Short-sighted Florida bill would punish educational exchange with foreign countries

Florida House Bill 7017, under consideration in the Legislature, sounds like an reasonable effort to protect Florida against inappropriate foreign influence. Then you read the details. The bill would punish schools and universities for doing what universities do — engaging with students and researchers in countries around the world. The bill would create significant barriers to international cooperation by Florida schools and universities, with particularly strong restrictions on working with institutions in China, Russia, Syria, Iran, Cuba, North Korea and Venezuela.

The only way toward strengthening our position and security is engagement within other political entities.

My team, the Forest Entomology Lab at the University of Florida Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences, has worked in China since 2013. We are informing the governments of Florida and the United States about forest pests. The U.S. Department of Agriculture has funded our work continuously for almost a decade for a pragmatic reason: Our data are critical for surveying incoming cargo and protecting our forests, the timber industry and the environment, against pests.

Ending such bilateral cooperation would mean shutting down our ability to study new pests from Asia and our ability to protect Florida’s forestry. It would mean ending agreements that have solidified trust between the scientific community of Florida and Chinese universities. The students and scientists with whom we have conducted research in China become our allies. The research published together with our Chinese colleagues strengthened the international reputation of Florida’s research enterprise.

What do the proponents of the bill want to achieve?

The bill, if enacted, will punish those who are developing allies within the target countries. It will punish those who are inspiring the young generation of Chinese or Iranians to like and respect America. It will alienate Russian students who see through the propaganda of their government and want to learn about our values.

The hope that shutting down student and research exchange will decrease the influence from antagonistic governments is outdated. The world is interconnected with information highways. America spent decades breaking down political walls, because what brewed hidden behind them routinely worked against our interests. The world is learning to speak English. Why don’t we take advantage of it and teach more young people our language?

In the age of global commerce, the only way to protect our industries and the environment is to facilitate, not hamper, binational exchange of knowledge, ideas and inspiration. The proposed bill would hurt Florida’s universities’ leadership in this important endeavor.