UF Interim President Donald Landry announced Nov. 17 Florida Supreme Court Justice Charles T. Canady will serve as the next director of the Hamilton School for Classical and Civic Education.
Canady is a prominent Florida justice and former politician best known for his conservative judicial philosophy and influence on constitutional interpretation. He’ll earn a base salary of $500,000 in his new role, almost double what he made on the court.
The Hamilton School, founded in 2022, is the newest school at UF. Its mission is to teach students “how to think, not what to think,” according to its website.
Canady announced his retirement from the court to take on his new role at UF in a press release.
“I will always deeply value my years on the court,” he wrote, “But the time has come to move on to another position of public service.”
Canady wrote he was “eager to begin [his] work” at UF’s Hamilton School.
Canady will follow Robert Ingram, a longtime humanities professor who taught for two decades at the University of Ohio. Ingram served as associate director of the Hamilton School from 2022 until starting his role as interim director this August.
His appointment as interim director was explicitly for a one-year term, and there was no mention of Ingram’s formal statement of resignation.
Canady is a former attorney and judge, and he first became a justice of the Supreme Court of Florida in 2008. Appointed by former Gov. Charlie Crist, he went on to hold the position of Chief Justice three times, from 2010 to 2012, in 2018 and again in 2020.
Throughout his career as Chief Justice, Canady adhered to originalism, the idea that a legal text’s meaning is fixed at the time of its creation, and consistently ruled in favor of state executive and legislative power.
In the 1990s, Canady authored federal legislation, which introduced the term “partial-birth abortion,” a late-term procedure that was banned in 2003 in conditions other than being life-threatening to the mother. He argued the term made the practice more understandable to the public.
On the Florida Supreme Court, Canady’s opinions often reflected his view that courts should avoid stepping into the responsibilities of lawmakers. He built a record centered on the separation of powers and constitutional clarity.
In 2019, Canady rejected a nearly decade-long lawsuit challenging whether the state had properly carried out the 1989 constitutional amendment, which called for ensuring a “high quality” education in public schools. The majority, including Canady, argued that there was no definition for a “manageable standard” by which courts could rewrite education funding or policy. Instead, they said such decisions belong with lawmakers, upholding the separation of powers.
Canady has received public support from Gov. Ron DeSantis and Sen. Jay Collins. He also received the support of Sen. Jeb Bush, whom he previously worked with.
Jeffery Collins, a UF professor and interim associate director of the Hamilton School, also expressed optimism about the selection, praising Canady’s expertise in legal and constitutional questions.
“Justice Canady has the profile, temperament and experience to build on and advance Hamilton into its next phase,” he wrote in an email.
Some students at the Hamilton School share the same confidence.
Fabian Sanchez, a 20-year-old UF economics and philosophy sophomore, said he thought Canady was a good choice for the role because of his expertise as a justice. Sanchez is pursuing a minor in politics, philosophy, economics and law, one of two minors the Hamilton School offers.
Sanchez said he thinks Canady’s selection will boost the school’s popularity across UF’s campus.
“People around UF … they’re not aware there’s a new major,” Sanchez said, “So I would hope that he would make [the school] more involved in UF.”
The Hamilton School currently offers two majors and two minors. Last summer, 1,340 students were enrolled in the school.
Following the rejection of candidate Santa J. Ono as UF President earlier this year, three Republican lawmakers called on UF to embrace a more public process for presidential searches moving forward. They expressed concern over a 2022 state law allowing the shielding of the presidential selection process, saying it is “being abused by creating an unfair system.”
There was no known transparent search for the Hamilton School’s director position.
Contact Swasthi Maharaj at smaharaj@alligator.org. Follow her on X @s_maharaj1611.
Swasthi is the Fall 2025 university administration reporter. She's previously worked as general assignment reporter with The Alligator, and you can also find her work in Rowdy Magazine or The Florida Finibus. When she's not staring at her laptop screen or a textbook, she's probably taking a long walk or at a yoga class.
