Jacob Ogles
Three Florida professors are suing Florida over a new law abolishing tenure.
A suit filed in Leon County circuit court is backed by NCF Freedom, a group formed after Gov. Ron DeSantis replaced the majority of the New College of Florida (NCF) Board of Trustees with conservative appointees.
“We must challenge this threat to academic freedom and shared governance as it violates Article IX, section 7 of the state’s Constitution, which guarantees the political independence of the Board of Governors from legislation that meddles in the management and operation of the State University System,” said Jono Millier, NCF Freedom President.
The lawsuit, from tenured professors Sarah Hernandez, Adriana Novoa and Steven Willis, challenges an overhaul of Florida’s higher education system passed in 2023. Among the changes was a transformation of the tenure track for professors at all of Florida’s universities.
Hernandez is a Sociology professor at New College, Willis teaches graduate-level tax classes at University of Florida’s College of Law and Novoa instructs social science classes at the University of South Florida.
But a release from NCF Freedom makes clear the plaintiffs have the future of all Florida faculty in mind.
“Without the protections of tenure, a professor’s free speech is at risk of being chilled, the progress of intellectual inquiry will be threatened, and students may no longer be exposed to cutting-edge or novel thoughts and ideas,” said University of Florida Emeritus Professor Joseph W. Little, lead counsel on the lawsuit.
Professors and state officials have run crossways before. The University of Florida in 2021 prohibited three faculty members from serving as paid experts in a lawsuit challenging a change to state voting rights. Courts later ruled the school could not censor testimony based on claims of conflicts of interest.
The new complaint touches on concerns that eliminating tenure makes professors susceptible to political pressure.
“The award of tenure to Plaintiffs protects them against political and ideological pressures, including termination, and afford them significant procedural protections under the policies of their respective universities,” the lawsuit states.
Plaintiffs want the court to put an injunction of enforcement of the change in tenure law.
DeSantis notably signed the legislation at New College against a backdrop of student protests at the Sarasota campus.
The suit lists the Florida Board of Governors, as well as House Speaker Paul Renner and Senate President Kathleen Passidomo.
13 comments
Ninety Three
August 2, 2024 at 4:51 pm
I am all in favor of eliminating tenure. Let’s see if some of these campus communists can function in the real world.
Richard Paula
August 2, 2024 at 5:04 pm
Don’t forget “Million Dollar Corcoran.”
If he’s not already joined in the suit, put him in too
PeterH
August 2, 2024 at 5:10 pm
Tenure!!!! Right or wrong! Legal or illegal. Constitutional or un-Constitutional!
Whatever!
Every DeSantis executive decision ends up in court costing the Florida taxpayers millions of dollars to defend DeSantis’s perception of a problem that may or may not exist.
Ninety Three
August 2, 2024 at 5:18 pm
Yet you probably want term limits for the Supreme Court of the USA.
Michael K
August 2, 2024 at 5:17 pm
The whole premise behind the tenure-track is academic freedom! DeSantis would like it to be illegal for any Florida professor to say anything that could be perceived as “negative” about the state, arguing that what university professors say is “state speech.” Or something chilling to that effect.
Ninety Three
August 2, 2024 at 5:19 pm
Another that is in favor of term limits for the Supreme Court. You guys are flip flopping like your messiah the Chameleon.🤣
Probably
August 2, 2024 at 5:25 pm
Good for them. Fascist Deathsantis is following the instructions of Project 2025 extremists. Only those that think like white Christian nationalists are welcome in the fascist state education system where they rewrite history
Ninety Three
August 2, 2024 at 5:41 pm
I’m guessing you are one of those tenured professors. Time for you to leave Fantasyland and see if you can function in the real world
MarvinM
August 2, 2024 at 5:54 pm
93 above is clearly a “nickle-a-post” poster.
And I’m not sure whoever is paying him/her is getting their money’s worth.
But s/he will change his/her name to try to “fool us” soon. Probably when the algorithm detects his/her posts aren’t getting a lot of replies.
Keep up the good work Florida Politics Blog Repliers! Always make new comments, don’t reply to these… whatever they are.
Now, I just have to take my own advice.
Ocean Joe
August 2, 2024 at 7:26 pm
Desantis’ fixation with changing our education system in order to create baby Republicans instead of free thinkers is the reason he has no time to deal with the insurance crisis. But he’s off to raise money for Trump, the billionaire who sponges off his dirt poor cultists.
Beachman
August 3, 2024 at 12:09 pm
93 seems overly invested in this conversation. Did he flunk out of college or something?
Ron Ogden
August 3, 2024 at 9:22 pm
A person who is paid with public funds to work in a public institution in pursuit of public goals must obey public laws crafted by the public will through the means of representative democracy in the American republic and its subdivisions. There are plenty of topics about which students may exercise their intellectual inquiry without wasting everyone’s time with unsound and political motivated ideologies.
JD
August 4, 2024 at 6:59 am
While public employees should adhere to laws established through representative democracy, the current dominant ideology often does not reflect the true public will due to gerrymandering and other undemocratic practices. These mechanisms allow minority rule, distorting genuine representation. Therefore, dismissing alternative viewpoints as “unsound and politically motivated” undermines intellectual inquiry and democracy itself. Public institutions must embrace diverse perspectives to ensure policies truly represent the broader population’s interests.
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