Thread by @donmoyn

This should be a bombshell story about political interference in research and teaching in Florida but it will likely get minimal attention beyond local coverage and concerned academics miamiherald.com/news/local/edu…

An investigative committee found clear evidence of chilling effects and a culture of fear at U Florida. But because political sponsors, and not students, are the ones who are silencing speech, the story doesn’t fit the woke narrative

You might recall coverage of professors who went public when they were told they could not participate in court cases involving the state about voting rights or COVID. Here, I explain why this is so dangerous. donmoynihan.substack.com/p/an-assault-o…

The problems at U Florida appear to be much deeper than the handful of faculty who were blocked from testifying. It is the public who loses out when academics are muzzled from using their scientific expertise on issues like COVID in order to protect the Governor.

U Florida faculty were told not to use the forbidden words of "critical" and "race" in the same sentence.

The political appointees who make up the U of Florida trustees did their own review, and see nothing wrong! If you think that is obviously bad faith denial of the situation, then recognize it is no different from the mainstream discourse on campus speech in recent years.

These two quotes lay out the choice in stark terms.
You can decide that faculty in public institutions owe a duty to the public, or that their research should be tailored not to offend the partisan regime in power. But the Great Campus Speech Discourse has ignored this choice.

You can read the full report here. Having worked in both public and private institutions, trust me when I tell you that political interference on campus is, and has always been, the much bigger threat to speech and research than students using their voice
miamiherald.com/latest-news/ar…

The local public university is often one of the few places where the public can expect evidence-based, in-depth analysis not controlled by the government. The indifference to the loss of this independent voice makes me think it was never highly valued by the woke fear-mongers.