WTW52: New College's Unqualified, Teacher-Hating President
New College, Part 3: The Florida GOP's Attack on Public Schools is Really, Really Bad We continue investigating the New College takeover by looking into the man who was appointed Interim President by the DeSantis Board of Trustees. Who is Richard Corcoran and how did he get this job? How many public school skeletons could this guy have in his closet? For more on the Florida Department of Education-Jefferson County scandal: https://billytownsend.substack.com/p/the-floridadesantisdoe-jefferson https://chartered.wlrn.org/ If you enjoy our work, please consider leaving a 5-star review! You can always email questions, comments, and leads to lydia@seriouspod.com. Please pretty please consider becoming a patron at patreon.com/wherethereswoke!
Anywhere you see diversity, equity, and inclusion, you see Marxism and you see woke principles being pushed.
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The woke monster is here and it's coming for everything.
Instead of go-go boots, the seductress green Eminem will now wear sneakers.
Hello and welcome to Where There's Woke.
This is episode 52.
I'm Thomas.
That's Lydia.
How you doing?
I'm doing okay.
How are you?
I almost said alright and okay combined.
I noticed my mouth doing it.
No, it was like, okay.
Okay.
Yeah, I like that.
Doing okay.
I'm doing okay.
How are you?
I'm doing okay as well.
Let's make sure I remember everything going on.
This is New College 3.
Yep.
So make sure You check out the first two parts, of course.
We had tracked the takeover in part one.
Part two, we talked more about the experience of the students, heavy section on the sports teams, lots of time dedicated to the stats and all that.
And now we're going to talk the money, right?
We're following the, yeah, Steve Banyans.
Now we're going to follow the money.
Yeah, we're going to talk politics, we're going to talk money, we're going to talk Richard mother-effing Corcoran.
All right, well, we're going to find out who that is.
No, that's the president, right?
The new president?
Yeah.
Yeah, new president Richard that guy.
After the break, please go to patreon.com slash where there's woke to not hear commercials and to support the show.
So where'd the money lead you?
Who's profiting most on this thing?
All right.
Well, first of all, I have to do a quick disclaimer.
So as I was doing all of this research into Richard Corcoran, I was thinking, you know, oh, Corcoran, that last name sounds familiar.
And there is someone else in Florida with the last name of Corcoran.
Evan Corcoran.
Yeah.
So I spent a lot of time trying to figure out, are they related?
Because I was like, they have to be.
Yeah, it's definitely a decent chance of that.
Yeah, I was like on Ancestry.com.
I was searching.
Maybe they don't know you're related and you're going to reunite these two right-wing assholes.
Yeah, what is that?
Discovering your roots, like that TV show or whatever.
Yeah, I was searching.
Except these guys are happy that their ancestors were slave owners.
They're like, yes!
Yeah, yeah, exactly.
I can't find any evidence that they are related, but who knows?
If anyone else wants to help me dig, let me know.
I would love to find out for once and for all, even after this series is over, if Richard Corcoran is in fact even a second cousin of Evan Corcoran, the guy who's involved with the records at Mar-a-Lago and turned on Trump.
So, who is Richard Corcoran?
That's who we're talking about today.
Richard Corcoran moved to Florida at age 11.
He was actually born in Canada, and he went to University of Florida, you know, eventually, once he went to college, but he ended up dropping out.
And sometime later, he went to St.
Leo College, religious-affiliated school, graduated in 1989, and then he went to Regent University After that, he was admitted to the Florida Bar a couple years later, I think 1999, and then did, you know, lawyerly jobs and different things like that and started getting involved in politics.
He worked for candidate Marco Rubio in 2006 and then served as his chief of staff from 2006 to 2010.
While he was serving for Marco Rubio, there was pretty lavish spending from the Republican Party of Florida funds, and there was some scrutiny that came up from it.
They asked Richard Corcoran about it, and he was like, oh, there's nothing excessive about this.
But it included, the spending included, an $8,000 meal at the French Laundry.
Yeah.
They don't have another one of those out there, do they?
No.
Yeah, I didn't think so.
They went to Napa, and on the Florida taxpayer's dime, they spent $8,000 there.
Enjoyed a delicious dinner.
$8,000?!
$8,000!
Holy friggin' crap.
But it's not excessive.
If I were a Florida taxpayer, I'd be pretty pissed that I just paid for that.
No kidding.
Yeah.
For Marco Rubio to go eat at French Laundry.
Well, not only that, to spend way more, unless, was it a group of like 20 people?
I don't know.
I mean, it's a pricey place, but it's not that expensive.
An entourage, yeah.
Or you order, you know, a ridiculous bottle of wine or whatever.
Wine, yeah, yeah.
Crazy.
Well, and then, yeah, are they ordering wine on the taxpayers' dollars?
Anyway, that's, you know, this lavish spending.
Wait, that was taxpayers, not a campaign?
Oh, sorry, Republican Party of Florida, so it probably wasn't taxpayers.
Oh, fuck them.
Great, order two bottles of that crap.
Taxpayers.
From there, he joined the Florida House of Representatives in 2010, and he was there from 2010 to 2018.
There's some coverage that a speaker position was sort of promised to him as he entered into the House of Representatives, but he didn't serve as speaker until 2016.
So from 2016 to 2018, he was The speaker, one of his colleagues reported to a news organization that he had been in Florida politics, this individual, for over 20 years.
And he's quoted as saying he, being Richard Corcoran, has flat-picked more fights with more people than anybody I've ever seen before.
And Richard Corcoran was also noted for describing the Florida Teachers Union as disgusting, repugnant, and downright evil.
All quotes.
I'm sorry.
Like, come on.
I know, I know you're anti-union and plenty of people will probably be susceptible to a negative view of a union in Florida.
Sure.
But evil?
Yeah.
Downright evil.
Are they murdering kids?
What do you think they're doing?
What do you think is the purpose of this union?
They're like, we, as part of our negotiations, we should be allowed to eat one kid a year in a satanic ritual.
Well, I'll give you some information about why he feels that way about teachers unions.
He's really into school choice.
His wife, Ann Corcoran, she's a lawyer as well.
She actually founded a classical liberal arts charter school in Florida, and she's active in what's referred to as the Barney Charter School Initiative, which is through Hillsdale College.
Okay, but none of that explains why a teacher's union would be evil.
very hard to increase the presence of charter schools nationwide through this initiative.
And she's a big part of that move in Florida specifically.
Okay, but none of that explains why a teacher's union would be evil.
Sorry, I don't want to hate to be a stickler, but does he have any charges of what the teacher's union is doing that's evil?
No, nothing related to that.
I think he just doesn't like them in general.
So after his time as Speaker in the House, he thought about running for Governor and he worked with a political action committee called Watchdog USA, that was his PAC, and this is the ad they put out for him.
Teachers, they're coming for your children.
They're trying to eat them.
Yeah.
Oh my God, this is amazing.
Just looking at this is amazing.
Well, the first, I don't know what the first image is, but it's just a gun pointing at me.
A young woman gunned down by an illegal immigrant who should have been deported, but was protected by a sanctuary city.
I'm Richard Corcoran.
When I heard Kate Steinle's story, I thought about my own daughter, Kate, and how this could have happened to any family anywhere.
Incredibly, some Tallahassee politicians want to make Florida a sanctuary state.
On my watch, Florida will never be a sanctuary state.
Sponsored by Watchdog Pack.
Oh my God.
Yeah.
Okay.
There's a lot to love about this.
There's a lot of visuals.
Can you please describe it?
I know.
My favorite part is that this quote unquote immigrant is obviously a white dude.
The actor is white because they probably could not find someone non-white to participate in this nonsense.
With like a dark beard.
Yeah.
Yeah.
He didn't shave for a few days.
So, you know, he's definitely a Mexican.
Yeah.
Of course.
This is the best.
Wow.
The acting, right?
Yeah.
Yeah.
You wouldn't think with no lines that you have that opportunity to act that badly, but you do actually.
You can act very badly without saying a word.
It's possible.
Yeah, so he ended up not officially running for governor.
Really?
Yeah, that ad was kind of, you know, poking around seeing, like, if there was interest there, and it actually got panned pretty significantly.
I think people really recognize, like, this is pretty racist.
This is 2017, I guess.
Okay, it would do better now, okay.
Yes, it would do better now.
But the person who did win governor was DeSantis.
And when DeSantis came into office, he appointed Richard Corcoran as the education commissioner.
He was unanimously approved by the Florida Board of Education, which is entirely appointed by the governor.
It's a board of education of people that DeSantis had picked.
And there was some criticism.
One in particular was from a Democratic lawmaker in Florida that said, Richard Corcoran has no professional background in education.
Like, why is he the education commissioner?
And there were also concerns of his conflicts of interest.
As I mentioned, really into school choice, very pro-charter school.
His wife founded a charter school, classically liberal arts charter school, connected to Hillsdale College with the goal to create more charter schools and get rid of public education, essentially.
These connections to classical charters has eventually led even to the state of Florida right now.
This legislative season, they had a bill up and he's no longer affiliated with the Florida House, of course.
Mm-hmm.
He's too busy building sports teams, gathering W's.
But there was a bill that was basically to designate classical charter schools as a distinct entity and they would get preferential treatment for various things.
And teachers that taught there could go a different route.
They wouldn't have to be credentialed through any sort of actual education.
They would receive education that was affiliated with the charter school, and then that would make them able to teach the classically liberal information at the charter school.
So kind of making this really like insular situation.
That passed, unfortunately.
Wow.
Yeah, I just looked that up and yeah, that went through.
So we'll see what the impact is going to be in the years to come.
But he's not the only person, but he is a big reason why Florida and their relationship with charter schools is the way it is.
And we'll get into even more about why that would be.
So is he cozy with Betsy DeVos or do they just share the same hobbies?
I don't know.
He's a big Trump fan, though, so I'm sure he's a big DeVos fan, and maybe there has been some elbow rubbing.
I don't know.
But her name has not popped up anywhere.
We should be careful.
These are allegations only of elbow rub.
We have not personally witnessed any rubbing of elbows.
Right.
Even at French Laundry.
We're not sure.
Maybe they went there.
Who knows?
That's the thing.
They charge extra for the elbow rub.
While he was serving as education commissioner, an opportunity came up to apply for the president for Florida State University.
Florida State?
Yeah, Florida State University.
He applied in 2021 and he was one of nine to be invited for the interviews.
He was like, okay, I don't want to film another ad.
So he tries to make that ad like fit into it.
They want to make Florida University, but no, that doesn't work.
Yeah.
So he was thought to be, I don't want to say a shoo-in, but he was definitely identified as like, oh, this is the political insider.
If DeSantis could just appoint somebody outright, it would be Corcoran.
At the time, people were reporting that.
And it got so concerning that the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools, the entity that accredits FSU sent a letter of concern to the Florida Board of Governors and they said, hey, this is a potential conflict of interest because as education commissioner Corcoran is on the board that appointed the selection committee and would participate in deciding the appointment.
What are you doing?
You can't be in that role and apply to be president for one of the schools that you are commissioner over.
After that happened, he did not make it to the finalists.
And I think the plan was that he would have gone to FSU.
But because that fizzled out, that was 2021 now, they looked for a new opportunity.
How can we get Corcoran in?
We need him to ruin something!
Yeah, yeah, exactly.
But that's not all he got up to while he was education commissioner.
There is actually very recent news right now regarding a federal grand jury tied to things that happened in 2021, or I guess prior to 2021, but it really came to a head with an investigation in 2021.
locally regarding a county in Florida, Jefferson County, that was really struggling.
And this is a county that's up in the panhandle in Monticello, Florida.
High percentage of black students and the school district had been struggling for a while.
And so essentially what the state watched was a takeover from the state.
Going in, taking over the school board, and appointing an external entity to essentially be the schools for this county.
So what ended up happening, they had charter schools come in.
A charter school company come in and take over the public schools.
For this one county?
Like the entire county?
The entire county.
How many schools was that, do you know?
It's a smaller county.
I mean, we're talking about scope and scale, right?
Like they're going to pilot things at the lower level and work their way up.
But I think it is one of the smaller counties in terms of population and fewer schools in that county than a lot of others.
It's not like Miami-Dade.
How did this work?
Did they really like take over the buildings or were they like, OK, now you go to this charter school, child?
No, they took over the buildings.
What the hell?
So they came in and they announced that the state was getting involved, essentially took over the school board, and then the Department of Education launched requests for proposals because there has to be a competitive bidding process.
What came to light during this investigation is that there were conversations with a company before the bid went out.
The company was owned by a former colleague of Richard Corcoran.
And they coordinated to figure out, OK, what is this going to look like to make you stand out, right?
Like to make you win it.
It was called MGT Consultants or something.
And they worked with them.
And then you can't just give it to them.
So then they had to put it out for competitive bid.
But it was obviously shaped to a specific company.
However, it gets even crazier, because then, during that, like, as you were crafting the bid process, two people who worked under Corcoran went and started a company based off of the bid that was going to be happening, and then they submitted during the request for proposal.
And they won.
Oh, so not that company.
No, but two people who worked in the Department of Education.
They coordinated to undermine the bidding process in order to profit.
Wait, I'm sorry, was this a ruse?
No, so Corcoran did not, I don't think Corcoran knew that happened.
I appreciate the unpredictability of this corruption.
It's really, it's like a George R. R. Martin version of corruption.
Yeah.
I don't know what's so, let me get this straight.
First, I was going to play an asshole's advocate, just, it's a role I was born to play.
Yeah.
He didn't have to agree like, okay.
We are married, but yeah, that's fine.
I think both of us have maybe been in the situation where we had a job listing and we're like, hey, somebody who I would prefer to get this job, let me help you a little bit with your resume or, you know, like on a scale, you know, maybe that's inappropriate, but it's more like, all right, it's still going to be a fair process, but some tips for someone who I want to see succeed.
Maybe that's not fair.
I don't know.
But like on a scale of that, I can at least see that as something that is not like super duper corrupt.
Like, how bad was that?
Was it more than just like, here's some pointers on how to get this contract?
No.
So what's frustrating is there's not a lot that has been super publicly shared about this because the state did an investigation, in quotes, and they were like, oh, nothing actually happened here.
Really?
Yeah.
How convenient.
So that's why there's a federal grand jury involved now because they also used COVID money.
From the feds to pay for this charter school.
This guy really is like a collect-em-all of corruption.
Isn't this crazy?
What else can we do that's inappropriate?
But okay, so what was that weird thing then?
So there was a company he was gonna help and that was that actually Corcoran who was gonna help that company get the thing?
So it wasn't, I mean, I don't want to say that we know that Corcoran was going to help, right?
But it was a former colleague of his that owns that company.
And there is evidence that they shaped the bid to benefit that company in particular.
Shaped the bid?
Sorry, not the bid, the bidding process.
Oh, gotcha.
To benefit that individual company.
But then the fake out happened.
But then the fake out happened.
Now is that tied to Corcoran at all or no?
You know, I don't know.
I am trying to figure this out, too.
Yeah, if it's an active investigation, then maybe we... It is.
And if folks want to follow along with me as I follow this forever for the rest of my life, there's a... There's a docket.
Billy Townsend over on Substack, his Substack is called Public Enemy Number One.
He is a former Polk County, out in Florida, school board member, and he's been covering this very thoroughly.
And so I recommend everybody check out his coverage for even more details, because there's, there is just so much here about what's going on.
Okay, but to be clear, neither of those things, we don't really have like solid evidence that that's tied to Corcoran at all, do we?
Not necessarily.
Being fair.
Yeah, no, of course.
I think what we do know is that one of the individuals, so I'm just going to name names.
Yeah, it's out there.
Vice Chancellor of Strategic Improvement Melissa Ramsey and State Board Member Richard, who went by Andy, Tuck.
They created basically a fake company to try and get state contracts.
The bid specifically said that they were looking for vendors who have a demonstrated experience with successfully operating schools of similar status.
The company that won was started in August of that year.
Yeah, yeah, there you go.
So it was two months, probably three months.
And they're about yay high, the answer to the name up.
Yeah, yeah.
That's who we're looking for.
Okay.
So this is just incredibly corrupt, and I can't imagine that, I mean, yeah, maybe he had no idea that this was going on.
Yeah, is it a case of like, oh, they both tried to be corrupt, but only one corrupt person could win in this situation?
Yeah, it could be.
It could be.
And now all of Corcoran's potential stuff was coming to light because of the investigation based off of those two.
So Melissa Ramsey resigned basically immediately.
She resigned the same day that she was interviewed by the inspector general investigators, November 22nd.
She lied twice in her testimony that they caught like on the spot and she was like, all right, I'm resigning.
I hear Starbucks is hiring.
I'm out of here.
Yeah, and then Tuck, Andy Tuck, who is the board of education member who was involved in this, agreed to meet with investigators on November 17th and then he talked to a lawyer and he was like, oh never mind and never interviewed.
He just resigned and retroactive to the day before he was meant to have interviewed.
Why would that matter?
It says for some reason.
Nobody knows.
I'm sure whoever his lawyer is told him to do that.
So the OIG considers the investigation closed.
They're like, those were the two bad actors.
They're gone.
But clearly, there is other stuff that's happening.
Again, because this was related to COVID dollars and Corcoran is not named in the federal grand jury, but there are documents from his time as commissioner that are going to be called into question here.
And I think what's even more surprising Is that the counsel who's representing him for this federal grand jury investigation, even though he's not a named individual, he is going to be implicated to some degree with regard to discovery.
And the person who is his counsel is the counsel for New College of Florida.
So he doesn't have personal counsel.
The college is paying for this.
Oh, wow.
Isn't that crazy?
Yeah, that seems weird.
It's not related to your college at all, right?
It's not.
It seems so shady.
It's like, yeah, it's weird.
Grift.
Sounds like grift.
Liability.
Yeah.
So all that was happening.
And shortly after, so I mentioned the inspector general was, you know, doing those interviews November and then those folks resigned.
Richard Corcoran resigned shortly after that.
Hmm.
Interesting.
He resigned December 2022, and he said in an interview that he was really looking forward to going back to being a private citizen.
He planned to spend more time with his wife and his six kids.
Yeah, I would like to corruption with my family and she'll help me.
Yeah, yeah.
I'm going to focus on corrupting my family.
And 10 months after that, he's named the interim president for New College of Florida.
10 months after he resigned as commissioner.
Makes his statement.
All right, bored of my family.
Yeah, that was enough.
That was enough.
God, how do people do it?
Anyway, okay, I'm back at work.
So that brought me to my question, why is he president?
Well, it's a sterling resume of nothing.
Yeah, of trying to be president at FSU and not getting it.
Being grifty and arguably.
Yeah, there's also other grifts.
Being investigated?
Maybe?
Ron DeSantis is like, hey, I need someone who's really used to being investigated.
Yeah, exactly.
That's the skill set we need here at New College, because this is a crime.
Yeah.
One, there's also allegations of potential grift related to his brother.
His brother is also, I think he's also a lawyer, but he runs a major lobbying firm.
And there was significant money that got paid out to victims of something.
I don't recall exactly what it was, because this was like a little side story.
But the analysis showed that it was something like 47 percent of the victims were being represented by Richard Corcoran's brother.
And so how much money is he getting paid from representing folks in that situation?
And they were getting state money as part of that payout.
So, I don't know.
There's a lot of weird things going on, and now we get to New College.
God, whenever you look into any of this, it just makes me wonder, is all of government just corruption?
And it's probably a selection effect, like I'm sure there's plenty of...
Local comp-trollers that are just comp-trolling, you know, they're just out there, they just wake up.
I comp-troll, I put on my stance one leg at a time, and I comp-troll just like I'm supposed to.
Just like it says in the job description of comp-troller.
A job I don't understand the name of.
It makes me wish we had more local newspapers still, because they actually care about this stuff.
Because wow, that's just one corrupt thingy after another.
I know, I know.
And again, shout out to local journalism, because I wouldn't have been able to put a lot of this together without them.
They are really following a lot of this stuff specifically, and I'm here just trying to spread the word.
They're doing great work out in Florida at these news offices.
So we get to New College of Florida.
What we know is Ron DeSantis took over the school board.
Ron DeSantis could not appoint a president, but the school board does, right?
I think I've heard about this on a podcast.
There is someone by the name of Robert Allen, and he came out.
I don't know why he started saying this.
I think maybe he was speaking with friends, but there was coverage that he said to multiple alumni that shaking up New College's board wasn't on DeSantis' radar until he raised the issue with the governor.
It was me.
I want New College to know.
Yeah, when I first read that, I was like, okay, this is a crazy person.
Like, just trying to insert themselves.
He's a yacht lawyer, so he's kind of weird.
Yeah, he covers the law of yacht.
That person's guaranteed to be an asshole.
Yes, yeah, he really is.
And, oh man, okay, I'm going to send you a picture of him, just so you have his face in your mind while we talk.
Side note, it kind of looks like somebody, and I wonder if you'll think the same.
Oh, yeah, wow.
Does it look like Todd?
Yeah, that's our neighbor Todd.
So you sent me a photo of our neighbor Todd with President Trump.
I, for one, am pretty disappointed.
But, you know, you can't really choose your neighbors.
They are who they are.
Todd's so great, too.
I'm so sad.
So this is, yeah, Bob Allen, again, Mr. Yacht Lawyer, who is with President Trump.
There's a hundred percent chance that guy sucks.
It's weird.
There's not a lot of jobs where if you tell me what the job is like, oh, you suck?
There's some yacht lawyer.
There's nothing and less and less.
Somehow that means he's like, yeah, yachts, destroying the environment.
I go around and I sue yachts.
Yeah.
I don't think that's going to be what it is.
No, no, it's not.
Probably be the opposite of that.
I sue the environment.
He had like this one presentation I was watching a little bit where he was like, it's going to be a good year for yachts.
I was like, what?
I just want that, like, quote under his picture.
It's gonna be a good year for ya.
I can't think of anything, like, more worthless to society.
God.
Well, Florida.
I mean, I'm sure it's big there.
What a weird set of life values to have.
It is.
So this picture with Donald Trump, just so everyone knows what it says.
It says, Happy Father's Day, President Trump.
Is that his dad?
I know!
Hashtag Father's Day.
Hashtag God bless America.
Hashtag freedom.
Hashtag America.
Do you just post a picture?
Amazing.
You don't just like post a picture of a dad.
I'm going to find a, it's just a kiss ass bullshit thing.
Happy Father's Day.
and it's a picture of you with...
This guy's amazing.
He is amazing.
Bob Allen is a New College alum.
So the pieces are starting to fit together.
Initially, I was like, OK, this is just a crazy yacht lawyer guy who loves Trump.
How could you go to New College, get a liberal arts education and become a yacht lawyer?
Wait a second.
Yeah, it's almost as if you could pursue whatever you wanted to pursue there because they weren't indoctrinating folks.
That is also a good point, but also how the fuck did that happen?
Yeah, why did he go there?
Well, because yacht lawyer, maybe he's the only one in the world because he did an individualized major that helped him become a yacht lawyer at New College.
He goes to his academic advisor.
Yeah, I have a certain set of interests.
Yacht history 101.
So there's another new college alum that was interviewed and he said if Bob is to be believed, he's the one who brought it to DeSantis's attention that there were vacancies on the new college board where he could move in there and do whatever DeSantis wants to do.
This is an alumni who knew Bob Allen socially when they were college students together and recently had spoken with Bob about the takeover effort.
So as I'm reading this, I'm like, OK, I think he might have actually done this.
And coverage continues to talk to someone who we had a very short romance with, Eddie Speer, one of the trustees that DeSantis appointed, the only one that showed up to the Senate and the only one that didn't get confirmed.
Oh, that's right.
Yeah.
So he said that he and Allen communicate frequently and Allen has been trying, Bob Allen has been trying to act as an advisor and in quotes, I'd be foolish not to listen to him.
Bob Allen has a child who plays tennis at the Bradenton School founded by Spear, the Christian school.
And Bob Allen encouraged Eddie Spear to apply to become a trustee.
Deborah Jenks, the chair, who is the Floridian, like the lone Floridian I talked about, that's on the board, she is an attorney with Bob Allen on the Judicial Nominating Commission for Florida's 4th District Court of Appeals.
So there's a connection there.
And DeSantis had appointed Bob Allen to the position in 2019.
All these people know each other.
They all know each other.
And Bob Allen spoke to DeSantis's office.
And I am not going to say allegedly.
I know he did because there are text messages of him coordinating this.
Wow.
And I didn't want to spoil that.
But this is pretty crazy.
Hey man, wanna do some corruption?
P.S.
Yachts!
Hashtag Yachtsy!
Gonna be a great year for yachts!
So, here we go.
New College of Florida, lest the politicians in Florida forget, is a public institution and is subject to public records requests.
Someone got text messages via the public records request, and they show Bob Allen acting as a liaison between DeSantis and the board members during the takeover.
On January 9th, Allen texted holdover board member Sarah Mackey and asked her to please call me.
Alex Kelly from the governor's office would like to speak to you.
We'll call you as soon as I get a break, Mackey responded.
Sorry, who's any of these people?
So she's a board member.
She was one of the ones that DeSantis didn't appoint because she was still on the board.
Oh, okay, and so this is Yacht Enthusiasts texting?
Yes, Alan texting them.
And so the theory is just to, and it's a lot of names, I get confused, probably every listener is like, Thomas, we all get it, it's fine, but I just get confused when there's a lot of names.
So Yachtman is trying to coordinate, allegedly, like you saw him bragging about the takeover and like it was his idea.
Yeah.
And at first you're like, what the fuck are you talking about, Yachtman?
And then now it's like, wow, shit, this is him assembling the A-team to ruin this, maybe?
Yeah, so I think what this is, is him not just assembling the A-team, because this is after DeSantis, you know, appointed his six folks.
This is him talking to the people who remained on the board still.
But I thought you said the claim he made was that the takeover was, like, New College wasn't on the radar until he...
That is the claim.
So we don't have text messages between Alan and DeSantis.
Gotcha.
So this doesn't really answer that question.
Right.
It's just about his involvement after that.
Okay.
Right.
And he is very, very involved.
You'll remember in the first episode when we talked a bit about the timeline, January 31st, they fired the former president and on February 1st, Right, that was like their first vote, right?
- The first vote, right? - The first vote, very, very first meeting.
On February 1st, Bob Allen texted Ron Cristaldi, who's on the board, spoke again with Corcoran.
We are going to knock it out of the park.
So he had been talking with Corcoran prior to him- - Yacht emoji, yacht emoji. - Yeah.
Indicates that individuals were communicating with new college board members about public business and people only know about this because of the public records requests.
New College was not going to release these.
They were trying to not.
They were stalling and then there was a lawsuit filed and that's when they released a certain selection.
Can we get in on this?
I want to request stuff too.
I know.
But what is especially concerning here is that there are things called sunshine laws.
Right.
The board is supposed to be operating in the sunshine.
Everything is supposed to be public.
All of these text messages of them coordinating decisions and votes and how things are going to line up, that is illegal.
Part of some sort of record, you would think, that would, yeah.
Yeah.
This should have been board business.
Yeah.
That should have happened out in public.
On a yacht with a drink.
But written down.
Yeah.
So we have this stuff that's just, man, it's just... Give us some hints.
Again, you know, we only have selections of these texts.
Really?
Yeah.
New College tried to say that these aren't public.
Public privilege and stuff?
Yeah.
Not even privilege.
I think they're saying, like, it's not necessarily, like, public board business.
Oh, private conversations.
They're private personal communications.
Eddie Spear, you know, again, said he had a lot of conversations with Allen, and I spoke about him taking his advice.
Like, why wouldn't I take his advice?
Bob Allen had served on the board previously, so he, you know, had the ins and outs.
He knew a lot of things.
And then when they asked Spear if he had spoken to Bob Allen about Corcoran as interim president, Spear just said, perhaps.
Concerning.
In addition to texting some of the board members, he also sent an email to board members on January 26.
He sent it to the six board members appointed by DeSantis and a couple others, and he gave feedback based off of town hall discussions that Speer and Ruffo did on campus.
Question.
He didn't send it to the whole board?
No.
That seems like you would want to do that.
Yeah, and then he sent another email forwarding a column from a conservative new college graduate, someone who was saying like, this is a good move, the college is overdue for a reset.
And then in the email, Alan says, please don't respond, except if you do so only to me given Florida's sunshine law.
That's a bad document.
Yeah.
Wow.
Okay.
Then we have Matthew Spaulding.
Matthew Spaulding is the president of the Washington, D.C. campus of Hillsdale College.
How many fucking campuses these assholes have?
Yeah.
Well, I think they, I want to say they just have two, but they have like the charter schools and all these things that they like help lift up, but I could be wrong.
And there are text messages showing him coordinating with individuals behind the scenes on the motions that he was going to make.
Including texting with Richard Corcoran himself.
Well, I'll say with a person whose contact is RC, who appears to be Corcoran.
And the text says, from RC, motion is, I start no later than March 1st.
I may start earlier.
That text was sent January 31st.
The same day that they voted to fire the president.
And then Spaulding is the one that made the motion to negotiate with Corcoran to become interim president.
Someone named Kelly, who we think is from Ron DeSantis's office, was texting with Spaulding, Matt Spaulding, regarding counsel, specifically Galvano, who now represents Richard Corcoran in this federal grand jury situation.
Okay, asshole's advocate once again.
Okay.
It's not as though they nominate someone who's unknown that they're even getting nominated.
They're like, you sir, you're president!
And they're like, me?
Assholes advocate once again.
Okay.
It's not as though they nominate someone who's unknown that they're even getting nominated.
They're like, you, sir, you're president.
And they're like, me?
Why?
I've never even heard of you.
Is there some amount of this that's actually totally reasonable?
Or is it just that it wasn't in the record?
I don't know.
This isn't a law show, but I guess I'm not sure.
If we put some sinister music behind this, it sounds really sinister, but I don't know if some of this is totally fine.
Yeah, I mean, it could be.
I would say that, I don't know.
I don't know all the exact rules that should be happening here.
I haven't served in any sort of capacity in that way.
But I think that all of this stuff should have been happening out in view of the public and Someone, you know, that could have been the January 31st meeting instead of firing the president right away.
They could have talked about or even fired her and said that you can serve until, you know, a suitable replacement has been found.
Let's take some thoughts from the group on folks that we could talk to to pursue an interim agreement.
And then someone could have thrown out Richard Corcoran's name at that point.
Kind of lining that up before all of those things, and then Richard Corcoran saying, I'll start when I want to start, make the motion March 1st, and then I might just start earlier.
It just seems so weird.
I mean, that's negotiating a starting date of a job, though.
Before he's named as interim president?
Before he's even suggested as interim president.
Yeah, that all makes sense.
You don't just tell someone you're going to be interim president and you're starting on this date?
No, no.
But I think the way that it should be, and I'm sure we'll hear from folks if they have experience with this.
Well, it's going to be specific to whatever the fuck this thing is.
Yeah.
But I would think that, again, you would throw out names during that conversation.
Again, that's all in public.
Or that it could be directing the board to go out and return with ideas for interim presidents.
But none of that happened.
Took over the board and their very first meeting.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And I was going to say, if there's a sense in which, like, negotiations were staged, that could be super corrupt.
If it's, like, the board's responsibility to try to negotiate some sort of competitive salary and then they were behind the scenes, like, doing it, that could, you know, that could be something different, I guess.
Mm-hmm.
You know, and Bob Allen himself, like, if it weren't just the text messages and his other alumni friends, he's very active, I guess, in the new college Facebook alumni page.
Like, he's stirring debate and is really rude.
I think he's been banned a few times and then has come back into the group.
He said that to preserve New College, I recommended the governor fill the vacancies.
He did so.
And what we see then from there, Richard Corcoran is appointed the interim president and not just at the previous president's salary.
I think she was getting $299,000 a year.
He got that same day.
$699,000 a year.
He got that same day.
The salary was $699,000.
Whoa.
Yeah.
Why?
As interim president, he gets $83,000 in a housing stipend, $12,000 car allowance, and $699,000 in base compensation.
For a year for president?
Yeah.
Of this 700-person school?
Yep.
Yep.
Wow.
Yeah.
Isn't that crazy?
$699,000 in base compensation.
A year for president?
Yeah.
Of this 700-person school?
Yep.
Wow.
Yeah.
Isn't that crazy?
That's a lot of money.
What we see then from there after he makes that money is his efforts to change new college.
Plus his lawyer covered, right?
Yeah, and his lawyer covered for federal grand jury.
Yeah, that's a shitload of money, I'll tell you that.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Futuristic sound effects.
Wow, here we are in our time machine.
Beep boop beep boop.
I don't know, what sounds would it make?
Your sound effect was better than mine.
I just said beep boop beep.
Yeah, I think the odds of a time machine making that sound is probably zero.
Mine is at least like, I don't know, .00001%.
Not if I'm in charge of making them.
Boop boop boop boop!
Maybe when you punch in the numbers of where you're trying to go.
For some reason.
Anyway, we're here from the future because Lydia had so much amazing crap on this that we went much longer than we thought.
And so we're cutting in here for a part one.
Part two is a little bit longer, but this was kind of the best place to cut it off.
So while we just discussed how much fucking money that fucking asshole is making, what can we expect in part two?
A little teaser.
Yeah, part two, you know, he's making that money as interim president.
Part two, we're going to be looking at searching for a president.
Yeah, let's find a real president.
Let's find a real one.
Because interim, he's probably just filling in for a minute, you know.
Yeah, a couple months.
Okay.
We'll see how that all went.
Plus some amazing comedy.
You're not going to believe it.
You're not going to want to miss it.
You're not going to, literally, you're not going to believe it.
There's like actual standup comedy from people involved in this fucking story.
It's amazing.
I can't, seriously, you got to check out the next part.
Sorry to cut it off here, but it's a doozy.
And so we're going to hop back in the time machine.
We'll blend our sounds.
That way we're in the same one.
Yeah.
Oh, that's nice.
All right.
Let's get out of this.
Beep boop beep.
We'll see everyone for part two.
Thank you so much for supporting the show at patreon.com slash where there's woke.
Oh, also speaking of patreon.com slash where there's woke, we just released a bonus and it was amazing.
It was, and now patrons, I'm sure you've already heard it.
If you haven't, get on it.
It was another bullshit lawsuit by a bullshit law professor who's an asshole.
It's weird.
It's a genre.
Somehow it's a genre of dub dub.
It's amazing.
You're not going to want to miss it.
Lydia takes us through the actual complaint and the stuff that went on with Scott Gerber, our second asshole, egomaniacal law professor we've covered on this show.
He once was lightly touched by someone on the shoulder and lost his fucking mind.
Yes.
So you've got to check that out.
That's on patreon.com slash where there's woke.
And so many fun things I attached for everybody too.
So they can take a look at all the documents they want.
All right.
Let's fill up this time machine with time machine gas and get on out of here.
Oh, it's so expensive.
God damn.
That's really expensive.
Is there an electric one yet?
No.
All right.
Well, we'll see you all next episode for part two.
- Bye. - First, I was gonna play I was gonna play Asshole's Advocate.
Just, uh, it's a role I was born to play.
Yeah.
He didn't have to agree like, okay, we are married, but yeah, that's fine.
