Scott Yenor, chair of the University of West Florida Board of Trustees, resigned Wednesday afternoon, weeks after his controversial appointment to the board by Gov. Ron DeSantis.
Yenor, a political science professor, was elected to lead the board shortly after his appointment at the Pensacola campus. However, the selection came with controversy over Yenor's affiliation with the conservative Claremont Institute and past statements about women.
"Opposition to my nomination among a group within Florida's Senate, however, leads me to resign from UWF Board of Trustees effective immediately," he wrote in an email to university president Martha Saunders Wednesday morning.
On Jan. 23, Yenor was elected chair by trustees recently appointed by DeSantis, while others put their support behind Richard Baker.
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In the resignation email, Yanor wrote he was looking forward to bringing the governor’s "positive vision for higher education to the University of West Florida.”
However, the Boise State University professor had already drawn attention for his comments about feminism and higher education that led to student protests and town hall organized by the Save UWU Committee.
Speaking at the National Conservatism Conference three years ago, Yenor called for a "sexual counterrevolution" and described career-oriented women as "medicated, meddlesome and quarrelsome."
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"We need to deemphasize our colleges and universities," he told the conference audience. "Almost everything in these indoctrination camps complicates the male-female dance."
He concluded the talk by suggesting that "the effort to erase the old standard of public men and private woman has been a mistake."
In February, the Jewish Caucus of the Legislature joined the critique of Yenor's appointment for his comments posted on X.
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“Among other offensive public statements, recently on his personal X account, Yenor implied that only non-Jewish white men are viable political leaders,” read a caucus statement.
In his email to the university president, Yenor said that "patriotic reformers need to imagine a different future."
"We know that the higher education status quo is bad for the country," he continued. "Eliminating pernicious practices from our universities is a start, and Florida has led the way. Building great universities is now a priority for (President Donald) Trump, Gov. DeSantis and others. I will continue to work to make America's universities great. UWF too has great potential to celebrate Western civilization while staying connected to dynamic economic changes. I wish UWF the best."
State Sen. Don Gaetz, R-Pensacola, told the News Service of Florida that Yenor did the "gentlemanly thing" by resigning.
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"Because gentlemen don't go where no one wants them, and his timely resignation takes much of the steam out of what otherwise might have been an unnecessary blowup between Gov. DeSantis and many of his Northwest Florida friends and supporters," Gaetz said.
"We live in a time when our words and our actions follow us everywhere. And Mr. Yenor's background, including his most recent background, did not lend itself well to even the highly conservative population of Northwest Florida."
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