BY JENNIFER RUTH
Yesterday, the AAUP announced the release of Political Interference and Academic Freedom in Florida’s Public Higher Education System. The fifty-three page report represents almost a year’s worth of work by dedicated staff and volunteer leaders and incisively lays out the ramifications of political interference for the survival of basic AAUP principles of academic freedom and shared governance in Florida. The announcement states:
Among the report’s key conclusions are that the unprecedented takeover of New College of Florida and the imposition of an aggressively ideological and politically motivated agenda, marked by improper denials of tenure and a faculty member’s dismissal without due process, stands as one of the most egregious and extensive violations of AAUP principles and standards at a single institution in recent memory; that the state government’s assault on diversity, equity and inclusion and on so-called ‘woke’ disciplines reflects not only a blatant disregard for academic standards of governance and academic freedom but is part of a racist assault on the rights of racial and sexual minorities.
In addition to releasing the report, the AAUP held a press conference this morning at the Florida Capitol. At the conference were AAUP president Irene Mulvey, AAUP Special Committee on Florida Chair Henry Reichman, FSU United Faculty of Florida vice-president Matthew Lata, United Faculty of Florida Organizing Director Adela Ghademi, and State Representative Anna V. Eskamani. The press conference was live streamed this morning.
The report deserves careful attention from all AAUP members in every state across the country. It states:
The attack on academic freedom [in Florida] is part of an extensive assault on democracy worldwide. Florida and other states following suit are part of a global rise in right-wing, nationalistic political agendas that know well the power of a diminished sense of citizenship, increased surveillance, and increased obedience to the state to control citizens for generations to come.
As Hank Reichman (contributing editor to this blog and one of the co-chairs, with Afshan Jafar, of the investigating committee) says in the press conference, the report is “the first and only place where you can find in one place the entire story of what has 
happened to higher education in the past few years under the leadership of Governor DeSantis and his legislative supermajority. It’s also the only place where these attacks are measured against widely acknowledged professional standards developed over more than a century by the AAUP and other leading bodies in higher education.”
Thank you, Hank, Afshan, Irene, and staff members Anita Levy and others, for this extraordinary effort. And many thanks to all the members of the investigating committee who dedicated their time. And thank you, too, to the brave faculty members at New College and elsewhere in Florida who contributed to the report through agreeing to be interviewed. Some of the quotes included from these faculty members are devastating, starting with the very first one at the top of the report:
What we are witnessing in Florida is an intellectual reign of terror. There is a tremendous sense of dread
right now, not just among faculty; it’s tangible among students and staff as well. People are intellectually
and physically scared. We are being named an enemy of the State. The events at Jacksonville too, feel
real, and people feel it could happen to them.
—LeRoy Pernell, professor of law, Florida A&M (interview with the special committee)
Jennifer Ruth is a contributing editor for Academe Blog and the author, with Michael Bérubé, of It’s Not Free Speech: Race, Democracy, and the Future of Academic Freedom and co-editor, with Ellen Schrecker and Valerie Johnson, of The Right to Learn: Resisting the Right-Wing Attack on Academic Freedom, forthcoming from Beacon Press.
