Please take a look at this letter sent by UFF-UF President Meera Sitharam. The original letter was sent to all UF faculty in the bargaining unit via email on January 22nd.
Dear Colleagues:
Happy New Year and welcome back after a well-deserved break. Look out for the first UFF-UF newsletter of 2024 later this week detailing recent wins by your chapter and statewide union.
This letter is a call to action on two issues that adversely affect not only your academic freedom to conduct your research and teach as effectively as possible, but also to freely collaborate and engage in open, global, public domain research. Both the process and output of public domain research are easily distinguished and demarcated from national security research or translational research that results in intellectual property.
BAN ON GRADUATE ASSISTANTS FROM “COUNTRIES OF CONCERN”
In Spring 2023, the Florida legislature passed SB 846. This legislation, as interpreted by the Board of Governors of the Florida State University System (BoG), has currently frozen UF hiring of graduate assistants, researchers and scholars from so-called “countries of concern,” which consist of China, Russia, Iran, North Korea, Cuba, Venezuela, and Syria. The BoG guidance document, which sidestepped the scrutiny of rulemaking procedures, significantly oversteps its own regulation: it apparently further requires disclosures (see Table Item 4) by individual researchers freely and openly collaborating with international colleagues on papers and data that will be available to all in the global public domain. Such disclosure overreach directly infringes on academic freedom.
For years, UF has benefitted from the talents and insights of many graduate assistants, researchers and scholars originating from these countries, many especially from China and Iran. This regulation will undoubtedly result in the loss of exceptional students, researchers, and scholars to other universities, and the damage will be irreversible.
A close reading of the BoG regulation 9.012 (see 5(b)(1,2)) calls for BoT and BoG screening. Such time-consuming and onerous disclosure and screening will itself have a devastating impact on our graduate and research programs; and it is hard to imagine that either board is more qualified than US consuls and visa officers to scrutinize applicants.
To make matters much worse, instead of testing the BoG’s approval process, and requiring the BoG to demonstrate its qualifications and the criteria it uses to screen applicants, UF has gone a step further in anticipatory deference, presumably to avoid displeasing the BoG: UF has interpreted the BoG’s regulation as a default prohibition on hiring graduate assistants domiciled in these countries and has apparently instructed units accordingly.
Your union has spoken out about the BoG’s draconian regulation that oversteps the requirements of the statute enacted by SB 846 (2023) and UF’s even more draconian prohibition, and is considering legislative and legal action in collaboration with affected applicant groups. However, such challenges are crucially strengthened by concrete actions by faculty whose origin is unrelated to the targeted countries, but who are affected by UF’s ban on hiring of graduate assistants from those countries.
SUGGESTED FACULTY ACTION
If you are a faculty member who wishes to make assistantship offers to graduate applicants domiciled in “countries of concern” who have already passed departmental screening based on academic criteria, the following actions are well within your shared governance rights stipulated by your CBA’s Article 10 on Academic Freedom.
(1) Fill out the BoG screening form for each applicant to whom you wish to make an assistantship offer and email it to your department chair, dean, provost, and the UF Board of Trustees (BoT) at ufbot@ufl.edu. NOTE: UF has said that the regulation does not apply to
(i) graduate assistantship applicants from “countries of concern,” who are now in the US, even if they hold F1 or J1 (intent to return) visas
(ii) postdoctoral and other researchers and scholars, whether currently in the US in “countries of concern,” who are seeking employment under H1 or O1 (dual intent) visas.
(2) Email the BoT at ufbot@ufl.edu requesting a public notice for an emergency Board of Trustees public zoom meeting to be held at the latest by February 25 (a month before the March 26 BoG meeting, as required by the BoG approval process). Insist that UF refrain from a blanket prohibition on hiring graduate assistants from “countries of concern,” but instead follow the process stipulated by the BoG regulation 9.012.
(3) If you wish, please send a copy of either email – minus applicant-identifying information — to officemanager@uff-uf.org.
(4) If you have not already done so, sign this petition, calling on the UF president and provost to prevail on the BoT and the BoG to let us continue hiring for competence regardless of national origin.
CANCELLATION OF SOCIOLOGY GENERAL EDUCATION COURSE
BoG regulation 8.005, implementing parts of SB 266 (2023), is up for BoG approval at its January 24 meeting. This regulation removes Principles of Sociology from General Education Course options. At best arbitrary and capricious, and at worst a discrimination of viewpoint, the regulation infringes on academic freedom. If it is Sociology today, what prevents Anthropology, American Government, or Psychology from being on the chopping block tomorrow? Students will lose an opportunity to be informed, critically thinking citizens of the state, nation and the globe. See this statement from the American Sociological Association.
SUGGESTED FACULTY ACTION
If agree with your union’s opinion of this regulation, you can voice your sentiments on this issue by emailing info@flbog.edu and using this email form. While email establishes a record, you may in addition consider posting your opinion on the FL Board of Governors Facebook Page. These actions of public concern are well within your rights as a citizen and faculty member of the state’s public higher education system.
UF Works Because You Do,
Meera Sitharam, Chapter President