Are Florida鈥檚 public universities promoting intellectual freedom? Some state lawmakers don鈥檛 think so, and they want to survey schools on the issue. It鈥檚 part of a broader bill aimed at tweaking the way the schools are run and funded.
The measure requires the state university system governing board to do a yearly report on intellectual freedom and viewpoint diversity at each of the 12 state schools. Students, faculty and administrators would participate. And while the bill calls on the surveys to be objective and non-partisan and have the ability to be compared across institutions. But the state's faculty union is wary.
鈥淚f I refuse [to take the survey] will I be punished?" asked United Faculty of Florida's Matthew Leta. "Coerced speech is a violation of the first amendment. I shouldn鈥檛 be coerced to tell the state of Florida How I feel about certain matters鈥 can pretty well guarantee that a large slice of faculty and students won鈥檛 feel comfortable taking this survey and would refuse to do it. What would be the ramifications and what would be the penalty?鈥�
The union isn鈥檛 the only one skeptical of the survey.
"I really don鈥檛 like the survey and I think I need to explain why," says Rep. Carlos Guillermo Smith, a Democrat.
鈥淚 think the survey is a pre-determined assumption that our state university system is a collection of liberal institutions that are graduating young people with progressive ideals鈥nd the survey also suggests there鈥檚 no intellectual diversity.鈥�
There's not, says Committee Chairman Cord Byrd. He cites a report from the self-described conservative Young American鈥檚 Foundation which identified four courses at the University of Florida it claims is aimed at indoctrinating students. And Byrd says students have raised complaints to him directly.
鈥淛ust last night I spoke to a Florida State University student who is a committed, devoted Christian and she says she doesn鈥檛 feel she can express her ideas freely on the campus of Florida State University which is a tragedy.鈥�
Furthermore, when he was in college, Byrd clashed with one of his political science professors.
鈥淗e had a habit of calling students Nazi鈥檚 in class, if you disagreed with him he said you were on drugs. He would call students at home and harass them, so these are real concerns and they鈥檝e only gotten worse.鈥�
The issue has come up before, most recently in measures eliminating so-called 鈥淔ree speech鈥� zones on college campuses. Both the University of Florida and Florida State University have hosted controversial speakers. In 2017 UF hosted White Nationalist Richard Spencer after initially turning him down. Most of the 500 people in attendance were there to disrupt his speech. In 2016 former Brietbart Editor Milo Yiannopolous was at FSU and was greeted with protests.
The bill doesn鈥檛 specify who would create the survey and critics are leery over how the legislature would use the results.
Bill sponsor Rep. Ray Rodriguez says he wants the survey to be unbiased, and has even recommended hiring a republican and democratic firm to create it. He says opposition against the survey is overblown.
鈥淭he question is this: Do our faculty feel free in the classroom to teach or are they being pressured by administration or faculty leadership to teach in one way or another? We don鈥檛 know the answer until we ask them鈥�.we heard earlier someone say this would threaten faculty. We鈥檙e in a system that provides tenure for our teachers. And to say a survey threatens them? It鈥檚 not right.鈥�
While some professors do have tenure, younger ones or those just starting out, don鈥檛.
The survey language is part of a broader proposal that further tweaks the state university system鈥檚 performance bonus structure, which many lawmakers have criticized for advantaging larger schools at the expense of smaller ones.
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