DEI Captures The University of Florida

Sounds like dei isn't a big deal at UF...yet? Should it be? You're saying the push back on dei in Florida is keeping out the best professors?

 

Honestly, the DEI stuff is the least of MY concerns. There are far more damaging shit in HB999 than the DEI stuff - although that DEI stuff WILL HURT.

More accreditors are starting to take DEI into account - and certainly the position may make UF just SLIGHTLY less competitive for big NIH and NSF grants - and listen, that matters. UF just topped 1 billion dollars as a research institution -no way that continues with this current legislation passing. Being less competitive for big grants will mean faculty would rather go elsewhere, especially in STEM.

And then think about donors - like Think about things like the giant UF super computer hipergator that UF got from Nvidia - probably won't see as much stuff like that because doing business in Florida won't look as good.

So yeah, DEI has an impact - to say it doesn't would be ridiculous. That stuff in the bill is not only questionable policy, but very bad optics. It will hurt all the SUS institutions.

But the Gen Ed stuff and the attack on the faculty hiring process and on tenure is BY FAR more damaging - at least IMO. Faculty will NOT come here under those conditions - under obvious attack. Unless they are desperate.

EDIT - and to answer your initial question - DEI really isn't that big at UF. Sure, there are trainings if you want. But the mandatory trainings at UF are a joke. Everyone just skips through them to the final assessment at the end. And I promise you - the key lead administrators at UF don't give a single solitary droplet of shit about DEI as long as we aren't getting bad press.

 

Thanks, I'm probably mixing up the dei and tenure concerns. So this in your view is a Florida legislative mistake that desanits isn't vetoing?

 

Think about it this way. The state of Florida has invested a ton of state tax dollars into higher ed.

Let's use this metaphor... It's like spending a bunch of money developing land over the years adding nice houses, well placed commercial complexes, well placed jobs, great roads, bus systems, etc. It becomes an amazing place to live, but so many people come and live there, now there is a traffic problem. So eventually all those people, who are benefitting from this great system, come together and fund a public scooter system so that people can get around easier. But that means scooters left scattered around, and so some people don't like that. Right - they say, man I don't need a scooter so I don't want to see them. Then they here stories of their friends cutting off scooter drivers, or hitting scooter riders with their cars and getting into trouble. They say hey - this public scooter system is biased against those of us with cars. They are blaming us car drivers for all the traffic problems in the community, and that's not fair. I've never done anything wrong to anyone in MY car. So they go to the government and the government bans ANYTHING WITH LESS THAN 4 WHEELS. In addition, they say that homeowners associations are allowed to review at any time the type of vehicles parked at peoples houses and if they see anything with less than 4 wheels they can evict them. Now suddenly no one CAN EVEN OWN bikes, mopeds, or motorcycles. People are really upset, and they're like - why should I put up with this when I can go to a similar community nearby that maybe wasn't quite as good but I can have scooters there?

That's like what's happening here. We spent a bunch of time, money, and hard work to make higher ed in Florida really strong, and now they are hamstringing the whole show because people were mad about this one basic idea that they don't even really understand and they are over-legislating.

I could probably come up with something even better if I had more time - but that's basically why they should cut back the legislation. If they just want to defund DEI initiatives, I still think it's an optics problem and a mistake -but fine. But all this extra legislation is big trouble and unnecessary.

 

Ah yes, nuance . . . Like claiming laws that attack free speech are merely disagreeing "with dei and crt." Defending laws that ban discussion of the LGBTQ community and books with LGBTQ lead characters in schools as disagreeing "with sex being pushed on 6 year olds." And banning transgender people from being able to get healthcare as not liking "trans propaganda [being] constantly shoved in your face." You may call that nuance. I call it disingenuousness. If you want to support these shitty and harmful laws, at least be honest about what they're doing.

Let's be clear here, though, the DEI stuff isn't just DEI stuff. They're targeting free speech they disfavor and justifying it with their antipathy towards DEI. If this was just about banning DEI offices, it would be stupid, but it would be less problematic. But, of course, that's not remotely what they're doing.

This isn't a "legislative mistake." This is 100% being pushed by DeSantis through some of his allies in the legislature. And the rest of the Republicans are falling in line because they're either on board or afraid of him.

 

They've all been following the Chris Rufo playbook since he went on Fox News a couple years ago and uttered the letters CRT

 

@gator_lawyer - yeah just to be clear I don’t agree with what they’re doing at all and yes it is essentially suppression of free speech. Especially when they don’t stop at defunding they’re legit making it so it can’t even be taught.

 

According to this report, there are 18 states currently promoting DEI legislation. I bet you can guess the majority of them before opening the link.

DEI Legislation Tracker

 

Even beyond that, they're threatening to defund any student groups that advocate for diversity, equity, and inclusion, and a handful of other issues that the Republicans disfavor.

 

I don't think anyone, literally anyone, understands what Critical Race Theory is.
From what I can tell, it's an offshoot of a version of German-French philosophy that solidified in the twentieth century, but with antecedents well before that. The thrust is that it's a rejection of both medieval scholasticism and the seventeenth century enlightenment, holding that truth is not timeless, impersonal, or universal; but rather, historical, contingent, and socially constructed. As such, you can't prove your point using only facts and logic---which are themselves contingent--but rather you use an indirect method, such as hermaneutics, wherein you may examine a text or social situation through different angles to expose it's contradictions and biases. Of course this leaves no "neutral" perspective from which to evaluate even the speaker's own claims. It's different perspectives all the way down. Common names are critical theory, posmodernism, post structuralism, existentialism, phenonemology, hermaneutics, and continental philosophy.

These ideas hit the mainstream in US academic departments in the 60's and 70's when members of marginalized groups for the first time entered US campuses in large numbers and social justice concerns, in some cases, earned priority over academic or methodological ones. However, rather than a rigorous exploration of the method itself, you got lots of conclusions purporting to explain injustice and power relationships using obfuscatory jargon and spurious premises.

It also very quickly became object of intense scorn, by even liberal academics, notably Noam Chomsky who famously quipped that postmodernist and critical theories were actually mundane truisms masquerading as theories.

Noam Chomsky Calls Postmodern Critiques of Science Over-Inflated "Polysyllabic Truisms" | Open Culture

Whether this has much bearing on the current debate I have no idea really. But I do think it's worth considering whether the same social problems that crt proports to highlight can't be given due addition in a much simpler way.

 

I'm not here to debate the soundness of the underpinnings of critical theory. The academics can do that. The point I'm making is that the vast majority of people griping about "CRT" aren't actually griping about critical race theory. They're complaining about a caricature. There are certainly valid criticisms of CRT. But that requires making an effort to understand the central tenets.

CRT asks some interesting questions. It offers some interesting perspectives. For example, Derrick Bell asked whether the gains from the Civil Rights Movement were largely symbolic because they failed to properly address the economic and political conditions that were responsible for creating so much inequality. Was Bell wrong? It's a thought-provoking question, a thought similar to the ones MLK seemed to have near the end of his life.