BRAIN DRAIN

tion to critical race theory.

“They’re changing their classes or they’re not assigning books they would normally assign out of fear that if that stuff gets published that Chris Rufo is going to come and target them and tweet about them and they’ll be in the crosshairs,” said Cassanello, who has considered leaving himself.

“I don’t mind staying,” he said. “I don’t mind fighting. I think ultimately when the DeSantis fever leaves Florida, I think there might be some good that comes out of it – if those of us who have been here can tell the story.”

State Sen. Shev Jones, D-Miami Gardens, said he’s been thinking about what comes next after a 2023 legislative session that brought major change to higher education.

During the debate over the legislation, he said, a human resources official at one school told him that 300 candidates had reconsidered offers over the last year.

“We knew this was going to happen,” Jones said. “The latest attacks on our higher education system, I don’t know how that plays out in the coming years. It just didn’t have to be this way. There are real-life implications.”

The Times obtained records from four of the state’s biggest schools,

Florida State University

including data on faculty departures and searches dating to 2018.

At the University of Florida, 1,087 employees resigned in 2022 — the only time in the last five years that the number exceeded 1,000. Departures could top that mark again if they continue at their current pace. More than 730 employees had left UF this year as of May 31.

The University of Central

University of South Florida

Florida said 103 faculty did not return for the 2022-23 academic year, the highest number in the last five years.

Florida State University also hit a five-year high, losing 136 faculty to resignation last year.

And the University of South Florida said it lost 146 faculty in 2022, up from an average of 95 over the previous four years. This year, the school lost 55 through

University of Central Florida

May, on pace for the upward trend to continue.

GOING FROM USF TO TO CHAPEL HILL

Ylce Irizarry is among those saying goodbye.

She arrived at USF in 2009 to teach and conduct research on a broad range of Chicanx and Latinx literature.

She said she entered the field with hopes of helping first-generation students complete their degrees.

She had found a home in USF’s English department, where she was the first Latina faculty member to be tenured.

But pressures crept in as time went on, starting after cuts to the budget and to general education requirements under former Gov. Rick Scott. They grew more acute when Donald Trump became president in 2016.

“Then the pressures clearly exacerbated when Gov. DeSantis took over and started his restructuring of education,” Irizarry said.

In 2021, at the governor’s urging, the Legislature passed the Intellectual Freedom and Viewpoint Diversity Act. It encouraged lawsuits as a way to address alleged