The University of Florida’s new president will be Santa J. Ono, a biomedical researcher lured from the University of Michigan with a large pay package, despite criticism of him that social conservatives had raised.
Ono’s selection was approved unanimously on Tuesday, less than a month after he was named as the sole finalist for the job.
In recent years, the state’s leadership has sought to steer Florida’s education system to the right, and several supporters of President Donald Trump, including Rep. Byron Donalds, a candidate for Florida governor, expressed opposition to Ono because of his past stances on diversity, equity and inclusion.
But the university’s board chair, Mori Hosseini, who has been on a quest to move the college up in national rankings, strongly endorsed Ono.
“He is the right person to accelerate UF’s upward trajectory and help make it the undisputed leader among America’s public universities,” Hosseini said in a message to the Florida community before Tuesday’s meeting.
Ono was chosen after a search to find a permanent successor for Ben Sasse, a Nebraska senator whom Florida recruited in late 2023. He arrived with great expectations but resigned abruptly last summer, little more than a year into his presidency.
After Sasse stepped down, questions were raised about his spending in office. He remains a professor at Florida.
The university has sought to regain its spot as a top-five public university in the rankings published by U.S. News & World Report, a place it held for several years but lost in 2024. It was, perhaps, not surprising that its board looked to hire Ono, who was the president of Michigan, a top-five school.
Ono was born in Vancouver, British Columbia, to Japanese immigrant parents and grew up in Pennsylvania and Maryland, where his father was a math professor. He also holds United States citizenship and degrees from the University of Chicago and McGill University. He was previously the president at the University of British Columbia and the University of Cincinnati.
Before becoming a university administrator, he was known primarily for his work studying juvenile diabetes and macular degeneration. He was also known for advocacy around climate change.
Ono was once a vocal proponent of diversity, equity and inclusion programs, and the University of Michigan, where he became president in 2022, was known for its expansive DEI apparatus.
But Ono recently renounced such programs while at Michigan and in an opinion essay published in Florida newspapers.
“Over time, I saw how DEI became something else — more about ideology, division and bureaucracy, not student success,” he wrote. “That’s why, as president of the University of Michigan, I made the decision to eliminate centralized DEI offices and redirect resources toward academic support and merit-based achievement.”
He said he ended the programs despite opposition. “I’ll bring that same clarity of purpose to UF,” he wrote.
The circulation of Ono’s essay came after an attack from the right, both from Donalds, a Republican, and from Christopher Rufo, a conservative activist who serves on the board of trustees at New College of Florida, another state-funded university. Rufo had found prior statements by Ono that supported DEI programs and reposted them online.
In one social media post, Rufo wrote that Ono was a left-wing administrator who recently declared his support for “DEI 2.0” and claimed that “the climate crisis is the existential challenge of our time.”
Rufo also disseminated a statement Ono made, while president of the University of British Columbia, in support of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender students.
Despite such criticism, Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida supported Ono for the position.
Speaking to the Florida board on Tuesday, Ono specifically addressed the issue.
“I understand that a few individuals have circulated older statements or videos from me regarding DEI programs at the University of Michigan and UBC,” Ono said. “In hindsight, I see those moments differently now, too. What matters most is not what I said two to six years ago, but what I have done in the past year and a half.”
Ono did not renounce his past positions on climate change, but he also told the board he would not use his personal opinions to influence Florida policy. “My goal is to provide the state with the best possible data,” he said.
Details of Ono’s contract have not been disclosed, but the total cash compensation could be as high as $3 million a year, based on a pay range established by the board.
His appointment still technically requires the approval of the state’s Board of Governors, which oversees all of Florida’s public universities.
This article originally appeared in The New York Times. © 2025 The New York Times
