UPDATED @ 5 PM EST 01.05.2022: The University's President is stepping aside. He quoted scripture saying he "kept the faith and fought the good fight. . . ." You may make of that what you will. He was a Republican appointee, afterall. End, update.
Once again, tonight -- we offer an opinion penned by the very able federal District Court Judge Mark Walker. . . replete with language shading toward the majestic. We do so, because he holds that Gov. DeSantis may not transform a public university and its professors (taxpayer funded) into unwilling propaganda agents for his republican talking points, and restrict the professors' rights to offer learned opinions about voter rights, and voter repression, all at DeSantis' hands (or at least, his direction). It would be hard to imagine a clearer First Amendment violation, being driven by a now-sitting 21st Century Governor. [My backgrounder from the earlier November developments, here.]
This is a matter of vital importance. The people of Florida have not elected him (as a matter of clear black letter law) to use their (not his) state universities to entrench his hold on the electorate, by repressing lawful votes -- and voters. So -- here it is, all 23 pages, in full -- and a bit:
. . .There is no doubt Plaintiffs’ intended course of conduct, participating in litigation as expert witnesses, is affected with a constitutional interest. See Rainey v. Jackson State Coll., 481 F.2d 347, 350 (5th Cir. 1973) (noting where college allegedly breached one-year contract because of professor’s participation as defense expert in obscenity trial “make out what appear to us to be a clear case of impermissibly freighting plaintiff’s contract with a deprivation of the First Amendment right to free speech”). And Plaintiffs have demonstrated that, for fear of repercussion or retaliation, they are self-censoring from such participation. An “alleged danger of this [policy] is, in large measure one of self-censorship; a harm that can be realized without an actual prosecution.” ACLU v. Fla. Bar, 999 F.2d 1486, 1493 (11th Cir. 1993) (emphasis in original) (quoting Virginia v. Am. Booksellers Ass’n, Inc., 484 U.S. 383, 393 (1988)). . . .
[P]ublic statements by the Chairman of the University’s Board of Trustees leave this Court with little doubt that the University of Florida intends to enforce its conflict-of-interest policy in the manner Plaintiffs fear. Speaking only ten days after Defendant Fuchs’s “adoption” of the proposed changes to the conflict-of-interest policy supposedly mooted this case, Chairman Hosseini struck a different tone. According to Chairman Hosseini, faculty members had “taken advantage of their positions” by using those positions “to improperly advocate personal political viewpoints to the exclusion of others.” ECF No. 45-4 at 12. “This. Will. Not. Stand.” he remarked, “[i]t must stop, and it WILL stop.” Id. at 13–14. Chairman Hosseini also made explicit what was implicit in the University’s earlier denials. “Think of everything we’ve been able to accomplish during the past five years” he said. Id. at 15. “These things were all made possible through the support of our state leaders.” Id. at 16. And those leaders, he explained, “are fed up with the waste of [state] dollars by the few who are misusing their positions.” Id. at 18. So, he closed, “[i]t is time to stand up for what is right and to put a stop to what is wrong.” Id. In short, Plaintiffs’ activities anger Tallahassee, that threatens the University’s funding, and so the University must halt Plaintiffs’ activities. . . .
That last bit actually sounds more like Berlin, in 1939. . . than 2021-22, in Tallahassee. Onward -- as we are road-tripping to Sedona in the moring. . . grinning.
नमस्ते
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