New Bill Latest Assault In Florida’s War On Higher Education

Institutions subject to a newly introduced bill that seriously threatens the intellectual freedom and integrity of the state’s public higher education institutions.

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A new Florida law would support and assist Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis in his sweeping attempt to get Florida higher education to serve the right-wing agenda he is trying to implement for the state’s public universities and colleges.

House Bill 999, introduced on February 21 by Republican Rep. Alex Andrade, is a sweeping and stunningly bad bill that dictates university curricula stop any funding for diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) initiatives at Florida institutions prohibit and take over hiring would remove the faculty from faculty hands and give the boards of directors the power to review the status of college faculty tenure at any time. The draft law also calls for the reformulation of the mission statements of the universities.

While several state legislatures are currently considering bills that, if made law, would threaten academic freedom, ban practices and ideas that conservative lawmakers dislike, or curtail the rights of tenured faculty, HB 999 stands alone as the bill greatest damage to the integrity of public universities across the country. Here are some excerpts from the current text of the law. They are among the worst, but by no means the only bad parts of the bill.

curriculum

The bill bans general education courses that teach a “curriculum based on unproven, theoretical, or exploratory content” and that define “American history as opposed to the creation of a new nation based on the universal principles set out in the Declaration of Independence.” No theories for Florida students – out with gravity, relativity and evolution. And nothing that Mr. Andrade considers exploratory – because who needs discoveries from scientific exploration.

It also aims to require universities to remove what Florida politicians seem to fear most — any college majors or minors in critical race theory, gender studies, or intersectionality, or any derivative majors or minors in those belief systems, defined as major or minor that generates belief in these concepts.

Faculty recruitment

The bill also mandates that the board of trustees of each state university be responsible for hiring teachers. “The president of the university can give the board recommendations for appointments. The President and Board of Directors are under no obligation to consider recommendations or opinions of the University faculty or any other person or group.”

While the Board of Trustees may delegate its hiring authority to the President, the President may not delegate that hiring authority, and the Board of Trustees must approve or disapprove any selection by the President.

Think of the amazing academic expertise these Florida presidents and CEOs must have — they can pick the best physicists, anthropologists, and drummers without faculty help. Or maybe the whole point is simply to eliminate academic expertise from the hiring process.

tenure

The bill provides that each state university board of trustees can review the tenure of a faculty member at the request of its chairperson. It contains no requirements for requesting such a review.

But faculty aren’t the only university employees who would succumb to the whims of a board of directors. “Each state university board of trustees must certify the selection and reappointment of each member of the university’s executive team by its president, and their respective contract and annual salary in accordance with the university’s human resources program established by the Board of Governors.”

It will be interesting to see how Florida university presidents react to HB 999. Will newly appointed University of Florida President Ben Sasse approve a bill that would exclude his institution’s faculty from the faculty hiring process? Will he and other college leaders agree to remove “untested, theoretical, or exploratory content” from their schools’ general curricula?

Meanwhile, the students, staff and faculty at Florida’s colleges and universities remain the victims of Gov. Ron DeSantis’ extremist political agenda, with higher education being his current target of bullying. He has previously orchestrated the hostile takeover and transformation of Sarasota’s New College of Florida. It looks like his friends in the Florida Legislature are now looking to widen the net to catch bigger fish.

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