It’s none of the Florida Legislature’s business what beliefs students, faculty hold

Under Florida Republicans’ ideologically manipulative idea of an education, I might have never experienced one of the most revelatory moments of my university education.

It came by way of a debate during a history class at the University of Florida with a renowned professor with whom I disagreed.

Cuba’s Fidel Castro, he lectured, is one of the few heroes of our time.

I listened, then raised my hand.

Armed with firsthand experience and information about human-rights abuses, summary executions and political prisoners I had read about back home in the Miami Herald and its sister Spanish-language edition, El Herald, I refuted his thesis. He wasn’t happy, but he only had a weak comeback when faced with evidence: Touting his Ph.D. — and, afterward, his power to lower my A grade at the point of our showdown to a final C+.

This is the type of liberal professor the overwhelmingly Republican Florida Legislature wants to expel from the classroom, yet I am here to argue that ideological witch hunts of faculty is a tremendous disservice to students and a direct assault on the principle of academic freedom, the foundation of a worthwhile education.

Being exposed to a different point of view is good for the intellect.

My experience — challenging, acrimonious and defining — shaped who I am today, a critical thinker willing to pay the price of speaking truth to power. Students aren’t in college to be politically cuddled, but for the exposure to scholarship and points of view.

THREATS TO ACADEMIC FREEDOM

In today’s increasingly rightleaning Florida, however, what prevails are constant threats to free speech and academic freedom in the form of proposed legislation.

Educators enduring steep Republican-imposed budget cuts and ideological persecution have been walking on eggshells for years. They already operate under self-imposed gag orders — and here comes House Bill 233, which would require public colleges and universities to survey students, faculty and staff about their political beliefs and viewpoints.

As I said in another column about the bill, now dead, attempting to force students to choose only certain careers or risk losing their Bright Futures scholarships, how very Communist of them.

Ascertaining who was with him or against him is also a vintage Castro tactic. So is quashing dissent with laws that categorize protesters as criminals.

SURVEY IS AN INTRUSION

Incredibly so, the survey bill passed the Florida Senate on

Wednesday on a 23-15 vote, sailed through committees without much discussion, and is poised to pass the full House and go to the governor’s desk for his signature.

The measure, which includes other provisions to ensure the right-wing can spew hate speech on campus, is nothing short of Big Brother trying to control what Floridians think, and to groom future generations to be what the Republican Party wants them to be: unquestioning loyalists.

They aren’t acting as representatives of the people, but as the stewards of one party, the GOP.

If this meddlesome bill becomes law, it will have a deteriorating effect on Florida’s reputation as a state with strong public educational institutions.

What high-caliber professor will want to teach in a university system that allows students, by law, to record lectures without consent to support a civil or criminal case against a highereducation institution?

Or that prohibits university and college officials from exercising their judgment when it comes to campus events that incite hate and violence against minority students? I’m not in favor of limiting “uncomfortable” or “disagreeable” speech on campus, but being the hosts of racist and offensive actors doesn’t elevate learning; it only diminishes the institution enabling it.

The Florida Legislature and Gov. Ron DeSantis have forgotten that we live in a free and democratic country where free speech, academic freedom and debate are valued.

The leadership and administration of public colleges and universities know that there’s a high price to pay for standing up to the Florida Legislature. Tallahassee holds the purse strings, and legislators reward and punish institutions depending upon which way the political winds are blowing.

But educators can’t afford to remain silent, no matter the cost in dollars.

Students and faculty in college and universities should send a resoundingly clear message to the Florida Legislature: Hands off.

Their beliefs are none of your business, Florida Legislature.