‘Intellectual freedom’ on Florida’s campuses gains traction in Legislature
The Florida Legislature this year could pass a longdebated bill requiring colleges and universities to conduct campus-wide surveys gauging “intellectual freedom and viewpoint diversity” at the institutions.
The House on Thursday passed a measure requiring the surveys, and the full Senate is ready to consider the proposal after it cleared a final committee hurdle.
The bills would require the state university system Board of Governors and state Board of Education to commission a survey that would be issued at institutions annually. The measures require the surveys to be “objective, nonpartisan, and statistically valid” and aimed at evaluating the level of freedom students feel they have to speak their mind on campus and in the classroom.
House bill sponsor Spencer Roach, R-North Fort Myers, said Thursday his measure (HB 233) would require the higher education governing boards to conduct the survey, but completing the surveys would be voluntary for those on campus.
“I’m not asking you to make a policy decision here, all I’m asking you to do is to allow us to ask the question, gather empirical data, to see if a future legislature may want to ... use that data as the basis to make a policy decision,” Roach said during floor debate Thursday.
House Democrats made impassioned objections to sections of the bill, including a provision that would prevent higher education governing boards from “shielding” students, faculty and staff from any speech.
Rep. Geraldine Thompson, D-Windermere, pointed to a previous discussion about the bill during a committee meeting.
“The question was posed as to whether or not that meant that the Ku Klux
Klan could march on the campus of Florida A&M University,” said she said. “When that question came up, the sponsor said yes, you can’t shield students from ideas and viewpoints that they find uncomfortable . ... What about the responsibility of our colleges and universities not to invite altercations?”
The measure defines “shield” as limiting “access to, or observation of, ideas and opinions they may find uncomfortable, unwelcome, disagreeable, or offensive.”
Rep. Omari Hardy, D
West Palm Beach, criticized the House measure as being so vague that administrators’ or professors’ actions to “gain control of the academic environment” could be construed as shielding students from speech.
“So I wonder, can a professor teaching a class on terrorism stop a student form contributing to the class discussion by showing video clips of American soldiers being harmed abroad? Can a professor of gender studies stop a proponent of pedophilia from having that kind of discussion in the classroom?” Hardy asked.
VOTES ALONG PARTISAN LINES
The House passed the measure in a 77-42 vote along partisan lines, with Democrats voting against the bill.
The Senate Committee on Appropriations approved a similar measure (SB 264) in a 12-8 vote, also along partisan lines, on Thursday.
An amendment adopted by the committee more closely aligned the Senate proposal, sponsored by Estero Republican Ray Rodrigues, with the House version.
“In higher education, there’s long been the concept of intellectual freedom
and viewpoint diversity, and that’s been deeply ingrained,” Rodrigues said.
Rodrigues told the panel his proposal to survey institutions looks to “build on that tradition.”
Results of the survey could be used “to identify strengths and weaknesses in public postsecondary institutions’ efforts to protect free speech rights,” according to a Senate staff analysis of the measure.
Advocates for university faculty historically have opposed similar measures, which lawmakers failed to pass in previous years. Rodrigues, who was elected to the Senate in November, sponsored the proposal when he was a member of the Florida House.
United Faculty of Florida President Karen Morian raised a concern that, should the proposal pass, lawmakers and the public wouldn’t be able to review the surveys’ contents before the bill becomes law.
“We have yet to actually see what that survey would look like. There’s been plenty of time to produce it, and yet we still have not seen it,” Morian said.
Morian told the Senate panel her organization has not seen an uptick in complaints about freedom of speech issues on campuses. She also took issue with the proposal’s language related to requirements for crafting an “objective” survey.
“If you’re going to survey people on how they feel about something, you have lost any sense of objectivity and empiricism, so your data is going to be flawed,” Morian said.
Rodrigues faced questions from Republican and Democratic lawmakers on the panel about a part of his bill that would allow students to make audio and
video recordings of classroom lectures and discussions.
CLASSROOM RECORDINGS
Under the proposal, students could use classroom recordings for their own personal use, such as for taking notes, or if they felt university policies had been violated in a classroom. Students could also submit video or audio recordings in a court proceeding.
Students would be prohibited, however, from posting recorded lectures on the internet without getting consent from the person who delivered the lecture.
“So, my recorded conversation could be recorded and disseminated, potentially, if the lecturer agreed. Because I’m a student and I asked a questions and it was somehow charged, aggressive. And now all of the sudden that could become public information, right?” Sen. Jeff Brandes, R-St. Petersburg, asked.
“That is a possibility,” Rodrigues answered.
Rodrigues told lawmakers his measure is aimed at setting in place a uniform policy for recording classes, which he said currently varies by institution and in some cases by classroom.
“Currently, there is no consensus of whether there’s an expectation of privacy within a university or college classroom,” Rodrigues said, adding that court decisions across the U.S. have been split on the matter. “What we’re saying here is that we’re going to standardize it and make it clear that there is no expectation of privacy within the classroom, and that it may be recorded.”
The provision about recordings also is included in the House bill.