In reversal, UF allows testimony

Professors now can serve as expert witnesses in challenge to Florida’s election legislation

Three University of Florida professors will be allowed to serve as expert witnesses on behalf of plaintiffs in a voting-rights lawsuit against the state, President Kent Fuchs said Friday, reversing a prior decision that had drawn widespread condemnation.

The three faculty members were told last month they couldn’t provide paid testimony in the suit challenging the state’s controversial new elections law, which was championed by Gov. Ron DeSantis and other Republican leaders. The story, first reported by the New York Times, received national attention, with many in academia saying the school had infringed on the professors’ First Amendment rights.

In an email to the campus Friday, Fuchs didn’t explain why the university had changed course, saying only that he had asked the school’s Conflicts of Interest office to reverse its earlier decision, which was based on a policy that bars faculty members from accepting outside paid work that is deemed “adverse” to UF’s interests. Fuchs wrote that the professors could participate in the suit as long as they do so on their own time and without using university resources. His email also listed the members of a new task force that will review UF’s practices regarding requests for approval of outside activities involving potential conflicts of interest.

The three political science professors, Sharon Wright Austin, Michael McDonald, and Daniel

Smith, could not be reached for comment on Friday. McDonald wrote in a Twitter post Friday afternoon he had received official notification from the university that it had reversed the initial decision barring his participation in the suit.

The three faculty members are to testify against a new law that limits the use of drop boxes for depositing absentee ballots and adds more

identification requirements for voters requesting absentee ballots. Critics say the law, which also requires voters to request absentee ballots more frequently, will disproportionately affect people of color.

Since the Times first published its story, other outlets, including the Miami Herald and the Chronicle of Higher Education, have reported on at least five other UF professors whose participation in other court cases also was limited.

Those include a College of Medicine professor who was told not to testify in two cases challenging the state’s prohibition on mask mandates.

UF leaders were lambasted by others in academia, free speech advocates and political leaders who said the university had impeded the professors’ First Amendment and academic freedom rights.

Florida’s Democratic Congress members sent a letter to Fuchs earlier this week urging him and other school leaders to allow the faculty members to testify, saying the university was engaging in “prior restraint” that infringed on the professors’ First Amendment rights.

“On matters of public concern, state university professors should not be punished or prohibited from speaking if they do not disrupt the educational environment or proper functioning of the university,” the letter to Fuchs said.

Friday’s reversal came just a couple of hours after UF’s faculty union held a press conference where they encouraged donors to halt contributions until the professors were allowed to testify, calling the current ban on their participation an infringement on their academic rights.

“It’s an attack on all of us,” said Paul Ortiz, the president of the United Faculty of Florida’s UF chapter and a professor of history at the school.

Ortiz said he’d already heard from donors who had decided to hold off on giving money to the university because of the policy. Additionally, he encouraged academics and artists who received invitations to speak or perform at UF to decline those invitations until the professors were allowed to testify.

“This is really a crisis moment in our republic,” he said.

Andrew Gothard, the faculty union’s statewide president, said he thinks the prohibition on professors giving paid testimony in politically controversial cases was limited to UF, though he said the union was “looking into potential violations” on other state campuses.

Faculty union leaders also criticized “intellectual freedom and viewpoint diversity” legislation passed earlier this year that Republican proponents said was intended to protect faculty members’ and students’ academic freedom.

The new law requires public universities and colleges to conduct annual assessments of students’ and faculty members’ views and prohibits them from shielding students and professors from free speech protected by the First Amendment.

But the faculty union leaders said the legislation was a ruse; instead of protecting speech, it was intended to help the state track and target students and faculty members whose views do not align with those held by the people in power. They touted a pair of repeal bills filed by Democratic lawmakers.