At DeSantis’ urging, Miami’s institutions of higher learning look to influence Americas

Mandated by Florida law, South Florida’s top public institutions of higher learning are working together to create and promote a free-market platform, bringing top center-right politicians from the U.S. and Latin America to their classrooms with plans of exporting their expertise throughout the Western Hemisphere.

Created over the last four years by the Florida Legislature and Gov. Ron DeSantis, the Adam Smith Center for Economic Freedom at Florida International University and the Institute for Freedom in the Americas at Miami Dade College are building the foundation of academic programs that focus on economic and individual freedom, leadership, democracy and capitalism. Current and former presidents are already teaching and giving lectures to students from around the globe, and there are plans to turn the Freedom Tower — an iconic symbol of Miami’s Cuban exile community — into a museum dedicated to the victims of communism.

The effort, launched as DeSantis molds public education in the state in a more conservative fashion, taps into the politics of the region, built off waves of immigrants and exiles escaping authoritarian governments. But critics have raised concerns over the Republican Party’s influence on the mission.

The Freedom Tower should reopen to the public next June.

Meanwhile, FIU’s Adam Smith Center has been slowly building its programming since 2020 under the helm of Carlos Díaz-Rosillo, a former Harvard professor and past deputy assistant to then-President Donald Trump.

Fellows who have been paid to lecture at the center include former Argentina President Mauricio Macri, Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado and former Venezuelan Interim President Juan Guaidó. Former Vice President Mike Pence stopped by last year while on his book tour, and the center hosted events with Project 2025, a presidential transition project associated with the Heritage Foundation that has offered a path forward for conservatives in the U.S.

Díaz-Rosillo, who sat down with the Herald at the Adam Smith Center’s classroom at FIU’s Sweetwater campus, said the center is non-partisan but “unapologetically pro-free market and pro-democracy.” Its long-term goal, he said, is to “be the pre-eminent center in the world promoting the thoughtful study and practice of economic freedom.”

Florida’s state government is putting more of its muscle behind that goal, ramping up funding for the center from $1 million a year between 2020 and 2022 to $15 million this year. In April, DeSantis signed a law that gave the Adam Smith Center a direct role in the newly created Freedom Institute at Miami Dade College, part of a broader plan to teach anti-communist programming to students from kindergarten to college.

“My view is we might as well give them the truth when they are in our schools because a lot of these universities will tell them how great communism is, so we are setting the proper foundation,” DeSantis said at a news conference at the Hialeah Gardens Museum Honoring Brigade 2506 when signing the bill.

It’s a connection that for some is a little too close. Professor Ronald W. Cox, from the Department of Politics and International Relations at FIU, said the center was created for explicit political purposes.

“I think the Adam Smith institute suffers from some pretty clear problems, because a lot of what the institute is trying to do is part of a larger political project that is being openly pushed by the far right,” Cox said.

Reshaping higher education

The DeSantis administration has put its imprint on higher education across Florida, including in places like the University of Florida, where the state created the Hamilton Center for Classical and Civic Education, and at New College of Florida, a public liberal arts university on Florida’s west coast where the governor and his allies have pushed a hostile takeover. The state also created the Florida Institute for Governance and Civics at Florida State University.

DeSantis has talked about creating a new paradigm of education in the state. But the plans in place at Florida International University and Miami Dade College have broader implications for the Western Hemisphere, where the struggle between right and left have historically played out on a global stage.

The two institutes plan to become a platform for leaders in the region, going beyond the visits, lectures and conversations among former presidents already taking place. They want to turn ideas into policy by collaborating with universities in Latin America and creating academic studies for politicians and policymakers to inform their decisions.

“Our program could be better than any other in the U.S. and in the world,” Díaz-Rosillo said.

Miami Dade College’s President, Madeline Pumariega, said the newly created Institute for Freedom in the Americas is the formalization of the Presidential Dialogue, a global forum designed to explore geopolitical, economic and social challenges facing the Western Hemisphere hosted by Miami Dade College for almost a decade now.

“The institute builds on these convenings that the college has been hosting, bringing together ex-presidents and leaders focused on those pillars of democracy in the Western Hemisphere,” she said.

The mission of the new Miami Dade College institute, scheduled to have its inaugural event this fall, is to “preserve the ideals of a free society and promote democracy in the Americas,” according to Florida law. That will materialize by creating a 9-month to a year program where students are the fellows meeting with former heads of state, subject experts and leaders, with topics ranging from international relations to artificial intelligence. At the end of the year, Pumariega said, the participants would earn a certificate in global governance.

The law creating Miami Dade College’s institute received bipartisan support. But some criticized the influence of the government on public education, including State Rep. Ashley Gantt, whose district includes the Freedom Tower and Miami Dade College’s Wolfson Campus downtown. Gantt was among the lawmakers who voted against the bill.

Gantt said that she was concerned about how the curriculum requiring the teaching of history of communism and the institute would be implemented. She proposed three amendments that ultimately failed.

“I absolutely trust them,” Gantt said about Miami Dade College. “It’s the politicians that I don’t trust.”

DeSantis has influence over both institutions. Earlier this year, he appointed three of the Institute for Freedom in the Americas’ five board members, including Díaz-Rosillo from the Adam Smith Center — which feted the governor at a June gala and bestowed him with its inaugural Guardian of Freedom award.

Rep. Anna Eskamani, an Orlando-area Democrat who also voted against the bill, said she didn’t consider it appropriate for the State of Florida to insert their political ideology into higher education. She said that those who claim that universities have a political bias are, in fact, trying to project their political preference onto others.

“If you’re worried about indoctrination in the classroom, the solution is not more indoctrination that reflects your political bias,” Eskamani said.

Professor Eduardo Gamarra, a politics and international relations professor who led the Latin American and Caribbean Center in the late 90’s and early 2000’s, said this is not the first time that a Florida Governor has funded a Latin America initiative in a public university. Back in 1994, FIU’s Summit of the Americas Center applied for a $500,000 grant funding from the Governor’s Office of Democrat Lawton Chiles, which they used to host the first summit and to teach businesses in Miami how to engage Latin America.

Back then, FIU received similar criticisms, Gamarra said.

Leaders from Latin America teaching in Miami

The Summit of the Americas Center dissolved in the 2000s. The Adam Smith Center, on the other hand, was built to last, and has been growing for the past four years.

The Legislature empowered the center to develop a curriculum and offer courses such as certificates and major and minor programs, starting in July 2023. As a result, it just launched a 15-credit certificate with five courses and is in the process of getting accreditation to develop a bachelor’s and a master’s degree with classes in economics, public policy, leadership and free market — though the Board of Trustees would have to give their stamp of approval.

Conservatives that have come to the center include Colombian presidents Ivan Duque and Álvaro Uribe, who were senior fellows in the fall of 2022 and in the spring of 2023 respectively, receiving $40,000 in exchange for eight classes, networking and mentoring. Senior fellows have also included former Ecuadorian President Guillermo Lasso and Kiron K. Skinner, former director of policy planning and senior adviser to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo during Trump’s presidency.

Guaidó, the former interim president of Venezuela and a senior fellow of the Adam Smith Center last fall, told the Miami Herald during an interview at FIU in Spanish that the center is “an incredible opportunity for any student to be able to interact with those who make decisions in the region.”

He said his lessons focused on rescuing democracy in Venezuela, where strongman Nicolas Maduro is accused of stealing last month’s presidential election. He said his class was unique because he talked about his experience leading an interim government recognized by the U.S. and almost 60 nations from 2019 to 2023.

“I found it very interesting to be able to academically characterize what the interim government meant to contribute to democracy, to the approach to the free market, to economic freedom,” Guaidó said.

Among the topics in his class: the status of the Venezuelan oil industry, Maduro’s economic policies and the forced migration of millions of Venezuelans leaving the country, many coming to the U.S. through the southern border. But he said his class wasn’t intended to promote conservatism over liberalism.

“Democracy is not an issue of left or right,” he said. “It is an issue of rights, fundamental rights and there are common values in that sense.”

The center has invited some left-leaning leaders to speak, including former Ecuadorian President Lenin Moreno, Fawzia Koofi, an Afghan politician and human rights advocate, and former Democratic Congresswoman Loretta Sánchez, from California.

Guaidó said he hopes that students will be inspired by his testimony and become policymakers and decision-makers in the future. “I hope that many were inspired to follow a career in public service, also in leadership,” he said.

Díaz-Rosillo told the Herald that the center’s aim is to expose students to speakers who wouldn’t traditionally be invited to higher education institutions and promote the idea that free markets work.

“Capitalism is not perfect but it’s the best system that we have,” he continued. “Democracy is not perfect, but it’s the best system that we have.”