Faculty: Bills could stifle free speech
Legislation would allow students to record lectures without any consent
The Florida Senate could debate on Thursday legislation that supporters say would protect free expression and “viewpoint diversity” at colleges and universities, but many faculty members argue the proposals, which would allow students to record lectures and class discussions without their consent, could do the opposite and create a chilling effect on speech.
Faculty leaders at universities across the state are pleading with lawmakers not to exempt their classrooms from laws that typically require all parties to consent to recordings, saying students may be hesitant to discuss sensitive topics honestly if they know their classmates may secretly be recording them.
The legislation also requires universities to survey students, faculty and staff about whether they “feel free to express their beliefs and viewpoints on campus and in the classroom” and says institutions can’t shield them from “certain speech.” The House already has approved its version of the legislation and the Senate’s version is scheduled to come before the full chamber on Thursday.
“What the bill does seek to do is expose students to diverse ideas on campus, including those that are controversial, including those that maybe a majority of students and faculty may hate,” said Rep. Spencer Roach, R-North Fort Myers, who co-sponsored the House version, during a recent committee meeting. “It’s designed to ensure our university campuses remain, what’s been termed, the marketplace of ideas and to teach students to confront those ideas, think about them critically and debate them.”
Universities have faced criticism, especially from conservatives, that they’ve shunted discourse about unpopular ideas. Proposals similar to the ones introduced during this session have failed in the Legislature in recent years.
But faculty members say aspects of the legislation, especially allowing students to record classes without consent, could hamper discussions. The proposal says students would be allowed to record classes for personal use, in connection with a complaint to the institution where the recording was made, or as evidence in or in preparation a criminal or civil proceeding, but faculty members say that once a record is made, it’s nearly impossible to control where it is shared.
Joseph Harrington, chair of the University of Central Florida’s faculty senate, said he and many of his colleagues already record lectures for students’ use. But, he said, there may
be some courses where it would be difficult to encourage debate if students knew they might be recorded.
“I have a hard time imagining students being able to speak honestly and from their own experience, knowing that somebody could record it and they wouldn’t know it,” said Harrington, a professor in the physics department.
The UCF Faculty Senate unanimously passed a resolution last week opposing the legislation, saying allowing students to record all class discussions “will have the counterproductive effect of limiting the range of viewpoints expressed in class.”
The Advisory Council of Faculty Senates, which includes faculty leaders from all of the state’s public institutions, passed a similar resolution a few weeks ago. Erin Ryan, a professor of law at Florida State University who helped write the resolution, stressed that she thinks some parts of the legislation are fine and said she’s hoping a lawmaker might introduce an amendment that will allow institutions to prohibit recording in certain classes.
Allowing students to record without consent, she said, could create “a culture of fear that could really undermine student learning.”
“We know that some of the legislators that support this legislation are worried about cancel culture and we think the sad irony is that the recording entitlement could heighten these concerns even more,” said Ryan, a professor of law at FSU.
In February, a group that describes itself as a defender of free speech sued UCF, saying the school enacted rules that “restrain, deter, suppress, and punish speech” about political and social issues, particularly conservative viewpoints. Speech First, which filed the suit, took aim at the school’s harassment and computer policies, as well as a group of administrators called the Just Knights Response Team that is charged with monitoring bias-related incidents.
The group also zeroed in on the recent firing of
Charles Negy, a psychology professor whose Tweets were described as racist by many students and alumni.
Negy was fired in January for “misconduct” in the classroom after a monthslong investigation into complaints about his behavior, including an allegation that he failed to report that a student told him in 2014 she had been sexually assaulted by a teaching assistant.
Negy told the Orlando Sentinel earlier this year he thinks he was targeted by school administrators who objected to his social media posts. He said this week he thinks the legislation proposed this year was well intended but could amount to “an empty bureaucratic exercise and little more,” particularly the requirement for institutions to survey students and faculty.
“Theoretically, a viewpoint diversity bill would curb the orthodoxy that currently suffocates the unfettered exchange of ideas on college campuses, but if no one truly investigates what administrators report on annual forms, the bill has no teeth,” Negy wrote in email to the Sentinel.
Universities also have hosted controversial speakers. In 2017, white nationalist Richard Spencer rented space at the University of Florida, even as students and faculty members protested. Several attorneys who specialize in First Amendment law told the Sentinel at the time the courts have set a high bar for a public university to deny event space to a controversial speaker.
Robert Cassanello, president of United Faculty of Florida’s UCF chapter, said there’s a long history of fears about “indoctrination” in public universities, dating back to the early 1900s. Today’s lawmakers, he said, should think about how they will be viewed by future generations.
Like other professionals, he said, college instructors should leave their personal opinions out of classroom discussions.
The current legislation, he said, is “wholly unnecessary and comes from a place of ignorance,” said Cassanello, an associate professor in the history department.
Karen Morian, president of the United Faculty of Florida, told a Senate committee recently that lawmakers should look at whether grievances and complaints from students and faculty members have increased. In her research, she said, they had not.
“I ask you, as shepherds of appropriations, not to spend the money on this useless survey, and not to take away the rights of our students to have their thoughts in an open conversation,” Morian said.
Sen. Jason Pizzo, D-Miami, said during a Senate appropriations committee meeting recently he shared faculty members’ concerns that students might not want to share sensitive personal information in class that might later “go viral” and that could have a chilling effect on discussions.
Sen. Ray Rodrigues, R-Fort Myers, told the committee that their concerns were valid and said he would work with senators to address them.
“I do think what we’re doing in this bill is the right thing and it is good public policy,” he said.