“Safe to Pee.” That was just one wacky woke initiative Stuart R. Bell oversaw as president of the University of Alabama, in this case to prevent “discrimination against gender variant people in public restrooms.”
Earlier this month, a search committee at the University of Florida—the flagship institution of the state where Gov. Ron DeSantis says “woke goes to die”— unanimously recommended Bell as the sole candidate to be UF’s next president. DeSantis almost immediately endorsed him as a “great selection” who enjoys his “full support.”
Say it ain’t so, Ron! The critics are out, and so is the déjà-vu.
Less than a year ago, UF picked former University of Michigan president Santa J. Ono to take the top job in Gainesville. Ono, who was poised to make $3 million a year at UF – almost twice his Michigan salary – claimed a sudden conversion from his DEI-saturated past. Not everybody was fooled. After sailing through the search committee and UF’s Board of Trustees, the Florida state university system’s Board of Governors nixed his candidacy in a 10-6 vote.
The stakes are higher now. UF’s rebuffed trustees whined about Ono’s rejection, alleging the Board of Governors overstepped its role despite state constitutional language suggesting otherwise. Now they seem to want to try again with Bell, who implemented DEI policies at Alabama.
As soon as he became president, the university launched a DEI-infused program building on an earlier commitment to “diversity as part of its educational mission.” This included race-based recruitment programs for students and faculty, which are now illegal.
In 2017, Bell hired G. Christine Taylor, a DEI guru, as Alabama’s new vice president and associate provost for DEI, a job paying nearly $300,000. Taylor was joined by 30 other DEI personnel, including DEI deans in six of Alabama’s nine colleges, at an estimated payroll cost of $2 million per year. The university boasted that 36% of undergraduate courses were “diversity-related” and hosted what Bell said were “over 70 student organizations which have diversity and inclusion as a focus.”
Between 2016 and 2021, whites in Alabama’s student body fell by 10% while the percentage of blacks and Hispanics nearly doubled. In 2022, Alabama won an award for DEI excellence.
Under Bell, Alabama renamed campus buildings that honored distinguished whites in favor of blacks, an action some have alleged violated a state law on the preservation of public monuments. The university opened a dedicated “Intercultural Diversity Center,” a “Hate & Bias Hotline” for denunciations of alleged discriminatory conduct, and, yes, the “Safe to Pee” initiative, which appears designed to make sure biological men can freely urinate in campus ladies’ rooms.
What happened to reading, writing, and ‘rithmetic, you might ask? Among national universities, Alabama’s US News & World Report ranking tumbled from 88th place when Bell arrived in 2015 to 169 th when he left in 2025. Some achievement!
After Alabama’s legislature banned DEI in universities in 2024, Bell appears to have kept many of his policies and personnel in place but renamed them, a common ruse in academic institutions. In a statement no longer available on Alabama’s website, Bell promised that nothing would change.
Taylor retained her lucrative job under a new title, “Vice President and Associate Vice Provost Opportunity, Connections and Success.” Alabama’s Intercultural Diversity Center became simply its “Intercultural Center.” Who knows where men masquerading as women can pee?
Bell is heavily championed by UF’s Board of Trustees chairman Morteza “Mori” Hosseini, an Iranian immigrant and state-level Republican donor who also championed Ono. Bell’s “academic achievements and experience at a flagship state university makes [sic] him the obvious chose to lead UF going forward,” Hosseini dubiously said in a press release.
Authorities are taking notice. Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.) wants to know why UF’s interim president Donald Landry’s contract gives him a $2 million payoff if he is not hired permanently. Landry spent his year on campus promoting institutional neutrality, campus free speech, and the elimination of DEI—all things
Floridians voted for.
Education Secretary Linda McMahon, whose department can suspend federal funds to universities on civil rights grounds, posted that “UF deserves a president who will continue to drive [anti-DEI] reforms.” Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights Harmeet Dhillon, whose office has sued universities for civil rights violations, posted a potentially ominous “Uh oh” when the UF story first broke.
Florida Board of Governors chairman Alan Levine has asked whether Hosseini overstepped his authority in the selection process. If DeSantis has any regard for his legacy and political future, he should scrap this boondoggle now and tell Stuart Bell not to pee on our legs and tell us it’s raining.
Paul du Quenoy is President of the Palm Beach Freedom Institute.
This story originally appeared on NYPost
