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Tallahassee, Florida: State Considering Bill to Sue Professors
April 01, 2005
PEN USA is disturbed by a new bill that proposes students should have the right to sue their professors for teaching a curriculum that goes against the beliefs of any student in the class.
Story Continued...
UPDATE: April 6, 2005:
Florida House Bill 837, or the so-called “The Academic Bill of Rights” is currently slowly making its way through the state House of Representatives.
However, if it does past through the Legislature, experts suggest the bill would quickly be brought before the U.S. Supreme Court, which has struck down similar bills in the past for being unconstitutional.
April 1, 2005:
The Student and Faculty Academic Freedom in Postsecondary Education, bill HB837, was presented to the House Choice and Innovation Committee of the Florida House of Representatives on Tuesday, March 22, and passed in an overwhelming 6-to-2 vote. The members of the committee voted strictly along party lines, with the six Republican representatives outweighing the two Democratic representatives, who strongly opposed the bill.
The bill must be passed by two more committees before it can be presented to the full House of Representatives. The next stop for the bill, is the Colleges and Universities Committee.
The bill, while reinforcing the right of students to openly profess their beliefs in a classroom - even if these beliefs are in opposition to that of their professor - without being punished or ridiculed, also recommends that professors teach a stricter and more serious curriculum. One which discusses actual recognized academic theories instead of reflecting the views of the professor.
Republican Dennis Baxley, who sponsored the Academic Freedom Bill of Rights, feels there is no shame in giving students the right to sue “if they feel ridiculed or persecuted by their professors.”
In an article for the Florida-based independent online magazine Alligator (http://www.alligator.org/pt2/050323freedom.php), James Vanlandingham quotes Baxley as having said “Freedom is a dangerous thing, and you might be exposed to things you don’t want to hear.” Additionally, Vanlandingham mentions Baxley’s comparison of universities to children, “saying the legislature should not give them money without providing ‘guidance’ to their behavior.”
In addition, Vanlandingham cites Baxley as having said “one biased view” is often imposed “by a professer, who as a dictator controls the classroom.” According to Baxley, the professors then exert this power as “a misuse of their platform to indoctrinate the next generation with their own views.”
One of the many issues people have with this bill is the fact that it gives students the right to sue if they feel their beliefs are not being represented within their learning environment. Dan Gelber, a Democrat on the Florida House Choice and Innovation Committee who voted against the bill, demonstrates the instances of abuse that could arise from giving this type of power to the students, using the example of students enrolled in Holocaust history courses who believe the Holocaust never happened.
Furthermore, Gelber cites the issue of cost to the universities and the professors themselves, who will most likely have to pay for legal fees out of their own salaries. In the end, schools will be paying money so that the courts can decide an “effective” curriculum to stand in place of the one established by the universities’ own professors.
“The idea of an elected official calling freedom dangerous is nothing short of Orwellian,” says David L. Ulin, co-chair of PEN USA’s Domestic Freedom to Write Committee, and a writer and teacher of writing at the university and graduate level. “It is also blatantly unconsititutional, and, frankly, un-American at the core. One can only hope that the colleges and universities committee of the Florida State House of Representatives will see through this outrageous attempt to undermine academic freedom and consign it to the trashbin of history, where it surely belongs.”
Write to the Chair and Vice Chair of the House Colleges and Universities Committee, letting them know this kind of bill could lead to instances of abuse which would undermine the protections guaranteed by the First Amendment.
David Mealor (R-Chair)
209 House Office Building
402 South Monroe Street
Tallahassee, FL 32399-1300
Phone: (850) 488-5843
Larry Cretul (R-Vice Chair)
204 House Office Building
402 South Monroe Street
Tallahassee, FL 32399-1300
Phone: (850) 488-0887