of het sodomites in his own congregation, without (seemingly) knowing it.
Remember, being a “virgin” is very important in church culture, but buttfucking doesn’t affect a young woman’s virgin-ness, since Jesus only counts vaginal sex. So for centuries, lots of the opposite sex couples in christian congregations have had buttsex before they got married, to preserve the woman’s virginity and to not get pregnant. And some of them like it a lot and continue after they get married.
One straight woman friend told me that getting buttfucked gave her multiple long, rolling, crazy fine orgasms that were very different from her vagina-fucked orgasms. And her boyfriend liked fucking her ass as much as her vagina.
Don’t ever let these hemorrhoid-ridden assholes claim that there’s such a thing as “gay sex”. There’s not – every possible sexual activity same sex couples do is also done by opposite sex couples. Except maybe mutual docking.
Fuck you and your horrific god. I am 76 and had HIV 37 years. It is a disease, not a punishment, asshole. If there were punishment for mindless meanness, you would be in hell today.
its only really punishing in developing parts of the world with little access to healthcare and grown men who have HIV think the only way to get rid of it is to give it to a virgin girl. The children suffer the most.
Meanwhile these Christocreeps think they’re being horribly oppressed if someone ‘offends’ them. They’re the ones that terrified of death they’ll torture children to appease their idea of a homophobic God dumping them into their Hell over not obeying their own ‘rules’ they can’t even keep it in their own pants about.
On Monday, Rep. James Comer (R-KY) and the House Oversight Committee released a new piece of “evidence” claiming that Hunter Biden was funneling money to his father, President Joe Biden, but a tiny bit more investigating proved it wasn’t much of a bombshell after all.
The new “evidence” was touted on the Oversight Committee’s social media and was accompanied by a video of Comer explaining that it proved President Biden was receiving “DIRECT monthly payments” from his son through his company Owasco. The evidence they presented were bank documents:
But upon closer examination, and after further investigation by journalists and intrepidTwitter/X users, the amount of the deposits from son to father that took place in 2018-2019 was only about $4,000 (to be specific, three payments of $1,380) that were repayment for money Hunter borrowed during a transitional financial patch for a Ford Raptor truck:
So, these three payments of $1,380 each (totaling $4,140) appear to be Hunter Biden paying his dad back for truck loan/lease payments that his dad paid on his son's behalf when Hunter was low on cash.
What this actually proves is that Hunter Biden made good on a loan from his father, and kept track of these repayments on an actual spreadsheet. That doesn’t really paint a picture of a corrupt financial scheme, but if you squint really hard and look through the picture instead of directly at it, then it might look sketchy enough to convinceWalmart shoppers.
In an email to reporters, a spokesperson for Comer claimed that the House Oversight Committee, which is investigating Biden, had obtained bank records revealing that Hunter Biden’s law firm, Owasco PC, which had received payments from Chinese-state-linked companies and other foreign companies in the past, made direct monthly payments to Joe Biden.
The email claimed the payments “are part of a pattern revealing Joe Biden knew about, participated in and benefited from his family’s influence-peddling schemes.”
The three payments of $1,380 that occurred in September, October and November 2018 — nearly two years after Biden had left the vice presidency — were actually for a 2018 Ford Raptor truck Joe Biden had purchased that Hunter Biden was using, according to an email verified by a Washington Post forensic analysis.
As House Republicans move toward a floor vote to authorize an impeachment inquiry against President Biden, House Oversight Chairman James Comer (R-Ky.) has again mischaracterized evidence of payments from Hunter Biden to his father. https://t.co/H5qd8Z2Slm
Chair Comer is digging up old public reporting, distorting the facts, and presenting it as "breaking news." As a private citizen, Joe Biden made car payments for his son, who paid him back—it's right here in the NY Post.https://t.co/Xv0E71358qpic.twitter.com/QzdjxcjnLg
In what might just be a new record, House Republicans were able to parade around their latest proof of President Joe Biden’s purported corruption for all of a few hours on Monday before it was unceremoniously debunked. https://t.co/xiWZzum3Qp
Hunter Biden’s business entity, Owasco PC, made direct monthly payments to Joe Biden. The bank records don't lie.
Owasco PC received payments from Chinese-state linked companies & other shady entities. Joe Biden knew & benefitted from his family's business schemes. pic.twitter.com/MfvtA4yEZU
Gotta give FOX and the other bigot spigots something to spew, folks are getting tired of panda sex. And they sure as hell don’t want to hear the truth about the Zieglers.
Though common for fascist movements – the “enemy” is both savvy and incompetent, so it must be destroyed before it destroys those listening to the fascist leaders, and is weak enough to be destroyed if enough ‘patriots’ rise up together.
A spokesperson for the Oversight Committee used the fact that the payments came from one of Hunter Biden’s accounts that also included money from a Chinese energy conglomerate to suggest something more nefarious than they have so far proved.
“There is now a pattern of members of the Biden family using their bank accounts that have been funded by Chinese and other foreign entities to send money to Joe Biden,” the spokesperson said. “Based on witness testimony, Joe Biden knew and participated in his family’s influence-peddling schemes. The checks and payments we’ve uncovered reveal Joe Biden benefited from them.”
Comer has consistently oversold or misrepresented the committee’s investigative findings as he has argued to initiate impeachment proceedings. Last month, Comer trumpeted a $200,000 loan repayment Joe Biden received from his brother James Biden. Comer sought to paint the personal check in nefarious terms, alleging without evidence that it showed that Joe Biden had indirectly received payments from his family’s foreign business dealings.
When presented with a bank record of the wire payment that showed the $200,000 payment to James Biden had originated from the president’s attorney trust account, Comer baselessly accused the law firm representing Joe Biden of money laundering.
And, still, to call that “oversold and misrepresented” is such a mild description of what they are doing. They are lying and contorting to make a nefarious and unfounded case, but media and journalists are largely unwilling to clear about that. They shouldn’t be. Like so much else in reporting about politics, they are playing with journalistic malpractice under the guise of factual and ethical reporting (which it is not).
As usual, I can’t decide if he’s a moron that morons follow, or if he’s savvy and playing the moron to get the morons to follow. Probably shades of both, along with a hefty dose of confirmation bias and sunk cost fallacy pushing him along.
All they had on Obama was him being born in Hawaii and with only his mother being a citizen which somehow made his eligibility be president suspect, which of course it wasn’t at all. But that really is the best they could come up with.
I look forward to Comer’s inevitable destruction focusing upon his white whale. The more noise he makes, the more he draws attention to himself, and his inevitable failure to actually find anything of merit. If anything, his attempts to spotlight crimes on the Bidens seem to shine that same spotlight on his own dubious financial affairs, corruption & immorality.
Is it just me, or does most of the “evidence” the impeachment brigade bring forth sound like a family caring for each other, with hands extended for help as needed which are paid back in turn? I mean.. that honestly sounds kind of sweet, really.
As is often said, it’s all about projection with them. I think he sounds confident because his shady financial stuff likely is extremely shady and likely illegal, so he assumes that Biden’s must be as well. His brain probably can’t process the fact that it appears benign to anyone not assuming it to be crimes like he would be doing with those kinds of transactions.
The 2 billion was a side deal between Jared and the Saudis. Wild guess it was payment for the enemies list for MbS. Who knows how much else they made. AG Letitia James knows, no doubt.
When republicans show you who they are, believe them. What they say is not as important as what they try to do. They have learned there is no downside for them to lying, and they make their money by giving the countries wealth to the already wealthy at the expense of the lower incomes. Hugs. Scottie
The co-founder of Mom’s for Liberty which is fighting to remove the LGBTQIA from all aspects of society, schools, libraries, movies, and even in private businesses was having lesbian sex with a woman that her family values republican husband was having three-way sex trysts with. You know, the very people pushing the family values biblical model of marriage and sex only were violating what they want to mandate for everyone else but enjoying sex out of marriage, having same sex relations, having sex with a woman not your wife. Hypocrites and dangerous ones. When the wife was not available to have sex, the second woman wanted to wait until she was. That is when the married man raped her, because a white Christian man shall not be denied the right to have sex when and where he demands it. And in his mind, women have no right to complain or say no. Hugs. Scottie
Christian Ziegler with his wife Bridget at Donald Trump’s 2017 inauguration.
The sexual battery investigation of Florida GOP chairman Christian Ziegler began with a 911 call from a friend of the alleged victim who was worried about her well-being, according to a recording of the call obtained by the Florida Trident.
The 911 call, made on October 4 at 2:46 p.m., reveals the caller was concerned about the mental health of the woman, who isn’t being identified due to the nature of the investigation.
“I was hoping to do a wellness on a friend of mine,” the caller began. “She hasn’t shown up for work the past two days and I just got off the phone with her and she sounds drunk and I know she has pain medication on her and she told me that she doesn’t think she can do it anymore.”
The dispatcher then asked questions about the victim’s address, which was redacted, before the caller said the alleged victim had been struggling with addiction that had “gotten worse and worse the last couple of months.” Then she relayed the information that kicked off a criminal investigation that is ongoing.
“She won’t answer anyone else at work except for me but she told me she was raped yesterday and that she’s scared to leave her house,” said the caller. “… She’s saying she’s scared that — the person that raped her came to her house — that she’s scared to leave.”
The caller then told the dispatcher, “I’m worried about her right now.”
“I have units en route,” said the dispatcher.
The alleged perpetrator is Ziegler, who has yet to publicly comment on the investigation first reported by the Trident on Thursday morning. His attorney, Derek Byrd, said in a written statement Ziegler would be fully exonerated in the investigation.
Sources close to the investigation told the Trident that Ziegler and his wife, Sarasota County School Board Member Bridget Ziegler, who is also an appointee of Gov. Ron DeSantis and cofounder of the right-wing group Moms For Liberty, had a three-way sexual relationship with the woman prior to the alleged October 2 sexual assault.
A copy of the search warrant involved in the case was released late Friday that substantiated much of the Trident’s earlier reporting and added a wealth of new information.
Ziegler, according to the affidavit, had known the woman for 20 years and they had agreed to a tryst at the woman’s home on October 2 with Ziegler’s wife. When Bridget Ziegler wasn’t able to make it, the woman canceled via text to Christian Ziegler, writing that she had been “more in for her,” meaning Bridget. She told police that Christian Ziegler came to her home anyway and entered uninvited as she opened the door to walk her dog. Inside, she said he raped her.
In an interview with detectives attended by his attorney, Christian Ziegler admitted he had sex with her that day but said it was consensual sex with the woman. He also admitted that he shot video of the incident, which he said he initially deleted, but later uploaded to a Google Drive. When the affidavit was filed with the court on November 15, police had yet located the video. The contents of the Google Drive was among items seized by police under the warrant, along with his Gmail and iPhone.
According to the affidavit, Bridget Ziegler told detectives she was involved in a sexual encounter with her husband and the woman once over a year ago.
News of the criminal investigation led DeSantis to publicly call for Ziegler to step down from his role at the top of Florida’s Republican Party shortly after the presidential candidate’s debate with California Gov. Gavin Newsom Thursday night on the Fox News Channel.
“I don’t see how he can continue with that investigation ongoing, given the gravity of those situations,” DeSantis told reporters. “And so, I think he should step aside. I think he should tend to that. He’s innocent until proven guilty, but we just can’t have a party chair that is under that type of scrutiny. And so, I hope that — I hope the charges aren’t true. I’ve known him, I’ve known Bridget; they’ve been friends. But the mission is more important,”
The criminal investigation, which sources tell the Trident involves video recordings and the seizure of Christian Ziegler’s phone, is ongoing.
Florida Center for Government Accountability public access director Michael Barfield contributed to the reporting of this story.
About the Author: Bob Norman is an award-winning investigative reporter who serves as Editor-in-Chief of the Florida Trident and journalism program director for the Florida Center for Government Accountability. He can be reached at journalism@flcga.org or by phone at 954-632-4343.
Breaking news: 911 tape released in criminal investigation of Florida GOP chairman Christian Ziegler. “She told me she was raped yesterday and she’s scared to leave her house.” #DefendDemocracyhttps://t.co/IdkLS4nGKD
— Florida Center for Government Accountability (@FLCTRGA) December 1, 2023
Florida GOP Chair Accused of Sexually Assaulting Threesome Partner
Police are investigating Christian Ziegler, husband of Moms for Liberty co-founder Bridget Ziegler, over accusations that he sexually assaulted the couple's alleged partner.
I hope the unidentified victim gets the help and support she needs, and I also hope Zeigler ends up serving time, and I especially hope the whole Mom’s for Liberty crumbles as it’s revealed what kind of fraud group they really are
The “alleged” rapist Zeigler demeaned a gay school board member after he departed the meeting under baseless accusations of being a groomer. Zeigler’s bisexual wife, chair of the board, did nothing to stop the abuse. In the “alleged” rapist Zeigler’s own words: “He may not like the public being informed and being held accountable, but both are on the way.”
That 911 call is wrenching. The woman she was talking about was obviously made to suffer horribly. I’m glad that she didn’t end her life or hurt herself over the unbearable pain that was inflicted on her. I hope she can return to some semblance of a normal life with sufficient time.
The virulent homophobes are closeted self hating gays in denial who need someone else punished for what they’ve been told and buy into what they’ve been told is wrong about themselves.
She’ll do a “redemption” tour in which she explains that the Devil possessed her husband and he forced her into terrible, sinful situations. She, as a loving Christian woman, struggled with how to serve him and do her wifely duties and remain true to her faith. Either they’ll get divorced and she’ll become a RW cause celeb, or they’ll stay married, he will “repent” and they will continue the grift together.
I hope the victim gets the help she needs, not just for the attack on her but the hate coming her way from “loving” Christians angry that she dared to blow the whistle on them.
I want to remind everyone that this is the guy several anti-trans people used as a source of “anti-trans medical information”. He is a total quack out to make a quick buck where he can. He was hired by DeathSantis because he was willing to back up the governor’s anti-vaccine covid is not deadly misinformation by providing DeathSantis cover with misleading medical sounding rhetoric. Hugs. Scottie
Colleagues say the state surgeon general rarely is on campus and has “sullied” the reputation of the flagship school.
Joseph Ladapo has made headlines across the country for his contentious stances on Covid mandates and vaccines as surgeon general. | Chris O’Meara/AP
TALLAHASSEE, Fla. — Professors at the University of Florida had high hopes for Joseph Ladapo. But they quickly lost faith in him.
In 2021, the university was fast-tracking him into a tenured professorship as part of his appointment as Florida’s surgeon general. Ladapo, Gov. Ron DeSantis’ pick for the state’s top medical official, dazzled them with his Harvard degree and work as a research professor at New York University and UCLA.
Professors had anticipated Ladapo would bring at least $600,000 in grant funding to his new appointment from his previous job at UCLA. That didn’t happen. They expected he would conduct research on internal medicine, as directed by his job letter. Instead, he edited science research manuscripts, gave a guest lecture for grad students and wrote a memoir about his vaccine skepticism.
Ladapo’s work at UF has generally escaped scrutiny. Yet interviews with more than two dozen current and former faculty members, state lawmakers and former agency heads, as well as reviews of internal university emails and reports, show that staff was worried that Ladapo had bypassed a crucial review process when he was rushed into his coveted tenured position and, moreover, was unsuited for the position.
His dual role at UF shows how DeSantis and state Republicans have used the flagship public university to further their political goals, with uncertain benefits for students and other faculty. The university also hired as its new president former Nebraska GOP Sen. Ben Sasse, who joins several former Republican lawmakers in leadership roles in Florida higher education, including former state Sen. Ray Rodrigues, who is chancellor of the university system.
Ladapo has made headlines across the country for his contentious stances on Covid mandates and vaccines as surgeon general. He has bucked the medical establishment by claiming Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna vaccines are dangerous for healthy young men and warned people under the age of 65 from getting the most recent Covid boosters. He was also criticized for supporting hydroxychloroquine, the anti-malaria drug heralded as a coronavirus treatment by former President Donald Trump. A study later found the drug didn’t prevent Covid-19.
While the state has provided other appointees with the same type of tenured position, Ladapo had warning signs from the start. It usually takes months to properly interview and analyze candidates for tenured professorships, but Ladapo’s application took less than three weeks.
“A lot of people thought he had been vetted by the College of Medicine like anyone who goes through the tenure process,” said one current UF professor who was not authorized to speak and was granted anonymity to freely discuss the matter. “That would have caught a lot of red flags.”
Some also bristled that Ladapo, in an email to the heads of the medical school, said he’d only visited the sprawling Gainesville campus twice in his first year on the job, showing a lack of familiarity with Florida’s flagship medical school.
Ladapo declined to comment for this story, and UF Health officials would not answer questions about his time as a professor. A spokesperson for UF did not respond to specific questions about the story.
The DeSantis administration did not respond to a request for comment.
Ladapo’s two confirmations by the state Senate included committee hearings that allowed senators to ask him questions about his performance at both jobs. State Sen. Tina Polsky (D-Boca Raton) said she had asked Ladapo during last year’s confirmation about his performance at UF, and he did not give a clear response despite follow-up attempts.
“You know he never taught a class per se, and it was just his typical word salad answers for everything,” Polsky said. “It’s really frustrating.”
Polsky said in light of the intense criticism and controversy over Ladapo, she was not surprised to hear about his problems at UF.
“It was very par for the course,” Polsky said. “This guy is a charlatan, he’s not looking out for anyone’s health and he’s going to campaign with DeSantis.”
Two roles
Ladapo was the perfect fit as surgeon general for DeSantis. Like the governor, he had gained prominence by criticizing safety measures early in the pandemic, including questioning the effectiveness of boosters or the need for mandatory masking. Both of them also supported the Great Barrington Declaration, which called on governments to adopt the herd approach for Covid-19, which occurs after enough people in the population recover from the virus and develop antibodies to fight it off in the future.
And while the UF staff was initially enthusiastic about Ladapo, faculty staff began expressing concerns almost immediately over how quickly he was given a tenured position, his inability to bring over pledged grant funding, conflicts with colleagues and issues with how much time he spent at the university versus his job as surgeon general.
Former U.S. Surgeon General Richard Carmona, an appointee of former President George W. Bush, said the arrangement allowing Ladapo to be Florida’s top health official and a professor at UF could create conflicts of interest — or at the very least be viewed as one.
Carmona, a professor of public health at the University of Arizona before becoming U.S. surgeon general, said he placed his university job on hold after his appointment to avoid the appearance of a conflict — especially if his position involved decisions that would impact his university employer. Other conflicts could arise if, in a state position, he advocated for a political stance that was at odds with the university.
“When you are in a political office, you cut your ties,” Carmona said. “Basically I still talk to my colleagues, but my responsibilities were left because my allegiance has to be with the United States of America.”
Florida law allows state employees to split their time between two positions if they are recruited to lead an agency under a two year temporary “interchange agreement.” The agreement allows the employee to collect salaries from both jobs.
Ladapo earns a $250,000 salary as surgeon general and a $262,000 salary from UF, according to state and university records.
But some of Ladapo’s UF College of Medicine colleagues were concerned he bypassed crucial vetting during his whirlwind hiring process, regardless of whether it was legal.
A report by an ad hoc committee created by the UF Faculty Senate to review Ladapo’s hiring just months after he came aboard determined that — although parts of Ladapo’s speedy hiring process was not unprecedented for the university and some rules were routinely ignored — the school violated its own policies as school leaders charged on with Ladapo’s application.
“The irregularities noted above were of concern to the members of this committee and appeared to violate the spirit, and in review the exact letter, of UF hiring regulations and procedures, particularly in the vital role faculty play in evaluating the qualifications of their peers,” the report states.
Another professor who agreed to speak only on condition of anonymity because of the sensitive nature of the issue, said the process used to grant Ladapo’s tenure at UF was an affront to academic transparency.
“Dr Ladapo has undoubtedly sullied the academic reputation of the University,” the professor said. “He continues to detract from the incredible science and outstanding clinical work being done by real UF scientists and clinicians.”
United Faculty of Florida-University of Florida President Meera Sitharam, the union head representing the institution, said she wondered why the science and public health communities have not investigated Ladapo for scientific fraud, amid a report from POLITICO that he personally altered the results of a Covid study at the state Department of Health.
After that April POLITICO report was published, Ladapo tweeted: “Fauci enthusiasts are terrified and will do anything to divert attention from the risks of mRNA COVID-19 vaccines— especially cardiac deaths. Truth will prevail.”
“For some reason the medical and public health communities aren’t outright investigating him … probably because he isn’t operating as a scientist or a faculty member,” Sitharam said in an email. “He is operating in the murky world where public health is held hostage to political fortunes, which is in part because public trust in health related institutions has been deeply eroded.”
Funding issues
Some of the most serious issues arose over money. Ladapo had initially promised UF that he would transfer grant funding from UCLA, where he had been working, to the Florida school, according to emails obtained from UF.
The funding was awarded by the National Institutes of Health for a research project. But, according to emails between Ladapo and school officials, it never materialized.
A search of an NIH database shows Ladapo is still one of three researchers assigned to a smoking cessation study at UCLA, which receives more than $600,000 in grant funding each year. Another $600,000 NIH grant awarded to UCLA in 2020 lists Ladapo as the sole researcher, and it includes his UF address.
In a June 2022 email, Department of Medicine Vice Chair Mark Brantly told Ladapo that he had reassigned a UF researcher who had been helping with the UCLA project because there was no grant funding.
“When we first discussed this matter you gave me the impression that your funding would follow you from UCLA,” Brantly wrote to Ladapo. “If you are having an issue with transferring your grant funds I strongly encourage you to talk with your NIH program project person.”
In response, Ladapo asked Department of Medicine Chair Jamie B. Conti to intervene. She declined.
“I am working actively on this issue with NIH’s Office of Research Integrity but it is not entirely under my control,” Ladapo wrote to Conti.
Brantly and Conti did not respond to questions about the emails with Ladapo, which POLITICO received through public records requests.
The same professor with the College of Medicine who raised issues over vetting said they were skeptical that Ladapo was the high-performing researcher he had sold himself as, and bucked at the salary he was receiving — especially with the medical school facing a projected $41.5 million shortfall. Like others, the professor was granted anonymity because they weren’t authorized to speak publicly.
“We keep getting all of these emails about doing more to help this $42 million shortfall, and then you have this guy who’s not doing anything,” the College of Medicine professor said. “I don’t know what he’s doing but it’s not research.”
The anticipated $41.5 million shortfall was the result of rapid growth by the College of Medicine over the past few years. The college also increased wages, Gary Mans, assistant vice president of UF Health, said in an email.
Ladapo’s responsibilities at the College of Medicine shifted significantly by the spring of this year. The university initially hired him to spend most of his time continuing his career’s work as a researcher in the UF Health internal medicine division.
His most recent quarterly effort report from spring of this year, however, shows he now spends most of his time in an undefined administrative role.
“I don’t know what he is doing but it definitely isn’t research,” said a separate College of Medicine professor not authorized to speak.
About a year after he was hired, Ladapo was defending his role at UF after meeting with the school’s vice president of health, David Nelson. Among the topics they discussed was Ladapo’s wish to host a series of seminars on the critical evaluation of scientific evidence.
He wrote in an email to Nelson and College of Medicine deans that he spent his first several months editing research manuscripts and finishing his book called “Transcend Fear,” in which he explains how he grew skeptical of most vaccines.
Ladapo, who also was required to fulfill a teaching requirement, wrote that he spoke at a UF Health Cancer Center Tobacco Control Working Group meeting in January, and he gave a lecture in an HIV course in July.
“I traveled to Gainesville on both occasions,” Ladapo wrote.
Ladapo also asked in the email to Nelson and the College of Medicine about creating a seminar and course on the critical evaluation of scientific evidence. He and the university haven’t yet created the course.
Desantis’s Surgeon General received a coveted tenured professorship at UF w/no vetting and a $262,000 salary to add to his $250K salary as Surgeon Gen. He teaches no classes, doesn’t do research, and blows off the school when they ask him to do any work. https://t.co/BncfkkpPVy
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