If readers needed any additional verification that Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ war with Disney is in fact over, a shiny new political appointment by the Republican governor should seal the deal.
DeSantis on Friday appointed Jeff Vahle, president of Disney World Resorts, to join the University of Central Florida board of trustees, an unpaid role that nonetheless wields power in the adoption of university policies.
Vahle, who graduated from the private Rollins College with a master’s degree in business administration, currently serves on the Rollins College board of trustees and previously served as a member of the board of directors for the charitable nonprofit Give Kids the World, according to a news release from the governor’s office. His appointment to the board of trustees for UCF, the state’s largest public university by student enrollment, is subject to confirmation by the Florida Senate.
DeSantis has used his appointment powers to get political allies into influential positions at Florida universities, with the “hostile takeover” of Sarasota’s New College serving as a prime example of what conservative activists can do to absolutely destroy a school that previously served as a haven for liberal-minded misfits. According to Insider Higher Ed, spending has soared at New College two years into the right-wing takeover, while the school’s rankings are, reportedly, slipping.
The appointment of Vahle, who’s led the Disney World resort since 2020, to UCF’s trustee board incites some intrigue, to say the least. DeSantis notoriously took Disney to war in 2022 — despite previously raking in thousands of dollars from the Mouse in political campaign contributions — after the Walt Disney Co. had the gall to position itself in favor of LGBTQ+ rights.
The multibillion-dollar entertainment company that year specifically took a stand against a “parental rights in education” bill championed by DeSantis, dubbed “Don’t Say Gay,” that banned the mention of gender identity and sexual orientation in K-12 schools.
“Florida’s HB 1557, also known as the ‘Don’t Say Gay’ bill, should never have passed and should never have been signed into law,” the company declared in a statement, shortly after the bill’s signing. “Our goal as a company is for this law to be repealed by the legislature or struck down in the courts, and we remain committed to supporting the national and state organizations working to achieve that.”
Things escalated from there. Disney and DeSantis later went to court over the governor’s takeover of a Disney-affiliated governing board, previously known as the Reedy Creek Improvement District, which oversaw emergency services in the Disney World area and infrastructure.
Made possible by Florida’s Republican-controlled Legislature, the takeover allowed DeSantis to appoint his own members to the district’s governing board, today known as the Central Florida Tourism Oversight District. The two parties eventually ended their two-year legal dispute (costing taxpayers $795 per hour for the state’s lawyers) over the removal of Disney’s self-governing status in March 2024 after reaching a settlement. DeSantis has since made nice with Disney through other convenient political appointments, too.
The Disney World Resort, a major tourism driver for the Sunshine State, is the largest single-site employer in the country, employing about 80,000 cast members across its theme parks, hotels and Disney Springs.
The UCF board of trustees, meanwhile, is made up of 13 members, six of whom are hand-picked by the Florida governor. The board is responsible for the university’s financial management and “the administration of UCF in a manner that is dedicated to and consistent with the university’s mission and with the mission and purposes of the State University System,” according to its website.
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