SARASOTA — Outside the library, New College of Florida’s bell tower chimed.
Natalia Benavides paused to listen. Her eyes wandered to the new students following tour guides in crisp navy polos before classes started in a few days.
“I actually kind of missed it,” she said with a small smile. “Even with all the crazy news.”
A week ago, the incoming senior found herself at the center of a mission on the embattled campus, shoving armloads of books into her car, rallying students and alumni, rescuing furniture and art.
The viral images were instantly symbolic: thousands of books in a dumpster as the summer wound down. Removed from context, the sight amounted to a dystopian pastiche in step with the political siege unfurling at the college.
But what really happened? Statements from New College have been contradictory, at times even incongruous with the law.
Were the books discarded on Aug. 13 part of a normal weeding process? Were they damaged? Was the school legally bound to throw them away? Was this event routine, conspiratorial or something in between?
At the root sits a larger question of trust. After so many people in power have been openly hostile to traditions the school has held dear, what can be believed?
• • •
Since its inception in 1960, New College has been a haven for liberal arts students seeking their own map of study. Some 30 years ago, students banded together to form a space in which they could explore identities. They created the Gender and Diversity Center, or GDC.
“It brought in a combination of students who were interested in gender issues and students who were interested in ethnic and racial identities,” said Sarah Hernandez, a longtime faculty member involved in diversity and equity initiatives.
The center functioned as a community book box of sorts. Faculty, students and visitors donated titles on gender, sexuality and feminism, memoirs from successful women, studies of racial diasporas, religious texts like the Koran and the Holy Bible, novels like H.G. Wells’ “War of the Worlds.”
Renowned late author and social critic bell hooks visited. So did the campus knitting club. The space was open to all, decorated like a living room with homey rugs and student oil paintings.
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Explore all your optionsJump to January 2023. Gov. Ron DeSantis appointed six new members to the school’s board of trustees, stunning the student body with a plan to remake the school along the lines of private, Christian Hillsdale College.
New trustees included activist Christopher Rufo, who has called diversity, equity and inclusion programs “a vehicle for taking left wing orthodoxy from neo-Marxist intellectuals on the outside, injecting them into our bureaucracies in schools, corporations, even some churches now, and then using the power of the administration or the bureaucracy to manipulate human behavior to achieve left wing ideological objectives.”
The shakeup began a turbulent year of protests, staff departures and the dismantling of gender studies and diversity programs. The board fired the school’s president, replaced her with former Florida House speaker Richard Corcoran and made him one of the highest-paid college presidents in Florida.
New College began recruiting for sports programs and rebranded with a modern, naval motif. Murals were painted white. Even its buoyant blue became darker.
A sticky note appeared on a chalkboard wall of the Gender and Diversity Center, guidance for painters: NCF Blue.
Hernandez, Benavides and others say the administration gave no notice of plans to dismantle the center.
“They didn’t tell us, they didn’t give us a time,” said Benavides, 21.
Rather, Benavides heard from students on campus for summer that people were going in and out of the room. As an archivist for the center’s library, Benavides had a key. She started removing student art and furniture.
“And then I see these two piles of books in these large boxes.”
She headed to her job nearby, but an hour later, she returned and found the two boxes had been moved near a dumpster overflowing with books.
It’s important to note that we are talking about two sets of dumped books. In the dumpster was a pile culled from the main Jane Bancroft Cook Library, books purchased with state funds that must be disposed of in a certain way. We’ll discuss that in a minute.
The books in the boxes came from the Gender and Diversity Center, all donated. There are no rules around what to do with those.
New College officials said the center’s books were free for the taking but that no one did — hence the move near the library “where they were later claimed by individuals planning to donate the books locally.” But Benavides believes the center’s castoffs were always destined for the dumpster, too.
“The boxes had broken,” she said. “So they couldn’t move the boxes, the books, into the dumpster where they were supposed to go, and they ended up on the side.”
She enlisted helpers. They stacked the books on the pavement. Police came. A librarian came. They told the students to stop taking books, Benavides said.
“Anybody with a pair of eyes could see that they were two different piles of books,” Benavides said.
After an hour, she said, officials decided to let students take the center’s books.
They saved almost the entire collection.
• • •
We want to take this opportunity to address the concerns...
This letter came from Corcoran in the wake of media coverage. It targeted reporters for sensationalizing the story. It focused on the library books, explaining that roof leaks damaged them. It credited librarians with reviewing each discarded book.
While the optics of seeing thousands of books in a dumpster are far from ideal, it is important to understand that the disposition of materials is a necessary process in libraries...
Again, the right hand did not match the left. The administration placed dean of the library Shannon Hausinger on administrative leave. School spokesperson Nathan March told the Sarasota Herald-Tribune that Hausinger, who had only been at New College since February, did not follow protocols.
What were those? He didn’t answer my questions. Hausinger’s school email was inactive, and she did not reply to a message at a personal account.
“She’s very new,” said Hernandez. “What kind of guidance and support was she receiving? I have no idea. It concerns me that someone might be thrown under the bus because of the lack of communication happening at the institution.”
March did not answer a slew of other questions, including whether the school gave notice of the Gender and Diversity Center’s gutting.
It gets murkier concerning the library books, too. College officials said the law “precludes New College from selling, donating or transferring” materials purchased with state funds.
Except that’s not what the law says. It’s true that libraries do weed books, and no book can live forever. But the law leaves broad room for sales and donations. While some books were damaged, Benavides said, she took about 30 in good condition out of the dumpster.
I asked March three times why the school’s statement contradicts the law. No reply.
In his letter, Corcoran largely ignored the issue of the gender and diversity books, addressing them with one sentence.
Some in the media have incorrectly misconstrued the repurposing of the former Gender and Diversity Center, whose books were made available to students and faculty separate from this process.
Decoding the darker heart of the matter takes no detective work. Rufo shared photos of the dumpsters on X.
“We abolished the gender studies program,” he wrote. “Now we’re throwing out the trash.”
• • •
Here’s what is true.
There is a leak in the library. I went in on Wednesday and saw the tarps, the carpet stains, the drainage tubes. In his letter, Corocan said the school was working on repairs.
Here’s something else that’s true. The library is changing. For instance, gender-neutral markers have disappeared from bathrooms. But the book collection still appears wide-ranging with topics ranging from censorship to climate change, a relief for those of us inclined to trust librarians.
It’s important, Hernandez said, to give things and people a chance. It’s good to fix leaky buildings. It’s good to welcome new minds, whether they play sports or look like the long-held notion of a New College student.
“Our sports students have a complex set of identities,” said Hernandez. “I can’t imagine that our women in sports don’t have a little bit of concern about women’s rights in their hearts, or that our student athletes who are Black and Latino or come from abroad don’t have their own challenges.”
And here’s the biggest truth.
The dismantled center? That was created by students working to connect the dots of their own complicated identities in the 1990s. That could not have been easy. And they will do it again as long as they have to.
The books, art and furniture the students saved are heading to a new location, possibly off-campus. Eventually, it will be open to all.
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