This article reflects the opinion of the Editorial Board of the Tampa Bay Times.
There is nothing more essential to the college experience than the free exchange of ideas. Diversity of opinion is crucial; it strengthens the learning and research experience while expanding public support for higher education. But a new state law requiring Florida’s colleges and universities to assess their “diversity of viewpoints” could open a new front in America’s culture wars. University administrations and state officials must be careful not to damage these valuable institutions.
The bill signed by Governor Ron DeSantis in June calls for “freedom of thought and a variety of viewpoints”. To this end, it encourages students and staff to learn and explore “a variety of ideological and political perspectives”. It also requires that state colleges and universities conduct an annual survey to examine how well “competing ideas and perspectives are presented” and how free students and staff feel to express “their beliefs and viewpoints on campus”. The first results are expected to be released on September 1, 2022, just a few weeks before the early vote for the November elections.
The move comes after complaints from Republican leaders that those with conservative beliefs are being forced to self-censor their views on college campuses. State Representative Spencer Roach, the North Fort Myers Republican who supported the move in the House of Representatives, told the Tampa Bay Times he heard it happened in Florida and introduced the law as a means of gathering evidence.
According to the law, the required surveys must be “objective, non-partisan and statistically valid”. However, the measure does not provide any criteria for the survey or rules for the participation of students, faculty and staff, or even requires schools to follow uniform survey procedures to enable comparison between institutions. The law also does not dictate what colleges and universities, government education authorities, and lawmakers should do with the survey results.
While Americans on both sides of the party have expressed dissatisfaction with the higher education system, Republicans have increasingly complained that professors bring their views into the classroom. A 2018 poll by Pew Research found that Republicans far outperformed Democrats in blaming professors as the main reason for failures in higher education. This reflected a similar finding from Pew in 2017, which showed that the Democrats, in contrast, had a largely positive attitude towards college professors. Another 2019 Pew poll appeared to suggest that the party divide was widening, with Republicans far more skeptical than Democrats about whether colleges and universities were open to different viewpoints. Republicans even expressed doubts that the K-12 public schools were open to a range of opinions and viewpoints.
These polls appear to be aimed at promoting a political narrative. As a legal tool, they do nothing to protect speech that the First Amendment does not already do. The real test will come when the colleges create and run the surveys. Whether they will become a stepping stone for chilling speech remains to be seen.
But nobody should expect these polls to paint a very different picture of the partisan lens that already exists in higher education. Colleges and universities should ensure that efforts promote diversity and inclusion, and lawmakers should be wary of a new legal requirement that is dangerously close to police thinking.
Editorials are the institutional voice of the Tampa Bay Times. The members of the Editorial Board are editorials editor Graham Brink, Sherri Day, Sebastian Dortch, John Hill, Jim Verhulst and Chairman and CEO Paul Tash. Follow @TBTimes_Opinion on Twitter for more opinion news.
source https://collegeeducationnewsllc.com/floridas-college-survey-law-is-short-on-details-long-on-partisan-politics/
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