Dear Colleagues:
On Friday, March 1, the University of Florida announced that it will be closing the Office of the Chief Diversity Officer and eliminating all DEI positions and administrative appointments. We condemn this decision and the legislation that, in UF’s interpretation, necessitated it.
In the aftermath of this decision, we call on faculty, staff, and students to continue the vital work of making UF a more diverse, equitable, and inclusive institution, and to continue to redress this university’s harmful legacy of discrimination and inequality.
Undoing the legacies of Jim Crow, the Johns Committee, and other examples of institutionalized oppression in our state was always too tall a job for the thirteen people who lost their jobs on Friday. It will take the collective power of faculty, staff, and students to ensure that UF truly represents the state whose name it bears.
At a moment like this one, we reflect on two truths:
1) The Office of the Chief Diversity Officer, as well as other DEI-related positions at UF, were not bestowed on our community by an enlightened university leadership. They were concessions to decades of unrest over discrimination. If we won these concessions before, we can win them again. We can, in fact, fight for and attain even more ambitious goals.
2) To fight for these goals, we must engage in collective action. United Faculty of Florida was founded in 1969 by UF faculty to fight for academic freedom and against the arbitrary dismissals of colleagues engaged in civil rights activism on campus. Since then, UFF has been a voice for creating a truly inclusive, open, and welcoming university.
This work remains unfinished. While UF is no longer segregated, black Floridians remain woefully underrepresented. And while the Johns Committee no longer exists, LGBTQ+ faculty, staff, and students continue to be targeted and harassed.
The University’s recent actions belie its statement that it will “always be – unwavering in [its] commitment to universal human dignity,” “educate students by thoughtfully engaging a wide range of ideas and views,” and “continue to foster a community of trust and respect for every member of the Gator Nation.”
It is up to us to ensure that the University lives up to these promises.
And it’s up to us to continue to fight for our colleagues, for our students, and for a better university. Doing so means standing together – in union and in solidarity. Join UFF-UF now, and contact uff-uf-membership@googlegroups.com to find out more about how to make your voice heard at UF, with the Board of Governors, and in the Florida legislature.
