A lawsuit brought by three Florida professors alleges the validity of a state law enacted in 2023 that requires people university faculty to undergo a five-year post-tenure review.
The scholars argue the legislation “imperils educational freedom” and enables the Florida government to “usurp the special powers and duties” of the state school state’s Board of Governors granted to it by Florida’s law.
The next plaintiff, a Christian teacher, claims that the law may have unintended consequences despite the fact that two of the three claimants are left-leaning academics.
Steven Willis, a teacher at UF’s Levin College of Law, expressed concern that weakened career privileges could make liberal university people prone to being punished for their political views.
” I support Governor DeSantis”, Willis told The College Fix in an exam. ” But I believe this regulation exceeded the court’s authority”.
” Without career, there is an enormous target on my up, as well as that of all traditional scientists and all Christian scientists”.
Willis said he recognizes the virtues of post-tenure assessment, but the new law “lacks expected method” and “applies vague rules posthumously”.
Willis, who added that in the past he has been under investigation for his beliefs, asserted that “it gives officials who have previously been hostile to Christians and Republicans” the authority to assess us.
SB 266 mandates that the panel conduct post-tenure reviews to evaluate faculty members ‘ production and teaching effectiveness at state universities.
The law also states judgments concerning “evaluations, offers, career, skill, or termination, may not be appealed beyond the level of a school leader or designee”, and that problems over such matters are not subject to mediation.
The plaintiffs claim that these two provisions “reduce the substantive protections of tenure from a permanent position ( subject to for-cause dismissal ) to a five-year contract that can be renewed at the discretion of university presidents.”
The problem quotes Florida State University’s Office of the Provost as saying that, when it comes to removing senior university, “each community of scholars forms its own description of ‘ enough cause,’ especially misconduct or incompetence. No single person can exercise that authority”.
Republican governor of Florida has made reforming the administration a top priority. In a speech delivered in July at St. Petersburg College, Ron DeSantis described tenured faculty as the “number one financial drag” on state universities.
Some people believe you have a right to some unjustified, taxpayer-funded institutions. DeSantis also stated earlier this year at State College of Florida that they should just be able to do whatever they want.
Ben Sasse, the former president of the University of Florida, and J. Scott Angle, the current head of the university, have also endorsed using post-tenure review to address the decline in faculty productivity after “quietly retiring.”
At a UF faculty senate meeting in August 2023, Sasse stated,” We have a lot of people who are extraordinarily productive, we also have a significant number of people who stop being research productive over time.”
Angle advocates for review procedures that give remediation a chance.
” The first step should never be ‘ You’re done, time to move,'” Angle said in the same meeting.
According to a report from The College Fix earlier this month, 34 professors fell short of expectations and five were flag as unsatisfactory by the University of Florida’s post-tenure review process. Among the 262 people who were criticized during the initial wave of reviews were 39.
The plaintiffs also contend that faculty who are subject to at-will dismissal will “reluct to pursue new, bold, and controversial ideas that may challenge the prevailing orthodoxy.”
Adriana Novoa, a professor of history at the University of South Florida, and Sarah Hernandez, a sociology professor at New College of Florida, are plaintiffs in the lawsuit.
On the website of the USF, Novoa states that she is writing a book on masculinity and Darwinism in Argentina.
She claims that” sic ] scientific analogies related to mating and sexuality were extensively used in the late nineteenth century’s naturalist literature,” and her research will “help us understand the naturalization of racial and gender ideas in the texts of writers who were inspired by science.”
In a previous lawsuit successfully filed in federal district court in 2022, Novoa successfully fought to overturn Florida’s” Stop WOKE Act,” which forbids the teaching of essentialist and sexist theories in public institutions of higher learning.
Hernandez co-directs the NCF Initiative on Diversity and Equity in Academics and teaches a course titled” Race and Ethnicity: An Interdisciplinary Exploration.”
In August 2023, Hernandez sued to overturn portions of SB 266 that ban the funding of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion programs, as well as instruction in identity politics in general education courses. Due to her lack of standing, the court granted her an injunction.
NCF Freedom, a nonprofit established in response to DeSantis ‘ appointment of conservative scholars to the New College of Florida’s board of trustees in early 2023, represented Hernandez in both cases.
NCF Freedom’s website states that it aims to “avoid unethical, improper or illegal actions by the State, the Board of Governors, the Board of Trustees, or the Administration that will harm the mission and future of New College”.
The College Fix contacted NCF Freedom to request comment, but they did not.
NCF Freedom attorney Gary Edinger, who states that “my personal politics are decidedly progressive”, represented Novoa in her 2022 case against the” Stop WOKE Act”.
MORE: At FSU, zero professors flunked new post-tenure review. Here’s why.
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