It is appalling, unprecedented and dangerous that New College of Florida President Richard Corcoran is threatening to withhold degrees to students after they’ve already graduated. This cruel and unusual threat seems to be Corcoran’s response to being embarrassed when a prominent New College donor gave a commencement speech that wasn’t well received by students – or even capable of being heard by the audience due to the college’s own massive audio problems at the event.

The Herald-Tribune reported that some New College students booed the speaker, billionaire TD Ameritrade founder Joe Ricketts, during “a technical difficulty-filled speech cut off early” by Corcoran. While this description is accurate, understanding how this came to be requires context.

More: New College of Florida graduation: Boos for Joe Ricketts, cheers for student president

The school’s administration put itself in this position through a combination of hubris and incompetence.

Corcoran and the New College of Florida Board of Trustees have spent the past 16 months bullying students, faculty and alumni. Using the term “bullying” might seem hyperbolic until you consider the administration’s numerous actions and statements that have created – and continue to intensify – a divisive environment. Individually, these injustices don’t seem so bad, but collectively they add up to an atmosphere of contempt.

More: New College’s ceremony was a joyful event. But then juvenile ‘rebels’ took away the joy.

Since their arrival on campus in early 2023, New College’s leaders have repeatedly marginalized returning students and belittled their work – all while simultaneously falling over themselves to take credit for the accomplishments of those students.

In fact, New College’s leaders actively courted Ricketts to become the sponsor of an online degree program that could be viewed as diluting New College’s reputation as Florida’s Honors College. This degree program was imposed without any review by New College’s faculty members, who overwhelmingly voted against its implementation. In reality, the hasty adoption of unvetted pet programs poses a real risk to the future value of a New College diploma.

In addition, the administration has:

• Destroyed student artwork.

• Weaponized the school’s Code of Conduct by threatening returning students with expulsion for the “crime” of vocal dissent.

• Denied tenure to qualified faculty – and did so seemingly to serve as a warning to others.

• Treated returning students as second-class citizens in terms of housing, scholarships and student activities.

• Acted in an openly combative manner toward students whose gender and sexual identities do not conform to its ideal.

• Continued to recruit large numbers of incoming students despite knowing it has neither the academic nor structural capacity to handle them.

• Asked the Board of Governors to reduce its four-year graduation metric from 67% to 50%

• Adopted an antagonistic approach toward existing academic staff – so much so that at least 40% of the faculty has left the school (which, ironically, made it difficult for the recently graduated students to finish their degrees).

More: New College of Florida’s students are being treated like political pawns. Again.

Finally, and perhaps most importantly, the administration has been filling senior leadership positions with unqualified Tallahassee insiders and yes-men (and their spouses). The negative effect of this exodus of qualified staff was on display during the ceremony when the audience was seated facing directly into the sun, the sound system was barely functional and those on stage struggled to hand out diplomas.

More: New College gave Richard Corcoran a $200,000 bonus. Here’s how he can prove he deserves it.

Given its past behavior, hostile posture and penchant for political theater, it is no surprise that the New College of Florida administration, humiliated by its inability to organize a graduation ceremony or to suppress public dissent, is seeking to directly target students – and has issued an unprecedented and dangerous threat to withhold the degrees that students have already earned.

The members of the Novo Collegian Alliance urge New College’s current leaders to reflect on their responsibility for good governance and duty of care for all students – whether aligned with their ideological vision or not – and to not pursue this disproportionate, cruel and unusual response.

William Rosenberg is president of the Novo Collegian Alliance and a 1980 graduate of New College of Florida.

This article originally appeared on Sarasota Herald-Tribune: New College’s inept leaders are using students as scapegoats