Chuck Clemons named UF Vice President for Government and Community Relations
Staff report from UF Administrative Memo
GAINESVILLE, Fla. – Former State Representative Chuck Clemons has been appointed as the University of Florida Vice President for Government and Community Relations, effective July 1, 2025.
According to a memorandum from UF Interim President Kent Fuchs, Clemons brings decades of experience in public service, leadership, and advocacy to the role. A longtime public servant and UF alumnus, he recently concluded his tenure in the Florida House of Representatives, where he represented the Gainesville area, served as a key leader on education and appropriations policy, and chaired the Gator Caucus. During his time in the Legislature, Clemons pushed major investments in the State University System and was a champion of legislation protecting free speech on college campuses.
Clemons’s career includes 17 years of distinguished service in Santa Fe College’s administration, from which he retired in December, and seven years in the federal government, including a presidential appointment to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. His experience across local and state government, higher education, and community engagement will be instrumental in advancing UF’s priorities and partnerships.
While attending UF as an undergraduate, Clemons was active on campus, including membership in Florida Blue Key and serving as president of Alpha Gamma Rho fraternity. His wife and son both attended UF as well.
In his new position, Clemons will lead the university’s government relations efforts at the local, state, and federal levels and oversee UF’s community engagement strategy. His deep understanding of the legislative process and well-established relationships across Florida will help further advance the university’s mission and impact.
“Chuck Clemons has been a steadfast advocate for higher education and a tireless champion for the University of Florida throughout his career,” said Mori Hosseini, chair of the UF Board of Trustees. “His deep understanding of the legislative process and his commitment to public service make him exceptionally well-suited for this role. I am confident he will help elevate UF’s impact across the state and ensure our voice remains strong in Tallahassee and beyond.”
Chuck said he’s ready to get started. “I look forward to helping build a strong coalition focused on advancing the legislative and community best interests of my alma mater without regard for political party,” he said. “The University of Florida is a treasure for the state of Florida, and I’m eager to do my part to help it reach its fullest potential.”
What is UF thinking? He is banned from lobbying and most of the Gainesville community doesn’t like him.
So the two parts of the job requirement he can’t do.
I still have his signs in my garage. He is a good man and actually cares about rate payers of GRU and not bankrupting the power company so the city has a slush fund to abuse…
UF is thinking “bend over and pretend you like politicians taking over our previously highly ranked university system”
Maybe FSU will hire your buddy gillum
Let’s go!! So happy for Chuck.
Chuck Clemons for UF president.. DeSantis make it happen!
Sure, no doubt will be a prolific research money hawk, what with his deep ties to the academic and scientific community, not to mention his experience running billion dollar entities with many thousands of employees.
What could go wrong (watch UWF, FAU, FAMU, FIU, and New College to see)?
Perfect choice. Better than the freak gillum
I’m sure Fuchs is working his poor fingers to the bone right now, staying up late, digging up all the great research grants, getting UF elevated to the top JD Power whatever they want to call themselves next…..lol.
Time to send the entrenched UF leftoid commies TO HELL!
Do you realize you sound deranged?
Scandalous.
Hey, Chuck will fit right in with the new UF. At least we don;t have DEI! From today’s NYTs (boy, UF couldn’t pay for this kind of publicity)
“Preston Damsky is a law student at the University of Florida. He is also a white nationalist and antisemite. Last fall, he took a seminar taught by a federal judge on “originalism,” the legal theory favored by many conservatives that seeks to interpret the Constitution based on its meaning when it was adopted.
In his capstone paper for the class, Mr. Damsky argued that the framers had intended for the phrase “We the People,” in the Constitution’s preamble, to refer exclusively to white people. From there, he argued for the removal of voting rights protections for nonwhites, and for the issuance of shoot-to-kill orders against “criminal infiltrators at the border.”
Turning over the country to “a nonwhite majority,” Mr. Damsky wrote, would constitute a “terrible crime.” White people, he warned, “cannot be expected to meekly swallow this demographic assault on their sovereignty.”
At the end of the semester, Mr. Damsky, 29, was given the “book award,” which designated him as the best student in the class. According to the syllabus, the capstone counted the most toward final grades.
The Trump-nominated judge who taught the class, John L. Badalamenti, declined to comment for this article, and does not appear to have publicly discussed why he chose Mr. Damsky for the award….”
You’re falling apart jazzman. You haven’t been able to keep a comment on point in weeks! All you do is bounce around in DNC-talking-points-land. Stay on topic for once! You’re neutering yourself
It’s news Slice, not a talking point. Or you think it’s OK for the state GOP to police any thoughts about DEI on campus while giving out awards for blatant and exclusionary racist papers?
Why don’t you defend that if you think so instead of trying to attack me? Obviously if you could – you can’t – you’d do that.
Again, your comment had nothing to do with the article…it doesn’t matter if NYT published “news” about a “racist”. I wouldn’t care if a Black Hebrew Israelite wrote a paper at UF either…I’m okay with hearing all opinions. Let Muslims write papers, let Jews write papers. Let the KKK write papers, let BLM write papers. Let commies and fascists write papers. That’s what happens at institutions of higher education.
Also, no one is policing ‘DEI’. It’s just no longer being funded by government. So talk all you want about that nonsense but don’t expect to get funded for it here!
It’s about UF and it’s take over by state GOP political correctness.
No, you can’t talk about DEI on campus anymore – forbidden speech. In the name of “free speech” however, you can get an award for writing a paper that would make Hitler blush.
“In January, Carliss Chatman, an associate law professor at Southern Methodist University, began a stint as a visiting scholar at the school. It was not long, she said, before a number of Black and Jewish students came to her with concerns about Mr. Damsky.
Ms. Chatman was struck, in part, by her own experiences at the school in contrast to Mr. Damsky’s award. She had proposed teaching a class during her time there called “Race, Entrepreneurship and Inequality.” But administrators at the law school changed the name to “Entrepreneurship,” she said, before listing it in the course catalog.
She attributed the change to Florida lawmakers’ crackdown on diversity-oriented language and themes in public education, a push that preceded the Trump administration’s broader war on progressive ideology.
“I just find it fascinating that this student can write an article, a series of articles that are essentially manifestoes, and that’s free speech,” Ms. Chatman said, referring to Mr. Damsky, “but my class can’t be called ‘Race, Entrepreneurship and Inequality.’”..”
Same article
It’s about UF Slice and it’s take over by right wing political hacks, who indeed are policing all our schools, including the universities.
From the same article:
“Ms. Chatman was struck, in part, by her own experiences at the school in contrast to Mr. Damsky’s award. She had proposed teaching a class during her time there called “Race, Entrepreneurship and Inequality.” But administrators at the law school changed the name to “Entrepreneurship,” she said, before listing it in the course catalog.
She attributed the change to Florida lawmakers’ crackdown on diversity-oriented language and themes in public education, a push that preceded the Trump administration’s broader war on progressive ideology.
“I just find it fascinating that this student can write an article, a series of articles that are essentially manifestoes, and that’s free speech,” Ms. Chatman said, referring to Mr. Damsky, “but my class can’t be called ‘Race, Entrepreneurship and Inequality.’” ”
So, stupid ignorant racist screed that would make Hitler blush? Get an award. Start any discussion about race or inequality? No! and persist and get fired.
Jazzman, you are comparing a student to a professor. Students should be able to write whatever they want. Professors are not paid to wax poetically about their feelings…they must follow a basic curriculum if they want a state job. The state is not funding DEI…why is this so hard to understand.
You are intentionally mixing students and teachers.
Slice, you actually bring up a good point and an important one, but it is not that clear cut. Once the law professor gave this student an award which was primarily based on his racist paper, he endorsed at a minimum the acceptability of it’s NAZI (the writer agreed with that description) positions.
In contrast, a course described as reviewing the effects of race on entrepreneurship – and would anyone deny there is an affect, historical or current – was deemed not appropriate at UF.
“Academic freedom” means just that, and is not limited to “student freedom” or they should be teaching the courses. If teaching and discussing race and inequality are forbidden, but giving awards to self described Nazis, something is seriously wrong at UF, and it is entirely new and introduced and enforced by the politicians now calling the shots, and now becoming the overpaid and under qualified presidents at one Florida university after another, and dollars to donuts, at UF AGAIN.
Wow Jazzman, UF really has gone down the drain. As an alumnus, I find this heartbreaking. DeSantis and fellow opportunists/hypocrites have been degrading UF for years. I was actually shocked and mildly optimistic when the puppet populated BOT unanimously selected Ono, he actually had the requisite CV for the job. Of course the equally puppet populated BOG put politics and profit first, and my fleeting optimism dissipated. Despite DeSantis’s massive decline in power, clearly UF’s downfall will continue to get worse. We now have to contend with UF’s transfer of ownership from Ron to Don. It’s sad that flagrant fascism and ignorance is not only openly tolerated, but rewarded. This is from today’s NYT?
Another freak gillum voter
Saturday’s NYTs. UF has already declined in latest US News rankings and after the Ono fiasco will not be able to attract any top tier presidential applicants. But have no fear, just like all the other state university selections in the last 2 years, UF will get a political hack with zero qualifications and draw down a huge salary.
PS The Alligator broke the story on this ridiculous UF law school story
This is a standard internal UF announcement. There is no “story” to “break”.
I don’t even know what that means Steve, and neither do you.
What about gillum???
The Alligator is lefty biased crap.
It sounds like he picked a position and argued it as part of the class. That’s what attorneys do – and law students. It doesn’t mean it’s what HE really believes. Comprende?
Mr Peabody, the student describes his views as like the Nazis and has advocated on X and other platforms for getting rid of the Jews, whatever that means. It is not as you describe.
It is possibly true that the professor did not know this about the student, we don’t know, or that he would not think it important. If a professor had granted the award to someone who wrote a paper justifying DEI or preferential hiring, would the award have been viewed so innocently by those on this board. What if the student was later revealed to be a local leader of BLM?
Thanks for saving GRU Chuck!