Florida missteps on what is legal. I wonder wjether this will reach the
Supreme Court. Eric
Judge Issues Stinging Free Speech Ruling Against University of Florida
While a lawsuit is being resolved, the university cannot bar professors from
offering expert testimony in lawsuits against the state, the federal judge
ruled.
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[https://static01.nyt.com/images/2022/01/21/us/21Florida-profs01/merlin_180823860_c2fd7b5b-dcac-4947-8ae6-12e6022af0ef-articleLarge.jpg?quality=75&auto=webp&disable=upscale]
[Judge Mark E. Walker said the school’s policy violated the First Amendment by
silencing University of Florida professors but letting others speak freely.]
Judge Mark E. Walker said the school’s policy violated the First Amendment by
silencing University of Florida professors but letting others speak
freely.Credit...Charlotte Kesl for The New York Times
By Michael Wines<https://www.nytimes.com/by/michael-wines>
Jan. 21, 2022
WASHINGTON — A federal judge handed a crucial free-speech victory to six
University of Florida professors Friday, ordering the university to stop
enforcing a policy that had barred them from giving expert testimony in
lawsuits against the state.
The stinging ruling, by Judge Mark E. Walker of U.S. District Court for the
Northern District of Florida, accused the university of trying to silence the
professors for fear that their testimony would anger state officials and
legislators who control the school’s funding. Judge Walker likened that to the
decision last month by Hong Kong University to remove a 25-foot sculpture
marking the 1989 massacre of student protesters in Beijing’s Tiananmen Square
by the Chinese military, apparently for fear of riling the authoritarian
Chinese government.
If the comparison distressed university officials, he wrote, “the solution is
simple. Stop acting like your contemporaries in Hong Kong.”
A university spokeswoman, Hessy Fernandez, said school officials would review
the order before deciding whether to appeal it.
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Technically, the 74-page order limits the university only temporarily, until
there is a ruling in the professors’ lawsuit challenging the policy. But the
judge, who was appointed in 2012 by President Barack Obama, left scant doubt
that his opinion of the school’s conduct was unlikely to change, stating that
the evidence on the “defendants’ side of the scale sits empty; plaintiffs’
overflows.”
On its face, Judge Walker said, the school’s policy violated the First
Amendment by silencing professors who were critical of the state but letting
others speak freely, a violation known as viewpoint discrimination.
The order was a turning point in a dispute that has tarred the reputation of
one of the nation’s leading public universities and sparked an investigation by
the body that accredits it. It also has fueled criticism of Governor Ron
DeSantis, a Republican, who has denied pressuring the school to rein in faculty
conduct that questions his administration’s policies.
And it has uncovered a trove of evidence that, despite university officials’
flat denial that they felt political pressure, faculty members did. In a report
issued last fall, the Faculty Senate complained of “palpable reticence and even
fear,” alleging that some school employees had been warned “not to criticize
the Governor of Florida or UF policies related to Covid-19 in media
interactions,” and that barriers had been raised to publishing data on the
pandemic.
Among many other charges, the report also said some faculty had been told not
to use the words “critical” and “race” in the same sentence, a reference to the
fever on the right over critical race theory.
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A lawyer for the professors, David O’Neil, called the ruling “a resounding
victory.”
“I think the judge recognized what the university is doing for what it is: an
effort to bring a state university under the control of the ruling party in
state government,” he said. “If the First Amendment means anything, it means
that government can’t pick and choose what speech is permitted based on its
viewpoint.”
Three political science professors brought the lawsuit in October after
university officials rejected their requests to act as expert witnesses for
plaintiffs challenging the state’s restrictive new voting law. They were later
joined by a pediatrics professor who had been barred from testifying in a
lawsuit challenging Mr. DeSantis’s executive order withholding funds from
schools that enforced mask mandates.
[https://static01.nyt.com/images/2022/01/21/us/21florida-profs02/merlin_196209294_1d1a6c35-90c2-4ca5-bc6d-d5c5331d1b6b-articleLarge.jpg?quality=75&auto=webp&disable=upscale]
Image
[Judge Walker compared the University of Florida’s policy to a decision made by
Hong Kong University to remove a sculpture that commemorates the 1989 massacre
of student protesters in Tiananmen Square.]
Judge Walker compared the University of Florida’s policy to a decision made by
Hong Kong University to remove a sculpture that commemorates the 1989 massacre
of student protesters in Tiananmen Square.Credit...Kin Cheung/Associated Press
Two law professors also joined the suit, saying they had been barred from
signing a court brief in a lawsuit against the state unless they hid their
affiliation with the school.
Each was told that the actions violated a new conflict-of-interest policy that
limited school employees’ involvement in matters “adverse to UF’s interests” —
in these cases, opposing the state government of which the university is a part
— even though they were acting as private individuals, on their own time.
Judge Walker called that reasoning “shocking.”
“And what are UF’s interests?” he wrote. “Why must Defendants regulate
Plaintiffs’ speech? How does Plaintiffs’ speech prevent the efficient delivery
of government services, impair discipline, workplace harmony or employer
confidence?
“Despite being given not one, not two, but four chances to articulate either in
writing or at oral argument how Plaintiffs’ speech disrupts UF’s mission,
Defendants cannot or will not say.”
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In court, lawyers for the university argued that the professors’ challenge was
moot because the university had lifted the bans on their lawsuit testimony in
November and rewritten the conflict policy to make future such bans more
difficult.
But the judge rejected that, noting that the school had not agreed to stop
censoring faculty members’ testimony and that the chair of the school’s board
of trustees, Morteza Hosseini, indicated little had changed. In remarks to the
board last month, Mr. Hosseini said faculty members performing outside work
could be neglecting their duties and misusing university funds, and were taking
advantage of their positions “to improperly advocate personal political
viewpoints to the exclusion of others.”
“It must stop, and it will stop,” he said. “Let me tell you, our legislators
are not going to put up with the wasting of state money and resources, and
neither is this board.”
Free Speech and the University of Florida
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Florida Bars State Professors From Testifying in Voting Rights Case
Oct. 29, 2021
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In Florida, a Firestorm Over Silenced University Professors Grows
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University of Florida Reverses Course to Allow Professors to Testify Against
State
Nov. 5, 2021
Correction: Jan. 21, 2022
An earlier version of this article misstated the year that Judge Mark E. Walker
was appointed to a U.S. district court in Florida. It was 2012, not 2018.
Michael Wines writes about voting and other election-related issues. Since
joining The Times in 1988, he has covered the Justice Department, the White
House, Congress, Russia, southern Africa, China and various other topics.
@miwine<https://twitter.com/miwine>
