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by Megan Zahneis, Chronicle of Higher Education
Recently proposed and passed legislation that targets tenure and diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts is having a chilling effect on the recruitment of faculty members and administrators in Florida and Texas, where some of the highest profile laws and bills of that type have been undertaken.
In Florida, some candidates’ concerns are so profound that they’re turning down job offers in the state — despite not having other offers, said Andrew Gothard, president of the United Faculty of Florida, a union representing faculty at all 12 of the state’s public universities, a private one, and community colleges.
Admiral Andrew Cunningham once said of the British Royal Navy, “It takes the Navy three years to build a ship. It will take 300 years to build a new tradition.” Gaining trust is harder than breaking it, and public trust, in particular, should not be trifled with. Over the last decade, trust in science, and academia more generally, has eroded substantially, partly if not largely due to internal problems.
Observers across the political spectrum have identified a real problem in American higher education: too many campuses have drifted from genuine inquiry toward ideological performance and political engagement. That diagnosis is not partisan. It reflects a widely shared concern that universities are prioritizing critique over inquiry, activism over scholarship, and signaling over substance.
But even that diagnosis is incomplete - and the missing piece matters enormously for how we respond. A quieter, more structural crisis is unfolding beneath the ideological one: the erosion of faculty pay, stability, and dignity. Until we take that seriously, we will keep treating symptoms while the underlying condition worsens.
Gov. Ron DeSantis signed a measure into law Monday that gives him along with other Florida leaders the ability to label groups as domestic or foreign terrorist organizations and expel state university students who support them.
The law, criticized by free speech advocates, allows a top official at the Florida Department of Law Enforcement to designate a group as a domestic or foreign terrorist organization, with the governor and three other members of the Florida Cabinet approving or rejecting the designation.
