Did UF fire Ben Sasse? If not, why not?

Sasse's grifter imitation of Richard Corcoran was such an open secret that multiple people told me about it when he "resigned." If the BoT *didn't* fire him, it ought to be fired, en masse.

The Independent Florida Alligator has the goods on the grifty, self-righteous former GOP senator from Nebraska turned unqualified, unvetted president of the University of Florida. This is just the lede. It gets better/worse.

In his 17-month stint as UF president, Ben Sasse more than tripled his office’s spending, directing millions in university funds into secretive consulting contracts and high-paying positions for his GOP allies.

Sasse ballooned spending under the president’s office to $17.3 million in his first year in office — up from $5.6 million in former UF President Kent Fuchs’ last year, according to publicly available administrative budget data.

A majority of the spending surge was driven by lucrative contracts with big-name consulting firms and high-salaried, remote positions for Sasse’s former U.S. Senate staff and Republican officials.

Sasse’s consulting contracts have been kept largely under wraps, leaving the public in the dark about what the contracted firms did to earn their fees. The university also declined to clarify specific duties carried out by Sasse’s ex-Senate staff, several of whom were salaried as presidential advisers.

The university said Sasse’s budget expansion went through the “appropriate approval process” but did not answer questions about how Sasse bankrolled his splurges, where the funds originated or who authorized the spending. 

Go read it all. It’s a masterpiece of investigative reporting. Kudos to reporter Garrett Shanley and what must have been staff-wide effort. I doubt any other journalism institution in Florida could have produced what this “student” paper did. But that’s another issue for another time.

Waiting for this specific shoe to drop

I do not follow the ins and outs of University of Florida governance. But I do have quite a few contacts within the UF community — and a proud reputation for lustily mocking grifters.

So when Sasse abruptly announced his resignation back in July, multiple folks told me the same thing, with differing levels of detail: his wife may indeed be sick (which is very sad and for which I have compassion); but that’s not why he resigned — if he resigned at all.

The real reason? Grifty, out-of-control, un-transparent spending with consultants necessitated by a general administrative incompetence in running the day-to-day life of Florida’s flagship university. That’s exactly what the Alligator has now reported, right down to specific names of consultants that I heard.

I heard further suggestion that the emergency Board of Trustee meeting to accept Sasse’s “resignation” was actually an emergency meeting to fire him.

To be clear, the minutes of that emergency meeting do not reflect that. I’m going to publish them in a second. But there also seems to be no recording of that meeting.

Moreover, we don’t know what might have come to a head to prompt the “emergency” meeting. Might Sasse have gotten word that — or learned directly — that at least somebody on the BoT was all done with his Richard Corcoran imitation? Was it resign at this meeting with your dignity and money — or else?

What do you think?

The BoT minutes sound like a North Korean politburo meeting

Here are the draft “minutes” — the official record — of the “emergency” meeting during which Sasse is said to have resigned. Remember, there is no recording I’m aware to check this against. It took multiple days for the university to post even this:

Board Chairman Hosseini welcomed and thanked everyone for being on the call. He then turned the meeting over to President Sasse. President Sasse stated his wife Melissa has had previous health issues but was recently diagnosed with epilepsy and has been struggling with a new batch of memory issues.

He resigned effective July 31, 2024, and requested the Board initiate a search for a new president so he can focus on his wife, family, and rebuilding stable household systems. He stated his love for the university and Gator Nation. He will remain on faculty and looks forward to teaching and serving. He expressed his thanks to Board Chairman Hosseini and the Board. 1 Board Chairman Hosseini and Trustees applauded him for putting his family first and extended prayers to him and his family.

Additionally, they expressed thanks to the President for his tireless dedication to the university, including how he expertly handled the events after October 7th with the Jewish communities and protecting First Amendment rights. Trustees also thanked Board Chairman Hosseini for his leadership. Board Chairman Hosseini asked for a motion to accept President Sasse’s resignation, which was made by Vice Chair Patel and seconded by Trustee Cole.

Vice Chair Patel included as a part of the motion that the Board delegate authority to the Board Chair to provide assignments and responsibilities to Dr. Sasse through his end date. Board Chairman Hosseini asked for further discussion, after which he asked for all in favor of the motion and any opposed, and the motion was approved unanimously.

Now check this out from a week later. Note the parts in bold.

Board Chairman Hosseini welcomed and thanked everyone for being on the call. The action item for approval before the Board today is the appointment of Kent Fuchs as Interim President beginning August 1, 2024 and approval of his contract. The Board’s approval is subject to the Board of Governors’ ratification at their next meeting. He personally thanked Dr. Fuchs for agreeing to serve at this critical time to ensure a smooth transition as the search for a new president begins. Dr. Fuchs added his thanks for the honor and confidence in him to serve in this role.

He stated how important it is that our university does not lose momentum in this transition. He committed to the Board, faculty, staff, students, and alumni that we are going to keep putting fuel in the fire and accelerate our growth, stature, and excellence. He added amid the hard work he plans to lean into the job and enjoy it, and he believes that energy can become contagious for all of us. He thanked President Sasse for his leadership and expressed best wishes to him and his family. President Sasse extended his thanks to Dr. Fuchs and offered his help during the transition.

Board Chairman Hosseini stated at our June board meeting, our Finance Committee approved our fiscal 2024-25 operating budget, subject to review and approval by the Board Chair. He has reviewed the proposed budget with Chief Financial Officer Taylor Jantz and instructed him take the $25 million in savings from overhead operations and direct it to support our esteemed faculty who work so hard to serve our students and do great research. While we will also be very vigilant and rigorous in holding our faculty accountable through our post tenure review process, we also want to make sure hardworking faculty get paid in line with the top universities in the country. In addition to faculty support, he asked Trustees Zalupski and Lynne to work closely with Vice President for Human Resources Melissa Curry to expedite our Baby Gator projects. Next, he stated this Board has made it clear for years, the safety of our students at UF is our top priority. We will continue to invest to ensure our students are safe.

The state of Florida has been very generous in providing dollars to make our campuses safe. He thanked President Sasse for carrying out this priority exceptionally well with respect to the protection of our Jewish students. After October 7th, the President responded immediately to ensure our Jewish students were safe and everyone’s First Amendment rights were protected. We continue to welcome students from across the country who do not have the same protections and security. He emphasized UF and the Board will continue to place student safety at the utmost of importance. Finally, he thanked the Board members for all their work over the last few years to bring the Jacksonville campus to reality. He thanked Trustee Zalupski and others for their hard work raising money for UF, as well as leaders in Tallahassee. We now have a commitment of $300M and are moving full speed ahead to select a site for UF in Jacksonville. Board Chairman Hosseini asked for any questions. Hearing none, he then asked for a motion to approve, which was made by Trustee Zucker and seconded by Trustee O’Keefe. Board Chairman Hosseini asked for further discussion, after which he asked for all in favor of the motion and any opposed, and the motion was approved unanimously.

A few outside observations:

1. One wonders where that $25M magically appeared from. Did it emerge from ending Sasse’s grifts? LOL. Probably not — in fact, with sycophantic head-nodding oversight like that, I would expect all the grifting to remain and expand at UF. It will just be different people doing it and cashing in on it.

2. Mori Hosseini is actually the president of UF. He should just appoint himself Sasse’s permanent replacement and get it over with.

3. This feckless bunch of BoT suck-ups allowed Sasse to do all of this under their noses — or with their blessing — and can’t be bothered to even address it in public. Lalalalala, Gator Nation. It’s almost football season. Pay no attention to our selfless president. If Ron DeSantis and his state-level minions state cared about higher learning institutions as anything more than personal piggybanks or gross (losing) campaign props, they would fire the UF BoT en masse for incompetence and laziness. Not one of them has any business commenting on any faculty member. They are not fit to carry their jock straps, as the old saying goes.

4. What exactly will Sasse teach as a faculty member? Perhaps Grifting 101: How to use public money to enrich your friends in the most pompous possible way?

Just New College and Florida Poly on a much bigger and more significant scale

This is all just Florida Poly with Kelli Stargel and New College with Richard Corcoran on a much larger and significant to the state scale.

We are ruled in Florida by grifters until we are not, my fellow Republicans. You have all voted to destroy our state institutions for Ron DeSantis’ vain hope that he might weaponize the destruction against old man Trump.

That gross gambit has long failed because DeSantis is a weird coward, afraid to actually confront Trump, who nobody in America likes. He’s J.D. Vance without the charm.

So you need to give up on his socially awkward dreams get started cleaning up the damage they’ve done.

It’s one thing to wipe New College and Poly from the face of the state in mafia-style bust outs. It’s another thing entirely to cripple the most important university in Florida for the sake of grift and ego. That has real consequences, which are just starting.

But hey, it’s almost football season, Gators. Fire up the tailgates. Nothing to see here. The Alligator has the goods on football, too:

I can’t imagine why the football team of the university that employs Ben Sasse and Mori Hosseini struggles with work ethic, culture, and core value deficits.

And I wouldn’t look to any UF leader for a better example.