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University of Florida bars professors from testifying in a voting rights case

379 points by BrianOnHN 5y ago

chmod600 5y ago
If schools have become as much political institutions as educational institutions -- and there's little doubt about that -- why do they get public money at all? The real conflict of interest here is politicians spending your money for their political goals.
- ceejayoz 5y ago
  > why do they get public money at all? Because we still believe there to be a societal benefit to an educated populace.
  - educaysean 5y ago
    Don't speak for the rest of us please. I personally believe there to be a massive societal disadvantage to the existence of "educational institutions" with hidden political agendas.
    - ceejayoz 5y ago
      You can believe anything you like, and it's a little silly to read "we" in my comment as "without even a single individual exception". We, society, currently elect representatives who see fit to continue funding a public educational system of schools and universities, which can be inferred to be a general acceptance of their value.
      - educaysean 5y ago
        And we, the society, are outraged at the blatant abuse of power we are witnessing in this article. We are shocked by how our current system may have critical vulnerabilities that compromise it's ability to deliver the education it promised, and are ready to discuss which aspect of the status quo may need to be improved upon.
        ceejayoz 5y ago
        All that may be true; we'll have to see if society kicks up enough of a fuss. I hope it does in this case. I'm not sure how you get from "this university did a bad thing" to "we should get rid of public universities", though.
        OrvalWintermute 5y ago
        The issue is not getting rid of public universities. The issue is huge partisanship which has distorted academia from their mission.
    - jasonlotito 5y ago
      Then why do you feel qualified to speak for me?
  - willis936 5y ago
    More than that: the market doesn't see past quarterly earnings. Private industry spends a lot on R&D but next to nothing on basic research [0]. Dollar for dollar, academic research that is not beholden to shareholder value theory produces science that is more useful for society. 0. https://ncses.nsf.gov/pubs/nsb20201/u-s-r-d-performance-and-funding https://ncses.nsf.gov/pubs/nsb20201/u-s-r-d-performance-and-...
  - supperburg 5y ago
    Pick a random 18 year old and see if they can point to the country of Argentina on a map. The populace can read but not much else.
    - jeffbee 5y ago
      Speaking as a person confident that I could point out Argentina on a map, why is geographic trivia a very important topic? I'd rather have a population with a good understanding of means and medians, thermodynamics, and the relationship between rates and accumulations, than one that can readily tell me the year that William the Conqueror invaded England.
      - supperburg 5y ago
        I agree but the point is that knowledge of the countries of the world is the most basic sign of education besides reading. The average 18 year old knows even less about science than geography. But geography is important because not knowing it is extremely embarrassing.
        boomboomsubban 5y ago
        Knowledge about other countries is useful, geography less so. It would be just as embarrassing to have a conversation with an Argentinian and say "so what's it like living near Chile?"
      - xenophonf 5y ago
        Because literacy and numeracy are necessary but not sufficient for an educated polity. A good understanding of society, of history, of philosophy, and more all factor in. As do good critical thinking skills.
    - munificent 5y ago
      ...and before widespread public education, many of them couldn't even read.
      - 5y ago
- orangepurple 5y ago
  The short answer is that the University of Florida, and American Universities in general, are not accountable to YOU OR ME, but rather a handful of bureaucrats in the federal government, and in this case specifically the NIH, which air drops the most cash on the institution. Funding for NIH comes primarily from annual Labor, HHS, and Education (LHHS) Appropriations Acts, with an additional smaller amount for the Superfund Research Program from the Interior/Environment Appropriations Act.6 Those two bills provide NIH discretionary budget authority. The NIH then presumably has the US Federal Reserve electronically wire it a few billion $ from an internal account they electronically added a few zeros to beforehand. > UF received about $602 million in research funding from the federal government, including a record $250 million from the National Institutes of Health, the university’s largest research funding source. https://news.ufl.edu/2021/08/research-awards-/ https://news.ufl.edu/2021/08/research-awards-/
  - duxup 5y ago
    Are they really accountable to those folks in the sense that they're running the universities / telling people they can't testify like this law? I think there is a big difference.
  - jonathanwallace 5y ago
    The second half of this claim is a demonstrably weak generalization as to the source of power. The counter example is Georgia, where the Board of Regents is beholden to the politics of the Governor. See recently the fiasco with the pandemic i.e., mandated vaccines and mandated masks. Proof? The companies run by the members of the Board of Regents implemented different policies than the members themselves voted for the universities in the state of Georgia.
  - Frondo 5y ago
    I would have said that public universities in the US are accountable to their boards of regents far moreso than the sinister "bureaucrats in the federal government." I didn't think much about this until the recent news that the University System of Georgia was effectively ending tenure for its professors, and the drivers of that policy were the USG Board of Regents. > To many professors, the most alarming proposal is that a faculty member may not only be separated from the university for clear cause, but also reasons “other than for cause," pursuant to other board policies. “Such other policies shall not be governed by or subject to the following policies on Grounds for Removal and Procedures for Dismissal,” the proposed change also says. From: https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2021/10/04/tenure-under-threat-georgia https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2021/10/04/tenure-under-... So I looked up the USG Board of Regents: https://www.usg.edu/regents/members https://www.usg.edu/regents/members And it turns out that most of them are CEOs or work in finance -- the people who represent "capital" more than any others I can think of. For these people to decide that it should be easier to fire "tenured" professors makes sense to me, in that these are the people who would benefit most from being able to silence, for example, expert witnesses, far more than federal bureaucrats meddling in academic freedom.
- dahfizz 5y ago
  > If schools have become as much political institutions as educational institutions -- and there's little doubt about that -- why do they get public money at all? I think you've answered your own question. Why wouldn't the politicians in charge want to fund (and control) such a powerful political institution as education?
- dragonwriter 5y ago
  > If schools have become as much political institutions as educational institutions -- and there's little doubt about that -- why do they get public money at all? Things get public money because they are political; that is, connected to an agenda some group thinks is important for public governance. Why else would government fund a thing?
rayiner 5y ago
> "Faculty do not forfeit their First Amendment rights as citizens by accepting an offer of employment with UF," Donnelly wrote. "Professors Smith, McDonald, and Austin testify as expert witnesses in their fields on their own time. Their testimony does not interfere with any of their job duties. There are no conflicts of interest." This is acting like a private sector employee would be able to testify on whatever matter they want but that’s not true. Google wouldn’t let an employee serve as an expert witness against itself, for example.
- gpm 5y ago
  Private companies are not bound by the first amendment, state actors including this university are.
  - rayiner 5y ago
    It’s more complicated than that. State actors have have certain freedom to restrict speech when acting in their capacity as private employers: https://www.oyez.org/cases/2005/04-473 https://www.oyez.org/cases/2005/04-473
    - gpm 5y ago
      That doesn't justify the post I was replying to at all...
      - ameister14 5y ago
        Really? You were saying that the public university is subject to 1st amendment restrictions in this instance, that case says it could be otherwise. From the note: "In a 5-to-4 decision authored by Justice Anthony Kennedy, the Supreme Court held that speech by a public official is only protected if it is engaged in as a private citizen, not if it is expressed as part of the official's public duties."
        gpm 5y ago
twofornone 5y ago
>As part of the testimony, the plaintiffs were seeking three professors from the university — Dan Smith, Michael McDonald and Sharon Austin — to testify as expert witnesses. All three specialize in voting rights and behavior and election law. Regardless of your stance on the issue, does anyone actually believe that three "voting rights" professors will give a politically unbiased testimony in 2021?
- runako 5y ago
  Remember that testimony is given in an adversarial setting, and answers are framed by the attorneys questioning. So the idea is that either yes, they will give unbiased testimony, or the attorneys will be able to make it plain to the jury that the testimony is biased.
  - twofornone 5y ago
    Or option 3, the plaintiff counsel successfully convinces some or all members of the jury that a biased testimony is unbiased. These are "experts", after all. They're already starting from a position of credibility, and I don't think the defense lawyer is necessarily equipped to deconstruct whatever the "experts" spend their professional lives working on, regardless of the objectivity of their teatimony.
    - babyblueblanket 5y ago
      By this logic, no experts should be allowed in court unless the opposing lawyer has as much education as the expert in their subject.
      - twofornone 5y ago
        If the subject is politically polarized then I am inclined to agree. Its an open secret that right leaning opinions are taboo across academia. That doesn't actually mean such opinions are wrong.
elliekelly 5y ago
I have a colleague who does environmental litigation. (Think Erin Brockovich.) They have a big civil case against a large energy company in a southern, “energy-friendly” state. They had an expert witness all lined up - a professor at the (public!) state university. Well this expert happened to be up for tenure and was (allegedly) told in no uncertain terms that, should they testify as an expert witness in this case, tenure was off the table. It’s absolutely outrageous that we allow those in positions of power to manipulate the justice system in such a way.
- CoastalCoder 5y ago
  I'm curious if that approach to eliminating expert witnesses passes legal muster.
  - stronglikedan 5y ago
    Doesn't matter if no one is held accountable. We don't have a "legal" problem in the US. We have an accountability problem, particularly amongst the "elites".
- josefresco 5y ago
  This seems like clear "witness intimidation" aka "Tampering with a witness, victim, or an informant" https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/1512 https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/1512 (b)Whoever knowingly uses intimidation, threatens, or corruptly persuades another person, or attempts to do so, or engages in misleading conduct toward another person, with intent to— (1)influence, delay, or prevent the testimony of any person in an official proceeding; (2)cause or induce any person to— (A)withhold testimony, or withhold a record, document, or other object, from an official proceeding; (B)alter, destroy, mutilate, or conceal an object with intent to impair the object’s integrity or availability for use in an official proceeding; (C)evade legal process summoning that person to appear as a witness, or to produce a record, document, or other object, in an official proceeding; or (D)be absent from an official proceeding to which such person has been summoned by legal process; or
  - 5y ago
endisneigh 5y ago
this doesn't sound like a big deal. UF is saying that professors cannot both receive compensation for your testimony and testify as a member of the university. in other words, they can testify for free, or they cannot use their the fact that they're UF professors as part of their credentials without prior approval, or do anything that's a "conflict of interest" as defined by UF themselves. the article itself admits that plenty of professors at UF serve as expert witnesses, but this particular case is unique because UF professors want to testify against the State of Florida, which funds UF. obviously UF wouldn't want that. --- which organizations will allow you to testify against an entity that funds the organization without said organizations approval. free speech aside, obviously no organization will let you do that in your capacity as a member of said organization, but nothing is stopping you from quitting and testifying anyway.
- gradys 5y ago
  They are in fact UF professors though, and that fact would be relevant in any case they testified in. Are UF professors banned from acting as paid expert witnesses in general? Or just for this issue? To your edit: the fact that the entity in question is a government is the difference here in my opinion.
  - endisneigh 5y ago
    per the article: > Are UF professors banned from acting as paid expert witnesses in general? No > Or just for this issue? Yes
- obelos 5y ago
  Organizations that aren't the government. State universities are public institutions, not private ones.
  - endisneigh 5y ago
    really? which private entities explicitly or historically have allowed a member to testify against either the entity itself or another entity that funds the one in which the member of a part of? even whistleblowers generally quit before testifying, or are expected to not necessarily retain their rights as a member afterwards. there's really no incentive for an organization to explicitly allow a member to testify against them or another entity that funds them. genuinely curious if it's happened before.
vilvo 5y ago
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave?
- pyronik19 5y ago
  If you have been paying attention to the rampant censorship by the tech oligopolies on behalf of the government requests you'd know that wasn't true.
  - Ensorceled 5y ago
    I think you missed the '?' at the end of the verse ...
  - unethical_ban 5y ago
    Working against coordinated, viral disinformation campaigns on social media is a bit different than prohibiting expert witness testimony aby professors employed by the state.
- steve76 5y ago
  [dead]
wayoutthere 5y ago
This is blatantly unconstitutional and any professors disciplined under this would be in line for a fat settlement from the university. Or rather, they would be if our justice system actually worked. Rule of law in the US is on life support and the prognosis is not good.
- lbriner 5y ago
  If they were disciplined, yes, the "clever" part (read immoral but not unlawful) would be the University deciding that another Professor will get that senior position instead of you. You could fight it but it would be pretty easy in most situations to "prove" that the other candidate was better. I guess any academic needs to measure their conscience against their career as others in Politics or Religion also might have to.
  - wayoutthere 5y ago
    But we’re well past the point of subtly nudging people into things. We’re at the movie villain stage of “I’m going to tell you what I’m doing, why I’m doing it, then do it, because I want you to know how much power I actually have over you”.
- arthurcolle 5y ago
  Yep, this kills the patient
poorjohnmacafee 5y ago
Most countries, including EU nations, ban mail-in voting minus exceptions like living abroad, these laws being passed because of discovered fraud in elections. Election integrity is the difference between democracy and a one-party state. Every citizen should be bending over backwards to make sure our elections dont have sources of fraud.
- unethical_ban 5y ago
  Your premise that mail-in ballots were a source of significant fraud has been proven false. Edit: Election integrity is important. So is access to voting. It seems completely obvious to me (and millions of others, it seems) that the so-called election integrity measures taken by places like Florida and Texas are blatant attempts to restrict access to legitimate voting for the kinds of people that tend to vote Democrat.
- productivepizza 5y ago
  Can you provide links with information on countries that have discovered election fraud and banned mail-in voting? I could not find anything with a quick google search.
  - aigo 5y ago
    In the UK we did discover some postal voting fraud in a 2014 local election in an area of London called Tower Hamlets. We did not ban postal voting as a result. We have, however, imported a voter ID law from the US which was recently passed by the Johnson government, despite no voter impersonation occurring in Tower Hamlets (or anywhere else really). Previously, no ID was required.
    - snovv_crash 5y ago
      Many other countries have mandatory IDs anyways, so in these cases ID presentation isn't problematic. The issue with ID verification is when only people with eg. a driver's license have IDs.
    - 5y ago
mercy_dude 5y ago
Good news is and many in the academic sphere may not realize this - many faculties universities are going to go out of business at this rate. One silver lining during this time has been, many have realized how much they are overpaying for things they can learn online or through their own efforts. There is no reason you need to spend 200k+ for a degree in Sociology and Gender Studies. Other than medicine, law a few science majors I don’t foresee much of the faculties in universities survive assuming the cooler heads prevail, and parents and society realize sending your kids on their way to mortgage their entire twenties for a piece of paper that can be learned through community college and online studies is worthless.
- voakbasda 5y ago
  After my experience in public schools, college and then grad school, I plan to homeschool my children and will actively dissuade them from going to college. The value of those institutions is purely negative at this point in US history. Like most of our government.
  - hereme888 5y ago
    Exactly my thoughts. They're inefficient, overpriced, and outdated models. From what I've seen first-hand, homeschooling or similar schooling methods, in community efforts (not home schooling in isolation), is much more efficient and healthy.
- hereme888 5y ago
  Even medicine is an inefficient system of schooling in the US (and very hypocritical if you consider what med students and residents go through and its impact on their health). It can be redone to be cheaper, quicker, and safer, with less burnout rates.
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duxup 5y ago
The GOPs tactics seem increasingly like something you would see from a "banana republic"...
- mistrial9 5y ago
  both parties do this -- specifically, the one and only green party assembly member in California 1990s was doxxed and infiltrated, while getting congratulatory letters from GOP reps.
  - duxup 5y ago
    I don't see anything to make me think wholesale laws like this are the least bit comparable to whatever event your talking about.
  - cmeacham98 5y ago
    > both parties do this > best example is a significantly different event from 30 years ago
  - chipotle_coyote 5y ago
    The criticism is "this is a bad thing the current Republican Party is doing right now in a widespread fashion"; "there are past examples of the Democrats doing this" is not a defense. If it's a bad thing that we should try to stop any party from doing, then right now that means trying to stop the Republicans from doing it. The bad thing we are talking about right now is the Republican Party trying to engineer a de facto one-party state through gerrymandering, court stacking, and just taking advantage of the ever-increasing "handicap" both the Electoral College and the two-Senators-per-state apportionment give Republicans due to the rural vs. urban alignment between the two parties. The argument "yes, but the Democrats would do the same thing if they were in the position to" may be true, but it's not a reason not to do something about the Republicans actually doing it right now.
    - useragent86 5y ago
      So the Democratic Party controls both houses of Congress and the White House, and they're trying to pass bills to give the Attorney General control over all federal elections in the country, but you say that it's "the Republican Party trying to engineer a de facto one-party state."
throwawaysea 5y ago
Statement from FIRE on this matter: https://www.thefire.org/fire-statement-on-university-of-florida-decision-to-prevent-professors-from-testifying-in-voting-rights-lawsuit/ https://www.thefire.org/fire-statement-on-university-of-flor...
ajay-b 5y ago
That’s… Wow, since when can someone bar someone else from testifying in court? I thought it was the pursuit of truth?
- mankyd 5y ago
  Expert witnesses are hired as contractors; paid for their testimony. If they were being subpoenaed - compelled to be a witness - I am sure the matter would be different.
  - inetsee 5y ago
    A naive legal question: can the plaintiffs subpoena the professors as expert witnesses?
    - sushibowl 5y ago
      Generally, no. Under the rules of civil procedure, a subpoena to testify may be quashed if it "requires disclosing an unretained expert’s opinion or information that does not describe specific occurrences in dispute and results from the expert’s study not requested by a party." expert witnesses are much different from a regular witness since they have an exception to the hearsay rule (can testify about things they didn't directly observe themselves), their credentials are examined, they make a report, they are required to be paid, etc. Because of this you cannot subpoena them like a regular witness. more info https://www.expertinstitute.com/resources/insights/can-a-non-retained-expert-be-compelled-to-testify/ https://www.expertinstitute.com/resources/insights/can-a-non...
- Consultant32452 5y ago
  This is not an endorsement, but a clarification. They're allowed to testify in court. They are just not allowed to get paid to do it, nor are they allowed to use their affiliation with the university as credentials when testifying because they are not speaking for the university.
  - deleted 5y ago
zackmorris 5y ago
Probably what's going on is that someone on the board of trusties gets money from the political establishment in Florida and is worried that they'll lose it if the voting barriers are fixed and different leadership is elected. This has similarities with the shenanigans pulled by Sinema and Manchin around the Build Back Better plan. Political horse trading to advance the agendas of special interests, at great expense to millions of people. I wonder if the tech community could get involved to increase transparency around this stuff. Imagine if we had an open graph of the money flow so we could write a SQL query like (pseudo code) "select * from donors where payee in (select id from trustees)". Let people crowdsource the data and then maintain a page of declarative queries so that anyone can instantly see the web of money around public officials. It could be part of a build system that automatically creates a NASCAR jacket for each official so we could see who their donors are in AR. Maybe such a thing already exists. It's traditionally been accomplished by investigative journalists and lawyers, but why couldn't it be public? It seems like it would be an effective way to end the bribe system.
- nefitty 5y ago
  It should be straightforward to chop something up in Observable. OpenSecrets has an API https://www.opensecrets.org/open-data/api/ https://www.opensecrets.org/open-data/api/
- dd36 5y ago
  It surely exists in private. It should exist in public and be a condition of public service.
- nerpderp82 5y ago
  These are all great ideas. One could scrape this into a graph database, https://dos.elections.myflorida.com/campaign-finance/contributions/ https://dos.elections.myflorida.com/campaign-finance/contrib...
- elliekelly 5y ago
  The chair of the board is a GOP mega-donor & “adviser”. Search “Mori Hosseini” for plenty of examples of he and his company getting cozy with the Desantis administration. His company’s political contributions: https://www.opensecrets.org/orgs/ici-homes/summary?topnumcycle=A&contribcycle=2020&lobcycle=2020&outspendcycle=2020&id=D000034618&toprecipcycle=2020 https://www.opensecrets.org/orgs/ici-homes/summary?topnumcyc...
bob1029 5y ago
Public education institutions are potentially the most politicized arenas in our nation today. Especially K-12 education, where you have to somehow bridge a new chasm between insane ideologies while also keeping a classroom full children working "productively" towards pointless standardized testing objectives. All of this despite most of their dopamine loops being totally burned out from hours of smartphone use before they even get to school. The whole education system is heading towards "totally fucked". This UF politics issue is just 1% of the puzzle behind why everything sucks so hard now. If you personally know any teachers working in K12, lend them your ear. You would be surprised how many people are internalizing the problems and don't even know who to talk to about it anymore. The rest have succumbed to apathy or new careers.
- bob1029 5y ago
  Too off topic or did we hit a nerve?
ClumsyPilot 5y ago
"Three University of Florida professors were denied permission from the school to testify in a major voting rights case " What the fuck is 'permission to testify'? I thought access to justice was a constitutional right. If you can't get anyone to tesrify, then you have no access to justice. We have surrendered so many rights in various contracts, we hardly have any freedoms left.
- brazzledazzle 5y ago
  I find it fascinating that the supreme court has upheld the ability to forgo so many purportedly inalienable rights via contract.
  - mullen 5y ago
    Well, you did voluntary signed a Contract. As part of a commercial exchange, you agree to do and do not certain things for money. Inalienable Rights can't be signed away, so the argument that you are signing away Inalienable Rights really does not hold water.
    - ClumsyPilot 5y ago
      I need person X to teatify so that I don't go to jail, and I never signed a contract. Also, did amazom workers voluntarily sign up to pee in bottles?
      - JaceLightning 5y ago
        Yes
    - brazzledazzle 5y ago
      Correct me if I’m wrong but it seems to me that confining yourself to civil judgement via private arbitration removes your rights.
      - colejohnson66 5y ago
djoldman 5y ago
For the lawyers: Can't a lawyer wishing to have these professors testify as expert witnesses merely motion for them to be subpoenaed? As far as I know, then by law the expert witnesses must testify else risk contempt of court, thereby negating whatever "bar" that the university seems fit to impose.
- dragonwriter 5y ago
  > Can't a lawyer wishing to have these professors testify as expert witnesses merely motion for them to be subpoenaed? That depends on the law of the jurisdiction in question; in the US federal system, for instance this is theoretically possible but its kind of a hail mary, rather than a slam dunk; getting an order for s non-retained expert is far from automatic, even when their testimony would be relevant: https://www.expertinstitute.com/resources/insights/can-a-non-retained-expert-be-compelled-to-testify/ https://www.expertinstitute.com/resources/insights/can-a-non... Not sure about Florida particularly.
  - djoldman 5y ago
    Thanks for the link. For those curious, this seems to be the relevant section: Differing Requirements for Expert and Non-Retained Witnesses While non-retained witnesses require some disclosure, expert witnesses require far more. It may be challenging to compel an expert witness to testify, in part, because before an expert witness is deposed or testifies, the federal rules require the disclosure of a report. Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 26 (a) (2) (B) calls for the disclosure of a report including: * A complete statement of all the opinions a witness plans to express, as well as the basis for the opinions, and the reasons supporting the opinions * The facts or data relied on or considered when forming the opinion * Exhibits the expert will use to support or summarize their findings * Their qualifications and the last 10 years of their publications * All other cases the witness testified as an expert, whether in trial or deposition * A statement of compensation the expert has been or will be paid for the study and testimony in the case at hand Obviously, it will be difficult, if not impossible, to obtain this information in a report from a non-compensated, unretained expert.
- gmadsen 5y ago
atlgator 5y ago
I assume UF has a conflict of interest office for this reason and I can see UF's argument whether I agree with the outcome or not. So I would ask why these 3 professors? Are there not private Florida institutions (e.g. UMiami) or universities in other states that have voting rights experts?
dekhn 5y ago
Based on a bit of reading, neither university, nor the professors, are being entirely honest about their underlying goals here. Each is working hard to adjust the narrative to be entirely in their favor. The professors could proceed with this, without permission of the university; the consequence could be firing and possibly a lawsuit. But that would backfire spectacularly on the university (streisand effect). So, the professors are actually not proceeding, to make the university look as bad as possible. Bad faith all around.

379 points by BrianOnHN 5y ago

If schools have become as much political institutions as educational institutions -- and there's little doubt about that -- why do they get public money at all? The real conflict of interest here is politicians spending your money for their political goals.

ceejayoz 5y ago
> why do they get public money at all? Because we still believe there to be a societal benefit to an educated populace.
- educaysean 5y ago
  Don't speak for the rest of us please. I personally believe there to be a massive societal disadvantage to the existence of "educational institutions" with hidden political agendas.
  - ceejayoz 5y ago
    You can believe anything you like, and it's a little silly to read "we" in my comment as "without even a single individual exception". We, society, currently elect representatives who see fit to continue funding a public educational system of schools and universities, which can be inferred to be a general acceptance of their value.
    - educaysean 5y ago
      And we, the society, are outraged at the blatant abuse of power we are witnessing in this article. We are shocked by how our current system may have critical vulnerabilities that compromise it's ability to deliver the education it promised, and are ready to discuss which aspect of the status quo may need to be improved upon.
      - ceejayoz 5y ago
        All that may be true; we'll have to see if society kicks up enough of a fuss. I hope it does in this case. I'm not sure how you get from "this university did a bad thing" to "we should get rid of public universities", though.
        OrvalWintermute 5y ago
        The issue is not getting rid of public universities. The issue is huge partisanship which has distorted academia from their mission.
  - jasonlotito 5y ago
    Then why do you feel qualified to speak for me?
- willis936 5y ago
  More than that: the market doesn't see past quarterly earnings. Private industry spends a lot on R&D but next to nothing on basic research [0]. Dollar for dollar, academic research that is not beholden to shareholder value theory produces science that is more useful for society. 0. https://ncses.nsf.gov/pubs/nsb20201/u-s-r-d-performance-and-funding https://ncses.nsf.gov/pubs/nsb20201/u-s-r-d-performance-and-...
- supperburg 5y ago
  Pick a random 18 year old and see if they can point to the country of Argentina on a map. The populace can read but not much else.
  - jeffbee 5y ago
    Speaking as a person confident that I could point out Argentina on a map, why is geographic trivia a very important topic? I'd rather have a population with a good understanding of means and medians, thermodynamics, and the relationship between rates and accumulations, than one that can readily tell me the year that William the Conqueror invaded England.
    - supperburg 5y ago
      I agree but the point is that knowledge of the countries of the world is the most basic sign of education besides reading. The average 18 year old knows even less about science than geography. But geography is important because not knowing it is extremely embarrassing.
      - boomboomsubban 5y ago
        Knowledge about other countries is useful, geography less so. It would be just as embarrassing to have a conversation with an Argentinian and say "so what's it like living near Chile?"
    - xenophonf 5y ago
      Because literacy and numeracy are necessary but not sufficient for an educated polity. A good understanding of society, of history, of philosophy, and more all factor in. As do good critical thinking skills.
  - munificent 5y ago
    ...and before widespread public education, many of them couldn't even read.
    - 5y ago
orangepurple 5y ago
The short answer is that the University of Florida, and American Universities in general, are not accountable to YOU OR ME, but rather a handful of bureaucrats in the federal government, and in this case specifically the NIH, which air drops the most cash on the institution. Funding for NIH comes primarily from annual Labor, HHS, and Education (LHHS) Appropriations Acts, with an additional smaller amount for the Superfund Research Program from the Interior/Environment Appropriations Act.6 Those two bills provide NIH discretionary budget authority. The NIH then presumably has the US Federal Reserve electronically wire it a few billion $ from an internal account they electronically added a few zeros to beforehand. > UF received about $602 million in research funding from the federal government, including a record $250 million from the National Institutes of Health, the university’s largest research funding source. https://news.ufl.edu/2021/08/research-awards-/ https://news.ufl.edu/2021/08/research-awards-/
- duxup 5y ago
  Are they really accountable to those folks in the sense that they're running the universities / telling people they can't testify like this law? I think there is a big difference.
- jonathanwallace 5y ago
  The second half of this claim is a demonstrably weak generalization as to the source of power. The counter example is Georgia, where the Board of Regents is beholden to the politics of the Governor. See recently the fiasco with the pandemic i.e., mandated vaccines and mandated masks. Proof? The companies run by the members of the Board of Regents implemented different policies than the members themselves voted for the universities in the state of Georgia.
- Frondo 5y ago
  I would have said that public universities in the US are accountable to their boards of regents far moreso than the sinister "bureaucrats in the federal government." I didn't think much about this until the recent news that the University System of Georgia was effectively ending tenure for its professors, and the drivers of that policy were the USG Board of Regents. > To many professors, the most alarming proposal is that a faculty member may not only be separated from the university for clear cause, but also reasons “other than for cause," pursuant to other board policies. “Such other policies shall not be governed by or subject to the following policies on Grounds for Removal and Procedures for Dismissal,” the proposed change also says. From: https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2021/10/04/tenure-under-threat-georgia https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2021/10/04/tenure-under-... So I looked up the USG Board of Regents: https://www.usg.edu/regents/members https://www.usg.edu/regents/members And it turns out that most of them are CEOs or work in finance -- the people who represent "capital" more than any others I can think of. For these people to decide that it should be easier to fire "tenured" professors makes sense to me, in that these are the people who would benefit most from being able to silence, for example, expert witnesses, far more than federal bureaucrats meddling in academic freedom.
dahfizz 5y ago
> If schools have become as much political institutions as educational institutions -- and there's little doubt about that -- why do they get public money at all? I think you've answered your own question. Why wouldn't the politicians in charge want to fund (and control) such a powerful political institution as education?
dragonwriter 5y ago
> If schools have become as much political institutions as educational institutions -- and there's little doubt about that -- why do they get public money at all? Things get public money because they are political; that is, connected to an agenda some group thinks is important for public governance. Why else would government fund a thing?

rayiner 5y ago

> "Faculty do not forfeit their First Amendment rights as citizens by accepting an offer of employment with UF," Donnelly wrote. "Professors Smith, McDonald, and Austin testify as expert witnesses in their fields on their own time. Their testimony does not interfere with any of their job duties. There are no conflicts of interest." This is acting like a private sector employee would be able to testify on whatever matter they want but that’s not true. Google wouldn’t let an employee serve as an expert witness against itself, for example.

gpm 5y ago
Private companies are not bound by the first amendment, state actors including this university are.
- rayiner 5y ago
  It’s more complicated than that. State actors have have certain freedom to restrict speech when acting in their capacity as private employers: https://www.oyez.org/cases/2005/04-473 https://www.oyez.org/cases/2005/04-473
  - gpm 5y ago
    That doesn't justify the post I was replying to at all...
    - ameister14 5y ago
      Really? You were saying that the public university is subject to 1st amendment restrictions in this instance, that case says it could be otherwise. From the note: "In a 5-to-4 decision authored by Justice Anthony Kennedy, the Supreme Court held that speech by a public official is only protected if it is engaged in as a private citizen, not if it is expressed as part of the official's public duties."
      - gpm 5y ago

twofornone 5y ago

>As part of the testimony, the plaintiffs were seeking three professors from the university — Dan Smith, Michael McDonald and Sharon Austin — to testify as expert witnesses. All three specialize in voting rights and behavior and election law. Regardless of your stance on the issue, does anyone actually believe that three "voting rights" professors will give a politically unbiased testimony in 2021?

runako 5y ago
Remember that testimony is given in an adversarial setting, and answers are framed by the attorneys questioning. So the idea is that either yes, they will give unbiased testimony, or the attorneys will be able to make it plain to the jury that the testimony is biased.
- twofornone 5y ago
  Or option 3, the plaintiff counsel successfully convinces some or all members of the jury that a biased testimony is unbiased. These are "experts", after all. They're already starting from a position of credibility, and I don't think the defense lawyer is necessarily equipped to deconstruct whatever the "experts" spend their professional lives working on, regardless of the objectivity of their teatimony.
  - babyblueblanket 5y ago
    By this logic, no experts should be allowed in court unless the opposing lawyer has as much education as the expert in their subject.
    - twofornone 5y ago
      If the subject is politically polarized then I am inclined to agree. Its an open secret that right leaning opinions are taboo across academia. That doesn't actually mean such opinions are wrong.

elliekelly 5y ago

I have a colleague who does environmental litigation. (Think Erin Brockovich.) They have a big civil case against a large energy company in a southern, “energy-friendly” state. They had an expert witness all lined up - a professor at the (public!) state university. Well this expert happened to be up for tenure and was (allegedly) told in no uncertain terms that, should they testify as an expert witness in this case, tenure was off the table. It’s absolutely outrageous that we allow those in positions of power to manipulate the justice system in such a way.

CoastalCoder 5y ago
I'm curious if that approach to eliminating expert witnesses passes legal muster.
- stronglikedan 5y ago
  Doesn't matter if no one is held accountable. We don't have a "legal" problem in the US. We have an accountability problem, particularly amongst the "elites".
josefresco 5y ago
This seems like clear "witness intimidation" aka "Tampering with a witness, victim, or an informant" https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/1512 https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/1512 (b)Whoever knowingly uses intimidation, threatens, or corruptly persuades another person, or attempts to do so, or engages in misleading conduct toward another person, with intent to— (1)influence, delay, or prevent the testimony of any person in an official proceeding; (2)cause or induce any person to— (A)withhold testimony, or withhold a record, document, or other object, from an official proceeding; (B)alter, destroy, mutilate, or conceal an object with intent to impair the object’s integrity or availability for use in an official proceeding; (C)evade legal process summoning that person to appear as a witness, or to produce a record, document, or other object, in an official proceeding; or (D)be absent from an official proceeding to which such person has been summoned by legal process; or
- 5y ago

endisneigh 5y ago

this doesn't sound like a big deal. UF is saying that professors cannot both receive compensation for your testimony and testify as a member of the university. in other words, they can testify for free, or they cannot use their the fact that they're UF professors as part of their credentials without prior approval, or do anything that's a "conflict of interest" as defined by UF themselves. the article itself admits that plenty of professors at UF serve as expert witnesses, but this particular case is unique because UF professors want to testify against the State of Florida, which funds UF. obviously UF wouldn't want that. --- which organizations will allow you to testify against an entity that funds the organization without said organizations approval. free speech aside, obviously no organization will let you do that in your capacity as a member of said organization, but nothing is stopping you from quitting and testifying anyway.

gradys 5y ago
They are in fact UF professors though, and that fact would be relevant in any case they testified in. Are UF professors banned from acting as paid expert witnesses in general? Or just for this issue? To your edit: the fact that the entity in question is a government is the difference here in my opinion.
- endisneigh 5y ago
  per the article: > Are UF professors banned from acting as paid expert witnesses in general? No > Or just for this issue? Yes
obelos 5y ago
Organizations that aren't the government. State universities are public institutions, not private ones.
- endisneigh 5y ago
  really? which private entities explicitly or historically have allowed a member to testify against either the entity itself or another entity that funds the one in which the member of a part of? even whistleblowers generally quit before testifying, or are expected to not necessarily retain their rights as a member afterwards. there's really no incentive for an organization to explicitly allow a member to testify against them or another entity that funds them. genuinely curious if it's happened before.

vilvo 5y ago

O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave?

pyronik19 5y ago
If you have been paying attention to the rampant censorship by the tech oligopolies on behalf of the government requests you'd know that wasn't true.
- Ensorceled 5y ago
  I think you missed the '?' at the end of the verse ...
- unethical_ban 5y ago
  Working against coordinated, viral disinformation campaigns on social media is a bit different than prohibiting expert witness testimony aby professors employed by the state.
steve76 5y ago
[dead]

wayoutthere 5y ago

This is blatantly unconstitutional and any professors disciplined under this would be in line for a fat settlement from the university. Or rather, they would be if our justice system actually worked. Rule of law in the US is on life support and the prognosis is not good.

lbriner 5y ago
If they were disciplined, yes, the "clever" part (read immoral but not unlawful) would be the University deciding that another Professor will get that senior position instead of you. You could fight it but it would be pretty easy in most situations to "prove" that the other candidate was better. I guess any academic needs to measure their conscience against their career as others in Politics or Religion also might have to.
- wayoutthere 5y ago
  But we’re well past the point of subtly nudging people into things. We’re at the movie villain stage of “I’m going to tell you what I’m doing, why I’m doing it, then do it, because I want you to know how much power I actually have over you”.
arthurcolle 5y ago
Yep, this kills the patient

poorjohnmacafee 5y ago

Most countries, including EU nations, ban mail-in voting minus exceptions like living abroad, these laws being passed because of discovered fraud in elections. Election integrity is the difference between democracy and a one-party state. Every citizen should be bending over backwards to make sure our elections dont have sources of fraud.

unethical_ban 5y ago
Your premise that mail-in ballots were a source of significant fraud has been proven false. Edit: Election integrity is important. So is access to voting. It seems completely obvious to me (and millions of others, it seems) that the so-called election integrity measures taken by places like Florida and Texas are blatant attempts to restrict access to legitimate voting for the kinds of people that tend to vote Democrat.
productivepizza 5y ago
Can you provide links with information on countries that have discovered election fraud and banned mail-in voting? I could not find anything with a quick google search.
- aigo 5y ago
  In the UK we did discover some postal voting fraud in a 2014 local election in an area of London called Tower Hamlets. We did not ban postal voting as a result. We have, however, imported a voter ID law from the US which was recently passed by the Johnson government, despite no voter impersonation occurring in Tower Hamlets (or anywhere else really). Previously, no ID was required.
  - snovv_crash 5y ago
    Many other countries have mandatory IDs anyways, so in these cases ID presentation isn't problematic. The issue with ID verification is when only people with eg. a driver's license have IDs.
  - 5y ago

mercy_dude 5y ago

Good news is and many in the academic sphere may not realize this - many faculties universities are going to go out of business at this rate. One silver lining during this time has been, many have realized how much they are overpaying for things they can learn online or through their own efforts. There is no reason you need to spend 200k+ for a degree in Sociology and Gender Studies. Other than medicine, law a few science majors I don’t foresee much of the faculties in universities survive assuming the cooler heads prevail, and parents and society realize sending your kids on their way to mortgage their entire twenties for a piece of paper that can be learned through community college and online studies is worthless.

voakbasda 5y ago
After my experience in public schools, college and then grad school, I plan to homeschool my children and will actively dissuade them from going to college. The value of those institutions is purely negative at this point in US history. Like most of our government.
- hereme888 5y ago
  Exactly my thoughts. They're inefficient, overpriced, and outdated models. From what I've seen first-hand, homeschooling or similar schooling methods, in community efforts (not home schooling in isolation), is much more efficient and healthy.
hereme888 5y ago
Even medicine is an inefficient system of schooling in the US (and very hypocritical if you consider what med students and residents go through and its impact on their health). It can be redone to be cheaper, quicker, and safer, with less burnout rates.

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duxup 5y ago

The GOPs tactics seem increasingly like something you would see from a "banana republic"...

mistrial9 5y ago
both parties do this -- specifically, the one and only green party assembly member in California 1990s was doxxed and infiltrated, while getting congratulatory letters from GOP reps.
- duxup 5y ago
  I don't see anything to make me think wholesale laws like this are the least bit comparable to whatever event your talking about.
- cmeacham98 5y ago
  > both parties do this > best example is a significantly different event from 30 years ago
- chipotle_coyote 5y ago
  The criticism is "this is a bad thing the current Republican Party is doing right now in a widespread fashion"; "there are past examples of the Democrats doing this" is not a defense. If it's a bad thing that we should try to stop any party from doing, then right now that means trying to stop the Republicans from doing it. The bad thing we are talking about right now is the Republican Party trying to engineer a de facto one-party state through gerrymandering, court stacking, and just taking advantage of the ever-increasing "handicap" both the Electoral College and the two-Senators-per-state apportionment give Republicans due to the rural vs. urban alignment between the two parties. The argument "yes, but the Democrats would do the same thing if they were in the position to" may be true, but it's not a reason not to do something about the Republicans actually doing it right now.
  - useragent86 5y ago
    So the Democratic Party controls both houses of Congress and the White House, and they're trying to pass bills to give the Attorney General control over all federal elections in the country, but you say that it's "the Republican Party trying to engineer a de facto one-party state."

throwawaysea 5y ago

Statement from FIRE on this matter: https://www.thefire.org/fire-statement-on-university-of-florida-decision-to-prevent-professors-from-testifying-in-voting-rights-lawsuit/ https://www.thefire.org/fire-statement-on-university-of-flor...

ajay-b 5y ago

That’s… Wow, since when can someone bar someone else from testifying in court? I thought it was the pursuit of truth?

mankyd 5y ago
Expert witnesses are hired as contractors; paid for their testimony. If they were being subpoenaed - compelled to be a witness - I am sure the matter would be different.
- inetsee 5y ago
  A naive legal question: can the plaintiffs subpoena the professors as expert witnesses?
  - sushibowl 5y ago
    Generally, no. Under the rules of civil procedure, a subpoena to testify may be quashed if it "requires disclosing an unretained expert’s opinion or information that does not describe specific occurrences in dispute and results from the expert’s study not requested by a party." expert witnesses are much different from a regular witness since they have an exception to the hearsay rule (can testify about things they didn't directly observe themselves), their credentials are examined, they make a report, they are required to be paid, etc. Because of this you cannot subpoena them like a regular witness. more info https://www.expertinstitute.com/resources/insights/can-a-non-retained-expert-be-compelled-to-testify/ https://www.expertinstitute.com/resources/insights/can-a-non...
Consultant32452 5y ago
This is not an endorsement, but a clarification. They're allowed to testify in court. They are just not allowed to get paid to do it, nor are they allowed to use their affiliation with the university as credentials when testifying because they are not speaking for the university.
- deleted 5y ago

zackmorris 5y ago

Probably what's going on is that someone on the board of trusties gets money from the political establishment in Florida and is worried that they'll lose it if the voting barriers are fixed and different leadership is elected. This has similarities with the shenanigans pulled by Sinema and Manchin around the Build Back Better plan. Political horse trading to advance the agendas of special interests, at great expense to millions of people. I wonder if the tech community could get involved to increase transparency around this stuff. Imagine if we had an open graph of the money flow so we could write a SQL query like (pseudo code) "select * from donors where payee in (select id from trustees)". Let people crowdsource the data and then maintain a page of declarative queries so that anyone can instantly see the web of money around public officials. It could be part of a build system that automatically creates a NASCAR jacket for each official so we could see who their donors are in AR. Maybe such a thing already exists. It's traditionally been accomplished by investigative journalists and lawyers, but why couldn't it be public? It seems like it would be an effective way to end the bribe system.

nefitty 5y ago
It should be straightforward to chop something up in Observable. OpenSecrets has an API https://www.opensecrets.org/open-data/api/ https://www.opensecrets.org/open-data/api/
dd36 5y ago
It surely exists in private. It should exist in public and be a condition of public service.
nerpderp82 5y ago
These are all great ideas. One could scrape this into a graph database, https://dos.elections.myflorida.com/campaign-finance/contributions/ https://dos.elections.myflorida.com/campaign-finance/contrib...
elliekelly 5y ago
The chair of the board is a GOP mega-donor & “adviser”. Search “Mori Hosseini” for plenty of examples of he and his company getting cozy with the Desantis administration. His company’s political contributions: https://www.opensecrets.org/orgs/ici-homes/summary?topnumcycle=A&contribcycle=2020&lobcycle=2020&outspendcycle=2020&id=D000034618&toprecipcycle=2020 https://www.opensecrets.org/orgs/ici-homes/summary?topnumcyc...

bob1029 5y ago

Public education institutions are potentially the most politicized arenas in our nation today. Especially K-12 education, where you have to somehow bridge a new chasm between insane ideologies while also keeping a classroom full children working "productively" towards pointless standardized testing objectives. All of this despite most of their dopamine loops being totally burned out from hours of smartphone use before they even get to school. The whole education system is heading towards "totally fucked". This UF politics issue is just 1% of the puzzle behind why everything sucks so hard now. If you personally know any teachers working in K12, lend them your ear. You would be surprised how many people are internalizing the problems and don't even know who to talk to about it anymore. The rest have succumbed to apathy or new careers.

bob1029 5y ago
Too off topic or did we hit a nerve?

ClumsyPilot 5y ago

"Three University of Florida professors were denied permission from the school to testify in a major voting rights case " What the fuck is 'permission to testify'? I thought access to justice was a constitutional right. If you can't get anyone to tesrify, then you have no access to justice. We have surrendered so many rights in various contracts, we hardly have any freedoms left.

brazzledazzle 5y ago
I find it fascinating that the supreme court has upheld the ability to forgo so many purportedly inalienable rights via contract.
- mullen 5y ago
  Well, you did voluntary signed a Contract. As part of a commercial exchange, you agree to do and do not certain things for money. Inalienable Rights can't be signed away, so the argument that you are signing away Inalienable Rights really does not hold water.
  - ClumsyPilot 5y ago
    I need person X to teatify so that I don't go to jail, and I never signed a contract. Also, did amazom workers voluntarily sign up to pee in bottles?
    - JaceLightning 5y ago
      Yes
  - brazzledazzle 5y ago
    Correct me if I’m wrong but it seems to me that confining yourself to civil judgement via private arbitration removes your rights.
    - colejohnson66 5y ago

djoldman 5y ago

For the lawyers: Can't a lawyer wishing to have these professors testify as expert witnesses merely motion for them to be subpoenaed? As far as I know, then by law the expert witnesses must testify else risk contempt of court, thereby negating whatever "bar" that the university seems fit to impose.

dragonwriter 5y ago
> Can't a lawyer wishing to have these professors testify as expert witnesses merely motion for them to be subpoenaed? That depends on the law of the jurisdiction in question; in the US federal system, for instance this is theoretically possible but its kind of a hail mary, rather than a slam dunk; getting an order for s non-retained expert is far from automatic, even when their testimony would be relevant: https://www.expertinstitute.com/resources/insights/can-a-non-retained-expert-be-compelled-to-testify/ https://www.expertinstitute.com/resources/insights/can-a-non... Not sure about Florida particularly.
- djoldman 5y ago
  Thanks for the link. For those curious, this seems to be the relevant section: Differing Requirements for Expert and Non-Retained Witnesses While non-retained witnesses require some disclosure, expert witnesses require far more. It may be challenging to compel an expert witness to testify, in part, because before an expert witness is deposed or testifies, the federal rules require the disclosure of a report. Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 26 (a) (2) (B) calls for the disclosure of a report including: * A complete statement of all the opinions a witness plans to express, as well as the basis for the opinions, and the reasons supporting the opinions * The facts or data relied on or considered when forming the opinion * Exhibits the expert will use to support or summarize their findings * Their qualifications and the last 10 years of their publications * All other cases the witness testified as an expert, whether in trial or deposition * A statement of compensation the expert has been or will be paid for the study and testimony in the case at hand Obviously, it will be difficult, if not impossible, to obtain this information in a report from a non-compensated, unretained expert.
gmadsen 5y ago

atlgator 5y ago

I assume UF has a conflict of interest office for this reason and I can see UF's argument whether I agree with the outcome or not. So I would ask why these 3 professors? Are there not private Florida institutions (e.g. UMiami) or universities in other states that have voting rights experts?

dekhn 5y ago

Based on a bit of reading, neither university, nor the professors, are being entirely honest about their underlying goals here. Each is working hard to adjust the narrative to be entirely in their favor. The professors could proceed with this, without permission of the university; the consequence could be firing and possibly a lawsuit. But that would backfire spectacularly on the university (streisand effect). So, the professors are actually not proceeding, to make the university look as bad as possible. Bad faith all around.