Florida students required to register political views with the state to promote 'intellectual diversity'

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Gov. Ron DeSantis signed legislation requiring students, faculty and staff at Florida's public universities and colleges to register their political views with the state as a way to encourage "intellectual diversity."

The state will require taxpayer-funded colleges and universities to issue surveys to determine "the extent to which competing ideas and perspectives are presented" on campus and whether students, faculty and staff "feel free to express [their] beliefs and viewpoints," although it's not clear what will be done with the poll results, reported the Tampa Bay Times.

"It used to be thought that a university campus was a place where you'd be exposed to a lot of different ideas," DeSantis said, justifying the legislation. "Unfortunately, now the norm is, these are more intellectually repressive environments. You have orthodoxies that are promoted, and other viewpoints are shunned or even suppressed."

DeSantis didn't offer any specific examples of that repression but instead claimed he "knows a lot of parents" who are worried their children will be "indoctrinated" with ideas they don't support, and a pair of state legislators complained that Florida colleges and universities had become "socialism factories."

"We always hear about the liberal parts of the university system, and we don't hear so much of that from the college system," Senate President Wilton Simpson (R-Trilby) said Tuesday at a state university system's Board of Governors meeting.

House Speaker Chris Sprowls (R-Palm Harbor) complained the state's universities lacked "diversity of thought" at a news conference with DeSantis.

"As the governor said, we are at great risk, as a nation and as a state, on the lack of intellectual diversity that is on our university campuses," Sprowls said. "We have decided that one ideological standard will win the day, but the thing is we're losing because we're not having real conversations."

DeSantis and the bill's sponsor, state Sen. Ray Rodrigues (R-Estero), suggested funding could be cut as punishment for colleges and universities found to be "indoctrinating" students under the measure, which goes into effect July 1.
"That's not worth tax dollars and that's not something that we're going to be supporting moving forward," DeSantis said.

Rodrigues insisted that faculty would not be promoted or fired based on their political views recorded in the survey, which is not required to be filed anonymously, and will be selected or created by the state university system's Board of Governors and the State Board of Education.

DeSantis also signed a law prohibiting university and college officials from limiting campus speech that "may be uncomfortable, disagreeable or offensive," and will allow students to record lectures without consent that may be used as evidence in a civil or criminal case against educational institutions.
https://www.alternet.org/2021/06/ron-de ... 653504639/

You will teach "diversity of thought" but only our "diversity of thought" not the socialist left wing "diversity of thought".
Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored.-Huxley
"We can have democracy in this country, or we can have great wealth concentrated in the hands of a few, but we can't have both." ~ Louis Brandeis,

Re: Florida students required to register political views with the state to promote 'intellectual diversity'

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Everybody knows how much fun can be had with surveys.

Still, all these laws and so on around the country by Republicans underlines, spotlights, and advertises their desire to have a minority authoritarian government that defends your freedom to do as they require under penalty of law.

May toenail fungus infect their gums from having their foot in the mouth so often.

CDFingers
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Re: Florida students required to register political views with the state to promote 'intellectual diversity'

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Alternet like Raw Story like Common Dreams have their own bias like Fox, OANN and Newsmax have their biases. This is from an NPR and PBS station in FL.
Florida lawmakers Wednesday passed a controversial bill to require Florida’s public universities to ask students and faculty to complete yearly surveys to identify political bias in college classrooms. It passed the Senate in a 23-15 vote and awaits the governor’s signature.

The bill would also allow students to record their professors during lectures to show evidence of political bias.

The sponsor of the House version of the legislation, Rep. Spencer Roach, R-North Fort Myers, said he has not spoken with Republican Gov. Ron Desantis but anticipates his support.

The Republican-backed bill passed in both houses mostly along party lines. The House passed it 77-42 last month. Rep. James Bush III of Opa Locka was the only Democrat to support it. Sen. Jennifer Bradley of Orange Park and Rep. Rene Plasencia of Titusville were the only Republicans who opposed it.

The bill would measure whether “competing ideas and perspectives” are fairly presented and encouraged during class lectures. It is intended to help increase the Republican party’s appeal to young voters, who traditionally lean Democrat.

If it becomes law, the Florida Board of Governors, which oversees the state university system, will be required to survey whether students, faculty and staff feel comfortable expressing their political beliefs on campus. The surveys’ responses would be anonymous and taking the survey would be optional. Results would be published each year on Sept. 1.

Roach said the surveys could uncover left-leaning political bias on campuses.

“The long term goal is to provide some guidance to policy makes on how we can ensure our universities are marketplaces for ideas, as they are intended to be,” Roach said.

The bill also prohibits universities from what it described as shielding students from views that are considered free speech by the Constitution. Shielding refers to limiting students’, faculty members’, or staff members’ access to, or observation of, ideas and opinions that they may find uncomfortable, unwelcome, disagreeable, or offensive.

Last month, Rep. Omari Hardy, D-Palm Beach, said he believed the bill’s “shielding” provision was vague and could have unexpected consequences, such as removing an administrator’s ability to limit speech that would disrupt classrooms.

“Nearly anything the administrator and professor would do to control the academic environment could be recast as shielding,” Hardy said.

Hardy said, if the bill were passed, students could be able to show videos of American soldiers being wounded overseas, discuss pro-pedophilia positions and distribute nude photographs of ex-partners on campus, if they say their actions are contributing to class discussions or are in protest.

Roach said Hardy’s criticism is outside of scope of his bill, because his examples were already legal on college campuses.

“If a student wants to show them something on their phone, whether it’s an American soldier in combat or some type of pornography, there is nothing under the law to stop them from doing that right now,” Roach said.

Karen Morian, the president of the United Faculty of Florida, a professor’s labor union, said she fears school administrators could pressure non-tenured instructors to complete the survey, disclosing their personal political beliefs. She also said the response rates from small but vocal groups of politically active students could skew results.

The bill would allow students to record lectures without a professor’s permission. However, the recordings could not be published, allowing them only for personal use or as evidence in university investigations or legal proceedings. If a recording is published, the professor could seek damages up to $200,000, according to the bill.

Morian said she doubted professors could identify students who post their recordings anonymously online, which would make seeking damages for misuse impossible. A professor’s syllabi, emails and course materials are generally treated as public records at state colleges and universities.

Roach said he has been surprised by the criticism the bill has received and views it as an extension of partisan politics.

“If a Republican sponsors a bill, the opposing party is going to vote down on it without examining its merits.” Roach said.
https://www.wuft.org/news/2021/04/07/le ... versities/


I expect a faculty union someplace will challenge this in court.
"Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but not their own facts." - Daniel Patrick Moynihan

Re: Florida students required to register political views with the state to promote 'intellectual diversity'

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cooper wrote: Wed Jun 23, 2021 3:20 pm On another thread I said the fascists are coming for real. Some felt I was wrong and that made me feel better.

Requiring you register your beliefs? I'll stand by my pessimistic stance for now and hope I'm wrong.

I know this is just red meat for his base, but throw out enough red meat and "normal" changes.
This amounts to a loyalty pledge for the likes of little racist pricks like desantis. He's all about 2024, and hopefully go toe to toe with the mar-a-lago mussolini...

Re: Florida students required to register political views with the state to promote 'intellectual diversity'

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Would you like to take a survey?

Yeah, the problem here is that you won't and can't get verifiable, reliable, statistically valid data from opt-in polling. Ask the whole damn industry. The 20-something troll demographic is notorious for their Orthodox Satanism and anarcho-fascist political orientation. The Church of Satan will have a field day with their lack of representation among the faculty and staff - but to be fair, they're well represented in administration.

Not sure they even have faculty unions in Florida anymore, but if they do, the union rep will encourage them to all identify as MAGA type Southern Baptists to build the case for greater diversity in hiring.

Re: Florida students required to register political views with the state to promote 'intellectual diversity'

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Long long ago in a land far far away on a college campus that shall remain unnamed but once won a race against the hare several of us took clip board in hand to survey our fellow student on two current topics. There were only two question.

1) Do you think that the US should get out of Vietnam?
2) Do you think we should we aid our French allies that are being attacked by communists in French Indochina?

It was interesting that the single most common response was 'yes' to both questions closely followed by 'no' to both questions.
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