Is Wokeness Coming to the University of Florida?

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Many see the University of Florida as a bastion against wokeness and DEI, but that might soon change; Stuart Bell, formerly president at the University of Alabama, was recently named sole presidential finalist for the University of Florida.

Bell brought DEI policies to Alabama upon his arrival in 2015 and radicalized Alabama’s flagship university within five years. Later, when Alabama banned DEI policies, Bell merely renamed the DEI office while keeping all of the personnel and renaming the functions.

But Bell’s greatest legacy at Alabama is his administrative staff. Personnel is policy, and Bell elevated a cadre of woke administrators to lead nearly every aspect of university life.

Bell’s hires began with G. Christine Taylor.

Taylor became vice provost, and she was charged with first implementing and then expanding Alabama’s DEI plan starting in 2017. Taylor’s belief system was molded by critical race theory, having completed a 1997 dissertation on the intersection of race and gender in media leadership. She examined the supposed barriers that black women face entering the broadcast industry, highlighting what she called issues of tokenism and discrimination.

Upon graduation, Taylor immediately joined the DEI industry at Ohio University, then became the vice provost for diversity and inclusion at Purdue before she left to do independent consultant work in the diversity industry. When Bell hired Taylor, he made her the first vice president and vice provost for diversity, equity and inclusion at Alabama.

After Alabama passed its laws to ban DEI, he rebranded the department and gave her the new title of vice president and associate provost for opportunities, connections, and success, and she later became the associate provost for academic affairs.

As the marketing agencies on Madison Avenue would say, “Different look. Same great taste.”

From these perches, she shapes faculty hiring and student recruitment and attempts to shape the campus environment through establishing LGBT Centers and the Intercultural Center.

But Taylor did not sit in a silo. Bell hired a cadre of woke administrators to oversee Alabama’s graduate school, undergraduate education, and faculty affairs. Woke administrators shape every aspect of student experience at the university.

Bell made Susan Carvahlo dean of the graduate school in 2016. Her scholarly work is on the intersection of gender and Spanish literature. Her main scholarly contribution is a book examining how women’s fiction in Latin America challenges “the spatial barriers erected by capitalist hegemony” and patriarchy. Her peer-reviewed work includes themes of women’s agency in post-colonial societies and patriarchal oppression.

Bell made Tiffany Sippial dean of the honors college in April 2023. She became associate provost for undergraduate education as well in 2025, soon after Bell left. Sippial’s academic work emphasizes feminist and race-conscious interpretations of Cuban history. Her two main books focus on sexual regulation and prostitution, gendered power, race, and women’s bodies as central to revolutionary politics.

Chapman Greer was hired as the associate provost of general education in 2023. Prior to that, she served as Faculty Senate president, where in 2021 she addressed UA faculty regarding their concerns about the state’s pending legislation to ban DEI. Her response to the faculty: “many different people are working on maintaining academic freedom and making sure that the integrity of what we teach does not get touched if at all possible.”

Months before his resignation from Alabama, Bell made David Deutsch provost for faculty affairs. Generally, such a position has great influence over faculty hiring, promotion and tenure, and academic culture. Deutsch has spent his career pushing queer ideology in the academy.

As a professor of English, Deutsch’s scholarly work is almost entirely dedicated to queer studies. His major books include “Queer Angels in Post-1945 American Literature and Culture: Bad Beatitudes,” “Ecstatic Ordinarinesses: Everyday Joys in 21st Century Queer American Painting,” and “Understanding Jim Grimsley”—all of which celebrate queer identity, same-sex desire, and “queering” of artistic culture. He has written articles romanticizing queer urban spaces (such as New York City subways and New Orleans), effeminate masculinity, and queer spirituality.

Bell must still pass muster with the University of Florida’s Board of Trustees, as well as the State University System’s Board of Governors. Both boards would be wise to study the key personnel that Bell embedded into his leadership team at the University of Alabama.

The University of Florida has its provost and no fewer than four dean positions that are currently occupied by interims. Based on his past embrace of DEI, it’s easy to see how Bell could fill open billets with DEI radicals the same way he did in his last job.