State Rep. Randy Fine, a self-described conservative firebrand who has backed Gov. Ron DeSantis’ education agenda and vowed to battle “wokeism across our state,” said Tuesday that he’s being considered to become the next president of Florida Atlantic University.
Fine, R-Palm Bay, has been approached by the governor’s office, adding that he is seriously considering the position, he told the South Florida Sun Sentinel on Tuesday. “It’s very flattering to have been asked, and something I’m actively considering,” he said. “It certainly is an amazing opportunity.”
Fine’s announcement comes as DeSantis has been reshaping education in Florida, with Republican legislators’ support. And the governor has been selecting people for top education-related positions, heading in a more conservative direction, including at New College of Florida, where members of a DeSantis-installed board pushed out the president.
Fine has faced a string of controversies in recent years for a range of issues — including once floating the idea of a “5- and 10-year potential shutdown” of the University of Central Florida, then later saying he didn’t mean it. And he has cast himself as a fighter who stands up for children, families and “what has always made America great.”
Late Tuesday afternoon, DeSantis’ office backed the idea of Fine becoming the next FAU president: “Rep. Fine has been a leader on education issues, and we think he’d be a good candidate for the role,” said Communications Director Taryn Fenske.
The search for the next FAU president has been underway, a process that the university on Tuesday described as “still in its early stages.” The names of any FAU hopeful candidates hoping to replace John Kelly, who stepped down Dec. 31 after eight years, will remain secret unless they become finalists, according to a law passed last year by the state Legislature.
The search is going “far and wide” for the next president, said Joshua Glanzer, spokesman for FAU.
“We are aware of the comments made recently by Rep. Fine about the presidency of Florida Atlantic University,” Glanzer said in a statement. “Rep. Fine is a wonderful servant to his constituency and the state. However, the FAU Presidential Search Committee will follow a strict process to determine FAU’s 9th president.”
Fine, addressing how state politics could influence the top job at a state university, said Tuesday that his record in the Legislature would explain his position “if people want to find out” his views on issues.
Battling ‘wokeism’
Fine has made clear his conservative views. When he announced earlier this year that he would run for state Senate, he issued a statement casting himself as a “well-known conservative firebrand.”
“I have passed legislation transforming our public schools, our universities, and protecting the Indian River Lagoon,” he said in his statement in January. “I have fought illegal immigration and wokeism across our state — and right here at home. And I have done it unafraid of the attacks that have come my way from the radical left.
“I did it because I was worried about the future my sons would inherit. And while we have made amazing progress [on] so many levels, we now find ourselves facing fights we could hardly have imagined eight years ago — should drag queen story time happen in our schools and town square? Can the decisions of our Maker and science be overridden by a surgeon who mutilates a child?
“Must we teach our children that they are fundamentally racist and that America was founded in evil? The left is stridently and aggressively demanding this. We need tested fighters to defend our children, our families, and what has always made America great. In the name of my children — and yours — I am ready for that fight.”
Fine has faced controversies through his years in office. He drew attention in Central Florida in 2019 by calling for “a 5- or 10-year shutdown” of the University of Central Florida amid an ethics investigation, which he later walked back.
Fine has aligned himself with Florida’s governor and has frequently served as sponsor or co-sponsor for DeSantis’ top priorities. Fine sponsored last year’s bill that stripped Disney World of its self-governing Reedy Creek district.
Fine was a strong backer of the “Parental Rights in Education” law. The measure was dubbed “don’t say gay” by its critics, who Fine in turn alleged were part of a “radical grooming minority that tried to sexualize our children.”
Fine contracted COVID-19 in 2020 and had surgery in 2021 because of complications from the virus. He called constituents who didn’t want to get the vaccine “idiots,” according to the Space Coast Rocket website, and later told News 6 WKMG that not wearing masks was “OK if you got vaccinated, but it’s not if you haven’t.”
But he later became a staunch opponent of mask mandates in schools, posting on Facebook he would make school districts “hurt” if they defied DeSantis’ order banning them.
Last year he created a firestorm with a tweet aimed at President Joe Biden: “I have news for the embarrassment that claims to be our President — try to take our guns and you’ll learn why the Second Amendment was written in the first place,” he wrote.
Other headlines included pulling a $2 million state funding request for the Brevard Zoo’s aquarium project after the zoo said it would consider halting rentals for political campaign events after the 2024 election cycle. It came after a fundraiser was held at the zoo’s Nyami Nyami River Lodge for Fine’s 2024 Florida Senate run.
“More proof that wokeists aren’t as smart as the animals at the zoo,” he posted on his Facebook page. “Even they understand you don’t bite the hand that feeds you. Go woke, go broke!”
“Given the zoo has so much money that they’re able to turn away business, I felt that they didn’t need the tax money,” Fine wrote on a separate post.
He also has posted support for former President Donald Trump: “Donald Trump is a Florida resident. We need to protect our own. As a sovereign state, Florida should refuse to assist with New York’s desired kidnapping of our President under the guise of a weaponized Junta. #ComeAndTakeIt.”
Fine, who is Jewish, also proposed a bill that would create some of the harshest criminal penalties in the country for convicted antisemites. “Nazis are not welcome in Florida,” he told The Algemeiner, a New York-based Jewish publication earlier this month. “The behavior they’re using to terrorize, intimidate, and assault Jewish Floridians is going to come to an end.”
Among Fine’s legislation this year: A proposal that would make it illegal for doctors to provide treatments such as puberty blockers and hormone therapy to transgender minors.
And he also recently filed a bill that would target drag shows by threatening to “fine, suspend, or revoke the license” of any business that admits a child to an “adult live performance.” Under the proposed law, the first violation would carry a $5,000 fine.
FAU’s evolution
This month, FAU gained national prominence when its men’s basketball team beat Kansas State to advance to the Final Four of the NCAA basketball tournament for the first time in school history.
For years, FAU has touted itself as “the most diverse university in Florida,” with a student population that’s 39% white, 29% Hispanic, 20% Black and 4% Asian.
FAU has morphed in recent years from a commuter school to a more traditional campus.
The university has been rapidly expanding into the health sciences, partnering with biotech partners on its Jupiter campus and adding a medical school in recent years. FAU is now seeking state approval to add a dental school.
The former president was credited with boosting FAU’s health and research focus while also raising four-year graduation rates from 30% to 50% in nine years.
Longtime FAU administrator Stacy Volnick is serving as interim president. Volnick, who also will remain in her role as chief operating officer, has agreed not to apply for the permanent job.
Christopher Robé, incoming vice president for the faculty union, said the faculty union had no idea who any of the contenders are and it feels like “an undemocratic process.”
He said faculty researches incoming presidential candidates and now there’s no opportunity. “It’s sort of frightening because we don’t know what’s happening,” he said.
Glanzer, the FAU spokesman, said that all candidates for FAU president “who are interested in this exciting opportunity will be held in the strictest confidence until any finalists are identified by the Search Committee.
“We will follow the process in accordance with state law, and we will search far and wide.”
‘I come from an academic family’
On Tuesday, Fine told the Sun Sentinel that he would be a good fit as a university president, given that he has two degrees from Harvard.
He said he is the son of a university professor — his father, who has his PhD from MIT, taught metallurgical engineering at the University of Kentucky — and the son of a middle school science teacher. “I come from an academic family,” he said.
Fine became a self-made millionaire in the gambling industry before he was elected in 2016, the Florida Today newspaper reported last year. Fine, a former casino executive, turned his industry experience into a gambling consulting and management company specializing in online casinos, the newspaper reported.
What would happen if Fine were to become FAU president? He said Tuesday that he doubted he could serve in both the Legislature representing Brevard County, and as president in Palm Beach County at the same time, especially because FAU would be “an all-encompassing job.”
The FAU president discussion was not solicited: Although Fine declined to give specifics of his conversations with the governor’s office, he said, “I was not looking for a job, not looking to do this, it was not on my 2023 dance card.”
Information from the Orlando Sentinel was used to supplement this report.
Lisa J. Huriash can be reached at lhuriash@sunsentinel.com. Follow on Twitter @LisaHuriash
