The Shame of Tigert Hall (w/ Update)

I am with fellow University of Florida alum Betty Cracker here, I am ashamed of being a Florida Gator this weekend. (Balloon Juice linked to Washington Post article (paywall)): 

The University of Florida barred three faculty members from testifying for plaintiffs in a lawsuit challenging a voting-restrictions law enthusiastically embraced by Gov. Ron DeSantis (R), which activists say makes it harder for racial minorities to vote. The university’s action raises sharp concerns about academic freedom and free speech in the state.

The public university said the three faculty members — political scientists Daniel A. Smith, Michael McDonald and Sharon Wright Austin — could pose “a conflict of interest to the executive branch” and harm the school’s interests if they testified against the law signed by DeSantis in May.

“As UF is a state actor, litigation against the state is adverse to UF’s interests,” school officials said, according to documents reviewed by The Washington Post...

The only conflict of interest here is with the university's administration, which is cowering at the thought of DeSantis retaliating against UF if they allowed these professors to testify. There is no conflict with regards to the freedom of information, there is no conflict with regards to research and academia, there is no conflict as those professors were going to be under oath and testifying to the facts as they knew them.

How many other cases have UF professors, or any other academic in the state of Florida, testified? How many times were they denied because of "conflict of interest"? Did this ever come up before? I've yet to hear of one during my lifetime ever since I was a student there in the late 1980s.

The leadership at the University of Florida did this out of fear. No press release or explanation will excuse this.

These professors were set to testify to the damage caused by the repressive voting law the state Republicans passed in the wake of the 2020 elections to make it harder to vote by mail, to vote early, to vote at all in certain cases. It's a law that doubles down on more IDs required to vote (as though that kind of voter fraud is rampant: IT'S NOT).

As much as these professors' rights to speech were blocked, the rights of the Florida citizenry - including the young UF students just turned 18 and able to vote - were denied from hearing any expert evaluation of this law, of any other laws that could deny them their constitutional right (under the 13th, 19th, and 26th Amendments) to vote in local, state, and federal elections.

As I said on Betty Cracker's article:

As a fellow Florida alum, I am horrified and sickened by my university’s cowardice. In the face of watching DeSantis and the state Republicans suppress our constitutional voting rights, they would rather roll over and play dead than fight for the civil rights of their own students and faculty.

What do they think they’re doing, saving their payroll, their budget, their jobs? The Republicans have repeatedly demonstrated their anti-education anti-intellectual bias, and would likely close down most of the colleges (or worse, turn them into for-profit boondoggles) for shits and giggles.

The independence and reputation of our state’s higher educational institutions are at risk from political censorship and suppression. The students at Gainesville and every other college campus in Florida should rise up and protest this enforced silence.

You better use your voice now, Florida students, before DeSantis and his craven lackeys silence them for you. You know where Tigert Hall is. You know where the corner of University Avenue and 13th Street is. You know where the spots are outside of Turlington and the Century Tower. Hey, nice big open spot in that Plaza of the Americas outside the main libraries. Why let the suspendered Bible-thumpers always out there railing against you claim that open field? It's your spot to protest.

Protest now. Speak out now. Keep speaking until the UF President and his handlers realize they answer to YOU and not the corrupt powers in Tallahassee.

Update 11/5: As Doug mentioned in the comments below, NPR is reporting that the university has changed its tune (via Deepa Shivaram): 

...The university's earlier decision, which was revealed last week through documents filed in federal court, was widely criticized as an infringement of the professors' First Amendment rights.

The case was particularly under scrutiny because the lawsuit targeted legislation, supported by Gov. Ron DeSantis, that inhibited access to the ballot — and the school has strong ties to the governor.

University of Florida President Kent Fuchs said in a letter released Friday that he had asked the university's conflict of interest office to reverse the decision and "approve the requests regardless of personal compensation, assuming the activity is on their own time without using university resources..."

You can kind of see where Fuchs is trying to redirect the focus as though this whole thing was "using university resources," when at issue was the university's argument that their professors and faculty could not contest "the state" as an absolute authority.

The fact that UF had never withheld their faculty from testifying against Florida's government until Fuchs showed up should not be ignored. Back to Shivaram:

...After the school's original decision was reported, the university's accreditor, the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools, said it was investigating the school. The story was originally reported by The Chronicle of Higher Education and confirmed to NPR.

UF professors Daniel Smith, Sharon Austin and Michael McDonald were originally denied the opportunity to testify; they are all experts on voting rights and elections. Their lawyers say that since the university's original decision to bar them from testifying is still a violation of their First Amendment rights, the professors are still considering their legal options...

This whole embarrassment should lead to people in Florida's college administration to resign on whatever honor they have left, with new people hired with no ties to DeSantis and no obligation to suppress either their professors' or their students' First Amendment rights to academic freedom.

And shame on DeSantis for creating this environment of intellectual suppression in the first place.