HB 999: Florida Goes Fascist

[Loulit01]

HB 999 is an abomination. It’s the most comprehensive attack on academic freedom we’ve seen. From banning concepts and theories that can be taught to limiting faculty and student speech outside the classroom to the erosion of tenure and faculty involvement in hiring decisions, this bill, if passed, will turn Florida colleges and universities into state propaganda factories and intellect.

What’s most dangerous about the bill, Khalid continued,

is its vagueness. Calling for general education courses to ban “critical race theory” and the teaching of “identity politics,” without defining what exactly those terms mean, is a most devastatingly effective way of intimidating instructors. Anyone who wants to keep their jobs will no doubt have to self-censor and toe the line.

In addition, Khalid wrote, the measure “empowers university presidents and boards of trustees” (board members are appointed by the governor)

to make hiring, firing and post-tenure review determinations, making it impossible for faculty to critique any policy or challenge any position that runs counter to that of state officials. HB 999 targets the very core of academic freedom, the very thing that has made U.S. universities the envy of the world. If passed this bill will sound the death knell for higher education in Florida.

Al-Gharbi, however, is equally critical of DeSantis:

What is the main complaint of DeSantis et al.? Not that knowledge being produced is unreliable or that students are failing to get good jobs, etc. No. They don’t like that institutions seem to bolster the cultural and political power of their rivals. And they want to instead leverage these institutions in the service of their own agenda. They’re not committed to academic freedom.

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/03/08/opinion/desantis-florida-history-colleges.html--

 

[Rumpelstil]

What is HB 999?

 

[Torus34]

What is HB 999?

Hi, Rumpel.

Here it is in full: https://m.flsenate.gov/Session/Bill/2023/999/BillText/c2/PDF

Regards, stay safe 'n well.

 

[Rumpelstil]

Hi, Rumpel.

Here it is in full: https://m.flsenate.gov/Session/Bill/2023/999/BillText/c2/PDF

Regards, stay safe 'n well.

That is really terrible language:

A bill to be entitled 2 An act relating to postsecondary educational 3 institutions; amending s. 1001.706, F.S.; revising the 4 duties of the Board of Governors relating to the 5 mission of each state university; revising 6 requirements for the Board of Governors' strategic 7 plan relating to the goals and objectives of the State 8 University System; requiring the Board of Governors to 9 annually require each state university to include 10 certain information in its economic security report; 11 requiring, rather than authorizing, a Board of 12 Governors regulation to include a post-tenure review 13 of state university faculty on a specified basis; 14 amending s. 1001.7065, F.S.; requiring the Board of 15 Governors Accountability Plan to annually report 16 certain research expenditures of a specified amount; 17 revising the number of standards an institution must 18 meet to receive a specified designation; creating s. 19 1001.741, F.S.; providing that each state university 20 president is responsible for hiring specified 21 personnel; proving that the president has an ongoing 22 duty to assess the performance, productivity, and 23 employment practices of specified personnel; 24 authorizing the president to delegate hiring authority 25 to specified individuals; prohibiting a university