Three Florida professors have filed a lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of a 2023 state law that would require public university faculty to undergo mandatory post-appointment reviews every five years.
The scholars argue that the law “jeopardizes academic freedom” and allows the Florida State Legislature to “assume the exclusive powers and duties” of the State University System’s Board of Regents granted to it by the Florida State Constitution.
While two of the three plaintiffs are academics with left-leaning views, the third is a Christian professor who said the law could have unintended consequences.
Steven Willis, a professor at UF’s Levin College of Law, expressed concern that weakening tenure protections could result in conservative faculty members being penalized for their political beliefs.
“I support Governor DeSantis,” Willis said The College Fix in an interview. “But I believe this law has exceeded the powers of the legislature.”
“Without a permanent position, I and all conservative and Christian academics are a huge target.”
Willis said he recognized the benefits of post-term review, but the new law lacks “due process” and “makes unclear rules retroactive.”
“This hands the power to judge us to administration officials who have a history of hostility toward Christians and Republicans,” said Willis, who added that he has been investigated in the past because of his faith.
SB 266 requires the board of directors at public universities to conduct a review of the productivity and teaching performance of faculty members after their appointment.
The law also states that decisions concerning “appraisals, promotions, tenure, disciplinary action or termination may only be appealed to the level of the university president or his designee” and that disputes over these matters are not subject to arbitration.
These two provisions “reduce the substantive protections of a permanent position (which can be terminated for cause) to a five-year contract, renewable at the discretion of the university president,” the plaintiffs claim.
The complaint quotes Florida State University’s Office of the Provost as saying, “When it comes to the termination of tenured faculty, each academic community has its own definition of ‘good cause,’ namely misconduct or incompetence. No single person can exercise that authority.”
Reforming the tenure system is a priority for Florida’s Republican governor, Ron DeSantis, who in a July speech at St. Petersburg College called unproductive tenured faculty the “biggest financial burden” on state universities.
“There are people who think you have the right to have some taxpayer institutions without accountability. That they should just be able to do whatever they want,” DeSantis also said at the State College of Florida earlier this year.
Former University of Florida President Ben Sasse and Provost J. Scott Angle also advocated for conducting the post-tenure review of faculty to address declining productivity among faculty who have “quietly retired.”
“We have a lot of people who are extraordinarily productive, but we also have a significant number of people whose research productivity declines over time,” Sasse said at a UF Senate meeting in August 2023.
Angle advocates for review measures in which remediation takes priority.
“The first step should never be, ‘You’re done, it’s time to move on,'” Angle said in the same meeting.
As The College Fix As reported earlier this month, 34 professors failed to meet expectations and five were deemed inadequate under the post-professorship review process implemented at the University of Florida. The 39 scholars were among a total of 262 scholars criticized during the first wave of reviews.
The plaintiffs also argue that teachers who face at-will termination “will be hesitant to pursue new, daring and controversial ideas that might challenge the prevailing orthodoxy.”
Adriana Novoa, a professor of history at the University of South Florida, and Sarah Hernandez, a professor of sociology at New College of Florida, are plaintiffs in the lawsuit.
Novoa’s biography on the USF website states that she is writing a book about masculinity and Darwinism in Argentina.
She writes that “many scientific analogies related to mating and sexuality were introduced and used in late nineteenth-century naturalistic literature,” and that her work “would help us understand the naturalization of racial and gender ideas in the texts of authors who drew inspiration from science.”
Novoa had already successfully sued in federal district court in 2022 to block Florida’s “Stop WOKE Act,” which prohibits the teaching of essentialist and discriminatory theories about race and gender at public universities.
Hernandez teaches a course titled “Race and Ethnicity: An Interdisciplinary Exploration” and is co-director of the Diversity and Equity in Science Initiative at NCF.
In August 2023, Hernandez filed suit to overturn portions of SB 266 that prohibit funding for diversity, equity, and inclusion programs and the teaching of identity politics in general education courses. The court denied a preliminary injunction because Hernandez did not have standing to file.
Hernandez was represented in both cases by NCF Freedom, a nonprofit organization formed in response to DeSantis’ appointment of conservative scholars to the New College of Florida’s board of trustees in early 2023.
NCF Freedom’s website states that its goal is to “prevent unethical, inappropriate or illegal actions by the state, board of directors, trustees or administration that are detrimental to the mission and future of New College.”
NCF Freedom did not respond to a request for comment from The College Fix looking for a comment.
NCF Freedom attorney Gary Edinger, who states that “my personal political views are decidedly progressive,” represented Novoa in her 2022 case against the Stop WOKE Act.
MORE: At FSU, not a single professor has failed post-tenure review. Here’s why.
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