Michael Gorup, an associate professor in the Department of Politics, joined the faculty at Ithaca College in Fall 2025 after previously working at the New College of Florida. Gorup’s move to Ithaca follows a shift in administration at the New College. In January 2023, Gov. Ron DeSantis appointed a new right-leaning board of trustees, transforming the small liberal arts college into a more conservative institution.

Since the changes to the New College of Florida, the college has gotten rid of the gender studies program, created an intercollegiate athletic program and made changes regarding the faculty hiring process. This has been a major process of change and cause for confusion for students, staff and faculty who were involved at the university before 2023 and have witnessed the transformation. This included Gorup, whose move to Ithaca from Florida is not unfamiliar because Gorup attended Cornell University for graduate school and grew up in New York state. Gorup’s experience relocating from Florida to Ithaca has given him insight into teaching politics during President Donald Trump’s second administration. Gorup has also authored a book called “The Counterrevolutionary Shadow: Race, Democracy, and the Making of the American People.”

Contributing Writer Gabriella Dearden spoke with Gorup about his experience with the New College of Florida change in administration and what he hopes to do at IC.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Gabriella Dearden: What made you become interested in your area of research regarding race, capitalism and the United States Constitution?

Michael Gorup: I was interested in engaging with [what] had to do with the foundations of democracy … who the people are and how they’re constituted. … The turn to an interest in capitalism came more recently in work that I’ve been doing on the history of American slavery, and thinking about slavery as actually a form of capitalist domination, as it developed in the 19th century before the Civil War.

GD: Why did you decide to relocate from Florida to here in New York? 

MG: One fortunate thing is that Ithaca College was hiring and I was looking for a new place of work. … New College of Florida … [had] a very interesting academic program that maximizes student flexibility, and at least in the past, gave faculty a lot of autonomy. … But it was subject to a takeover … that made me want to look for work elsewhere. … I’ve lived in Ithaca before, so it’s familiar to me. … In some ways, it was a homecoming.

GD: What was it like to teach at the New College of Florida as a politics professor before 2023 versus after 2023?

MG: The day-to-day responsibilities that I had as a faculty member didn’t really change … [but] it felt like the world around me that I had come to know was being radically transformed. … After January 2023, faculty had a lot less control over the academic program. … And that was unfortunate, because we had just developed a general education curriculum. … One other thing that faculty lost control of that’s very important to the academic program was hiring. … I was on what are called search committees. … We were able to invite candidates to campus, but then the college president would insert candidates at the last minute, and the president had the final authority on all hiring decisions according to Florida Statute. … The board of trustees also eliminated the gender studies program. … They just decided, kind of unilaterally, that they were going to get rid of a program that had strong support among the faculty. 

GD: Has your experience at the New College of Florida with the shifting authority impacted your research or perspective of teaching as a politics professor in any way?

MG: Not yet, because research projects develop pretty slowly. … But I think in the future, I have ideas for research projects. … Some of which actually come directly out of things that, [the] trustees at New College have written or said. … There’s a trustee … and he’s been talking quite a lot about the way in which conservative politicians and Republican Party leaders should make use of existing civil rights law and existing bureaucratic institutions within the federal government that are supposed to enforce civil rights law for conservative purposes. … We’ve seen the second Trump administration … hollow out some of the civil rights offices within the federal bureaucracy. … I’m interested in thinking in the future, and perhaps writing in the future about the Trumpian conservative movement’s relationship to the legacy of the civil rights movement and civil rights law.

GD: What are you hoping to share or bring to IC that might make politics students interested or interest students in enrolling in politics courses?

MG: One challenge of teaching politics anywhere is that our current political culture is very toxic. … We live in a time of deep polarization … so one thing that’s really difficult to do, is to permit students to drop some of that and engage with politics. … In my teaching, one way I try to do that is by kind of stepping back and either looking at big picture theoretical questions, or stepping back in time and looking at historical developments and trends. 

GD: Is there anything important you’ve learned while experiencing the shift in direction at New College of Florida?

MG: The administration at Ithaca College is very supportive of academic freedom and free speech and expression and open inquiry, which is great, but I think the core of academic freedom, and freedom in general, is self-governance. … Faculty don’t have active control through governing institutions of the academic program. That is a problem from the standpoint of academic freedom. … I think there’s probably a parallel with student life, right? … If freedom only exists because the people who have power have decided not to crack down on you, that’s not a very durable form of freedom. And, in fact, no freedom at all.