[Peace-discuss] Political control of Florida universities

[Szoke, Ron]

Salon  6/23/21
DeSantis signs bill requiring Florida students, professors to register political views with state
MSN News / Brett Bachman 

Public universities in Florida will be required to survey both faculty and students on their political beliefs and viewpoints, with the institutions at risk of losing their funding if the responses are not satisfactory to the state's Republican-led legislature. 

The unprecedented project, which was tucked into a law signed Tuesday by Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis, is part of a long-running, nationwide right-wing push to promote "intellectual diversity" on campuses — though worries over a lack of details on the survey's privacy protections, and questions over what the results may ultimately be used for, hover over the venture.

Based on the bill's language, survey responses will not necessarily be anonymous — sparking worries among many professors and other university staff that they may be targeted, held back in their careers or even fired for their beliefs. 

According to the bill's sponsor, state Sen. Ray Rodrigues, faculty will not be promoted or fired based on their responses, but, as The Tampa Bay Times reported Tuesday, the bill itself does not back up those claims.

The only details on the survey come via a passage over its purpose, to discover "the extent to which competing ideas and perspectives are presented" at public universities, and whether students "feel free to express beliefs and viewpoints on campus and in the classroom."

"It used to be thought that a university campus was a place where you'd be exposed to a lot of different ideas," DeSantis said at a press conference following the bill signing. "Unfortunately, now the norm is, these are more intellectually repressive environments. You have orthodoxies that are promoted, and other viewpoints are shunned or even suppressed."

Republicans have long held that universities promote left-wing ideologies and discriminate against conservative students and staff.

Though the bill does not specify what the survey results will be used for, both DeSantis and Rodrigues suggested that the state could institute budget cuts if university students and staff do not respond in a satisfactory manner.

"That's not worth tax dollars and that's not something that we're going to be supporting moving forward," DeSantis said.

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