Donors are reportedly planning to pull support from, or have already severed ties with, the John and Mable Ringling Museum of Art following its controversial transfer from Florida State University to New College of Florida earlier this year on the orders of Governor Ron DeSantis.
Three donors have reconsidered planned gifts totaling more than $750,000 in response to the transfer—or “takeover,” as ABC’s Sarasota affiliate described it. Museum supporters and staff alike have expressed concern that the considerably smaller New College of Florida is an ill-suited steward, on both operational and conceptual levels.
New College of Florida, a small liberal arts college in Sarasota, built its donor base on the reputation of its progressive approach towards education. That reputation has shifted dramatically since DeSantis made the realignment of secondary and higher arts and culture education with conservative values a priority of his tenure.
In 2023, DeSantis instated a slew of political allies to the New College board of trustees and aided the appointment of former Republican House Speaker Richard Corcoran as its president. The college has since canceled its gender studies program and included among its featured speakers Tom Homan, a prominent advocate for Trump’s border overhaul.
Also in 2023, a Michigan college ended its relationship with the Florida charter school which made international headlines after its principal was pressured to resign after parents complained that her Renaissance art syllabus, which included a picture of Michelangelo’s David, was inappropriate for sixth graders. The charter school follows a “classical education curriculum model,” a pedagogical model stressing the “centrality of the Western tradition,” that has grown increasingly popular in Florida primary schools. The Tampa Bay Times described the model in a scathing report published amid the controversy as adhering to “a historical focus on white, Western European and Judeo-Christian foundations.”
In 2024, DeSantis vetoed over $32 million in arts and culture grants from Florida’s 2025 fiscal year budget, a move that drew criticism from local museum leadership. Tampa Museum of Art lost some $500,000 in state funding because of the veto, which marked a “a huge disappointment and a quandary,” museum director Michael Tomor called it in an interview at the time with the Tampa Bay Times. The veto was also denounced by leaders from the arts and advocacy organization the Florida Cultural Alliance, who called the move “unprecedented in the history of [Florida’s] grants program.”
