BY CAROLYN BETENSKY

Earlier this month, I wrote of the conditions faculty were facing in COVID-denialist states.  Here is an update on recent developments in one of them.

At the University of Florida, members of the Faculty Senate are polling campus stakeholders (faculty members, staff, and graduate assistants) regarding a proposed vote of no confidence in the university’s COVID-19 protocols.  They are seeking anonymous responses from the community before taking the resolution to the Faculty Senate Steering Committee and bringing it up for a vote at an emergency meeting this Friday.

In today’s edition of the campus newspaper The Alligator, an anonymous member of the faculty wrote an essay setting out the dangers and deficiencies of the current public safety measures.

Local unions United Faculty of Florida-UF and Graduate Assistants United-UF have been active in demanding safe campus working conditions. Faculty union president and professor of history Paul Ortiz urged members to respond to the Faculty Senate survey and make their voices heard.  In a letter to union membership, he wrote:

I am supporting this resolution because we must do everything humanly possible to make this community safer for all. […] I am also supporting this resolution because of what I learned from one of the members of the Alachua County School Board last week at our GAU-UFF rally. As many of you know, the Alachua County School Board is requiring the wearing of masks in contravention of Governor DeSantis’s anti-mask directives. In a school district of approximately 30,000 students, there are already 1,100 students in COVID quarantine barely a week into the school year. Florida’s Board of Education is using UF’s lethargy on masking requirements to attack the Alachua County School Board. The BOE’s rationale is this: “If UF with all of its science and medical experts is not requiring masks on campus why should the state support a mask mandate?” In other words, the state is using our university’s inaction to attack the ability of our local school board to protect the health and well-being of the children of this community. This is a grim reminder that actions have consequences. We must do better. The University of Florida must do better.

Unfortunately, the health and well-being of Florida children was dealt another blow yesterday.  The Florida Board of Education announced that it will be making good on its threat to withhold the pay of Alachua and Broward school district board members who have defied Governor Ron DeSantis’s prohibition on mask mandates in Florida schools.

Contributing editor Carolyn Betensky is professor of English at the University of Rhode Island, an AAUP Council member, and a cofounder and executive committee member of Tenure for the Common Good.