>>This week on NewsNight, the DeSantis administration sues the U.S. Department of Education over the process for accrediting universities and colleges.

And Brightline announces the completion of its extension to Orlando.

But hurdles remain ahead of the start of services.

NewsNight starts now.

[MUSIC] Hello, I'm Steve Mort, and welcome to NewsNight where we take an in-depth look at the top stories and issues in central Florida and how they affect all of us.

First tonight, accreditation for Florida's higher education institutions.

The state says it's suing the Biden administration over the process for accrediting the state's colleges and universities.

At issue, the agencies that accredit them.

In 2021, the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools, the main accreditation agency in the region, is reported to have become concerned over conflicts of interest, political interference in Florida higher ed, and the stifling of academic freedom.

Institutions need accreditation so they can have access to federal funding and faculty grants, as well as scholarships for students.

And Florida's lawsuit says, quote, Congress has ceded unchecked power to private accrediting agencies to dictate education standards to colleges and universities.

And the governor claims accreditors are trying to use that power to undermine recent changes at state higher education institutions ushered in by the Florida legislature.

>>We're expected to go to this one accreditor, and this is an accreditor that has an agenda.

And why should that agenda be our agenda?

Nobody voted for that agenda.

They did vote for the agenda and the legislature and what we've signed into law.

So I think it's important because it shapes how our institutions of higher education operate.

And so often they have to do things to please accreditors.

And so if the accreditors really want to move the institutions in one way.

Right now, they basically have the authority to do it.

>>Well, in 2022, Florida lawmakers passed legislation requiring all public universities to seek a new accreditor.

But federal rules require those schools to get permission from the U.S. Department of Education.

And the DeSantis administration accuses the federal government of collaborating with what it calls unaccountable accreditors.

But the United Faculty of Florida Union says the governor has got it wrong.

>>Because the way that Governor DeSantis is framing how higher education accreditation works is that it's this overseeing organization that unilaterally develops rules to control how higher education campuses operate.

And that's not actually how it works.

Higher education accrediting bodies are are the rules and provisions that they come up with are collaboratively developed with all of the institutions that make up those bodies.

What Governor DeSantis is actually upset about is the fact that not just the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools, but every other major accreditor for higher education in the country has requirements that ensure institutions are protecting academic freedom and that they aren't allowing undue political influence.

What Governor DeSantis wants to do is ban subject matter that he personally disagrees with, and to stop adults from learning about anything that they wish to learn about.

And he's going after Accreditors and the National Department of Education because they are opposing his efforts to censor and control content in that way.

>>All right.

Well, let's bring in the panel now to break it all down.

Joining us in the studio this week, Joe Mario Pedersen from 90.7 WMFE News.

Thanks so much for coming in, Joe Mario.

>>Thanks for having me.

>>Appreciate it.

Alexa Lorenzo from WFTV, Channel 9, morning anchor over there.

Thanks for coming in Alexa, and Ryan Lynch from the Orlando Business Journal.

Thanks for coming back to the show.

Ryan.

Appreciate your time today, guys.

Ryan, let me start with you on this one.

The Tampa Bay Times reports accreditation officials first started asking questions about this issue during the 2021 FSU president search.

What was the issue there?

>>Obviously, that was a very controversial search with a what some outsiders called a political appointee almost in affect.

And in recent years, the state has kind of seen more of those sort of politically motivated appointees to some of the other state universities and colleges in the area.

So that kind of kicked that off some of the other sort of measures that the state has taken on that side has kind of drawn the, I guess, scrutiny of some of those accreditation bodies and kind of had them take a look at, you know, how that's impacting the colleges and universities.

>>And, of course, the former education commissioner, Richard Corcoran, brought in to that process at a late stage.

Alexa, on this lawsuit, I mean, how does the DeSantis administration object on Constitution grounds?

>>Theyre saying that it violates the Constitution by allowing higher education accreditation groups to, their word, threaten the status of these universities without much oversight.

They say it's too much authority, not enough accountability.

So they say that at this point it's violating the Constitution in the private non delegation doctrine, which is that the United States government cannot delegate its legislative powers out.

It's violating the employment clause and the spending clause.

So they lay that all out in that very long lawsuit.

>>Three constitutional objections, Joe Mario I mean, does the governor have any allies on the right who would agree with him that the accreditation organizations have sort of become, I guess he would say, too woke and should face competition?

And what's the basis for that claim?

>>Yeah, no, he he certainly does.

Some familiar names too, former Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos, Deputy of the Department of Education, Adam Kissel.

Adam Kissel.

And basically what they're saying is that these accreditor organizations operate as regional monopolies that kind of bully institutions into using liberal philosophies or they must use liberal philosophies or they face losing their accreditation.

>>And we heard that from the United Faculty of Florida.

They'll push back on that and say, well, you know, these standards are basically drawn up collaboratively amongst all the institutions that are part of those accrediting agencies.

Alexa, the governor's pointed sort of to the strong performance of Florida's higher education institutions.

And they do generally rank high kind of U.S. News and World Report and that kind of thing.

But not everyone agrees, right, that that's necessarily going to continue to be the case.

>>There's a lot of pushback here.

There have been a handful of education bills that have been signed into law that affect in a few days, July 1st.

But a lot of DeSantis critics say we're already seeing the repercussions of some of those laws.

They are talking about attacking higher education on different fronts, threatening the core subject matter and certain topics, cutting out diversity, equity and inclusion.

And you're seeing reports put out by some pretty high professor groups.

And American Association of University Professors in particular said people are up for jobs in Florida and turning them down professors without having anything in the back or they're deciding to just up and quit because their pension.

And it's just a big trickle down effect.

And really the laws haven't even taken effect.

>>It's interesting, Andrew Gothard there from the United Faculty of Florida, told me that he sees headhunters prioritizing Florida in their recruitment efforts because they see that there are a lot of professors that want to leave the state.

Ryan, the business journals have done some reporting on the business of higher ed in Florida, and I'm interested to drill down that a little bit.

I mean, how are the statewide policy changes as far as that reporting is concerned, impacting the business of higher ed?

>>From a programmatic side, it's still very much in the air.

Many of the conversations I've had have mostly been we're kind of waiting and seeing what those guidelines might look like before there's any sort of program changes on that end.

When it comes to faculty and staff, we've seen from both private and public colleges that privates aren't obviously impacted by these laws, but they're still seeing some people who are hesitant to become faculty in Florida because of concerns over how the state laws might impact their work or their research during their time there.

So we're seeing that sort of concern from both public and private colleges and universities.

>>Yeah, well, we'll see where this lawsuit goes as we head down the road.

You can find a link to Florida's lawsuit challenging the federal government over accreditation over on our website to read for yourself.

It's at wucf.org/newsnight.

All right.

Next tonight, Brightlines announcement that it's completed construction of its extension between Orlando and South Florida.

At an event last week, the company gathered together the mayors of Orlando, Orange County and Miami to hail the completion of the massive engineering project.

>>This isn't just a big moment for Brightline.

This is a big moment for the state.

For four decades, we've been talking about intercity passenger rail to connect the state, and now it's finally happening.

>>But the announcement comes amid disagreement over how the extension will affect communities along the route.

One of the most contentious stretches is in Martin County, where the U.S. Coast Guard has sat a drawbridge opening scheduled to allow for the flow of local maritime traffic.

But that, Brightline says, could have a major impact on its services.

Brightline tells local media outlets the temporary deviation issued by the Coast Guard was done unilaterally and without authority or regard for due process.

But the Coast Guard says it's trying to be as transparent as possible about the changes, which will mean bridge openings at 15 and 45 minutes past every hour.

To talk more about the issue, I turn to Bob Johnston, a reporter covering passenger railways for Trains magazine.

>>I talked to some of the Brightline officials.

They have said that this is really going to cause a problem for them if there is a bridge.

Yes, boats have the right of way, but every place in the country where there are scheduled passenger trains, there is also an agreement in place that the boats and passenger trains and freight trains can coexist.

They're going to run 16 round trips.

That's 32 trains a day.

Yes, that's a lot of traffic.

But the issue is why schedule a certain time every hour rather than open the bridge when the trains aren't there?

That's what they do now.

That's what they do in other parts of the country.

There are other parts of the country, such as in the northeast corridor where boats cannot traverse certain drawbridges at certain times.

So that's what's very unusual here.

And I talked to a spokesman for the Federal Railroad Administration, and they have had no conversation with the Coast Guard.

It's really unprecedented.

The Coast Guard should be able to work together with the marine industry and the railroad and the passenger carrier to come to a conclusion that is satisfactory to the most people, and that would include customers of Brightline and the Florida East Coast Railroad, as well as the Marine community.

>>Bob Johnston there from Trains magazine.

Okay.

Let's drill down a little bit in this one.

And I know that you guys cover this a lot.

Alexa, how much of a problem could this bridge opening schedule be for Brightline that Bob Johnson referred to there?

>>This is a big issue and we're up against the clock here.

They have already sold tickets for September.

Were in July, basically in a few days here.

There is a chance that service can start before that September, but they're up against the clock to have those tickets.

If this doesn't get sorted out, those 32 daily trains could be cut by 50%.

There is not that many hours in a day to still get those 32 passenger trains in.

So this would be a significant impact.

And at this point, they're still in the testing phase there.

But now this also impacts for testing, which then impacts when the FRA can come in and certify everything.

So this is going to be a big, big issue for them.

>>Sort of a wrench in the works.

Can we take the fact that they're selling tickets from September as an indication that that's when it's likely to begin?

You mentioned services could begin before that, but is September the likely start?

>>September is.

It will be oper - operating in September, but we could see something before that, whether that's mid-July, a week before, let's say August 20th instead of September.

That's kind of still up in the air.

But just because they're selling tickets in September doesn't mean that's the first train that's going to go out.

>>And the local congressman, Brian Mast, he wrote a blog post where he said, Bright line doesn't give a rat's caboose.

His words about that community.

I mean, the sort of treasure Coast and his constituency, Brightline, of course, would say it does care about the Treasure Coast and has long planned to put a station there.

Is the pressure on the company to do that now sooner rather than later?

>>Yes, and there's the legality behind it.

They're kind of tied to put a station in the Treasure Coast because of a previous lawsuit.

Those counties in the Treasure Coast have been against Brightline for years.

>>Indian River.

>>Exactly.

So they had to sue with a group, Martin County, in particular with a group called Citizens Against Rail Expansion in Florida.

They filed a lawsuit against Brightline challenging whether they could build and operate.

It was settled.

The chunk of that settlement was the agreement between the Citizens Against Railway Expansion and Brightline, and it was basically which entity would be responsible for building, operating, maintaining.

But in that they also said you're going to need to build a station here.

>>Yes.

>>And that's in the settlement.

So they are tied to that at this point.

Brightline Senior Vice President said we are still going to build the station, but we always build our big stations first.

They did West Palm, Miami, Orlando, and then they did Aventura in Boca Raton, those smaller in line stations, as they call them.

So the Treasure Coast Station could come.

And at this point, the most up to date information is from a city commission meeting out of Saint Lucie County where Fort Pierce said, Hey, Brightline, we want a station.

Let's get the ball rolling.

>>Fort Pierce is really gunning for it but we're not sure yet right where that station is going to be.

Ryan there's also pressure right from the space Coast for a station, and we've talked about that before on the show.

Florida columnist John Torres wrote recently, quote, I'm not drinking the Kool-Aid until Brightline puts a station in Brevard.

You wrote recently about this that the Space Coast Transportation Planning Organization is gearing up for a possible station in the county.

What are you hearing?

So Brightline in a recent ridership report mentioned that they were looking at stations in both the Treasure Coast and in the Space Coast as well.

They didn't specify a location in the Space Coast other than near Port Canaveral, which would point to potentially a station in Cocoa.

But obviously they're not commenting on where that might be at the space Coast Transportation Authority Organization is kind of looking at a study that would help them figure out what the location would look like.

They're looking at about 90 acres that both Brightline and the city of Cocoa own.

How much it might cost, what development might look like, and some of those other details that they might be able to bring to stakeholders and, you know, kind of make that decision.

They're looking to start that progress in August, and it would probably take around 12 to 18 months to kind of get all those findings together into one report.

>>Let me talk a little bit about the safety issues here, because, I mean, safety continues to be a big question for Brightline, right?

I mean, what is the extent I'll take send this one to you, Joe Mario, of the safety issue.

What is the extent of it when it comes to sort of collisions involving trains?

And is there pressure on the company because of that?

>>Oh, yeah, absolutely.

There's pressure as far as those safety concerns go.

Many are calling for, you know, operations to halt so that investigations into these deaths and safety concerns can be completed before operations actually begin.

One of those people you mentioned earlier, Representative Brian Mast.

And, you know, whether you agree with him or not, I just got to say rats, caboose, love that.

You know, as far as the depth of those of those collisions, those safety concerns that you brought up, I believe it was the Associated Press that did a study that found that Brightline had the worst per mile fatality rate in the nation with those dubbing it the deadliest train in the country.

>>The majority of crashes have been the driver of the vehicle, not the train veering off the tracks.

And they've done a lot of work putting new bars, putting new signs, putting new lights, putting new sirens.

But it is a train going very fast in the middle of several communities here in central Florida.

It'll be different.

It runs parallel to the beach line, the 528, they don't have those as many great crossings there.

So I think South Florida versus central Florida is a little bit different when it comes to the risk.

The risk still exists.

We do have great crossings here, several in Brevard County, but it's a little different.

The layout of it.

>>I guess you're running a very fast train in that South Florida portion.

We're in a very densely populated area which may which may contribute to some of those fatalities.

But be sure to join this conversation on social media.

We're keen to hear from you were at WUCFTV on Facebook, Twitter, and also on Instagram.

All right.

Finally tonight, a number of laws passed by the legislature have hit roadblocks in the courts.

A federal court has temporarily halted Florida's restrictions on drag shows.

And just last week, another federal judge struck down a Florida rule that bans Medicaid payments for transgender health care.

That rule dealt with medicines used in treatment, specifically.

The same judge appointed by President Bill Clinton had already ruled in favor of a group of transgender children and parents who were challenging Florida's ban on puberty blockers, cross-sex hormone therapy and surgeries for transgender minors.

Supporters of the restrictions say they help protect children, and the state is appealing both rulings.

I talked about it with Dr. Robert Lash, the chief medical officer with the Endocrine Society.

>>We've been writing guidelines on this for over a decade.

First in 2009 and updated in 2017.

And, you know, our guidelines have always supported careful care of adolescents with gender dysphoria, a slow course of action and attention to mental health issues before there's any discussion at all of hormonal treatments.

Lately, the political discussion has focused on the latter.

>>How do you respond to criticism that there are cases where individuals have gone through transition and then regret it?

>>These are truly unfortunate cases where people have made decisions in their lives that they have that they wish they hadn't made.

And my heart goes out to them.

These are these are people in a really tough position, regardless of what medical procedure, medical treatment.

You're going to discuss, there are always going to be a small number of people who in retrospect, wish they had made a different decision.

I think if you look at the number of people who regret this decision and compare it to the number of people who are doing better because of the decisions they've made, I think you would see out on the scales that that that this medical care for the vast majority of people who seek it out has been the right decision for them.

But for the people for whom it hasn't.

It's it's hard.

And like I said, it's it's something that I hope as an individual that they're able to come to grips with in their own lives.

And as a medical professional take as a cautionary tale that we need to be careful all the time in caring for this group of patients.

>>Dr.

Robert Lash are a reminder.

You can see all the interviews from tonight's program in full over at our website, wucf.org/newsnight.

Ryan, let me come to you first on this one.

Let's drill down on this Medicaid payments issue, if we can.

What was the judge's reasoning and what exactly did he say Florida's rules and subsequent statute filings?

>>So the judge in his ruling said that they basically violate the right to equal protection under the 14th Amendment of the Constitution, as well as the federal Medicaid statute and the Affordable Care Act's prohibition of sex discrimination.

And basically, in his ruling, mentioned that many people with this view tend to disapprove of all things transgender and so oppose medical care that supports a person's transgender existence.

Basically talking about how many of the folks who oppose it kind of oppose all things on that grounds, but kind of reason that, you know, gender identity is very real in his ruling and kind of mentioned that that's not going away.

>>Yeah, that is something that he said.

Joe Mario, how do those who support these restrictions on this kind of medicine respond to the criticism?

>>So they really defend their their actions, their choices here with three different arguments that have come across.

And those being they're they're defending children.

These procedures are too risky and that there's just not enough data that the good outweighs the risk.

And I guess to address those as far as defending children goes, Governor Ron DeSantis has said that, you know, he's seeing children whose bear parts have been chopped off.

And when we've asked the governor's office about these anecdotes, they've produced two different stories of not young children, but two adolescents, which these are.

These did happen, but these are extreme cases that he's citing, which that appears to be a pattern in which every time there is a defense of these bills, they've always drawn very extreme cases to push that even further.

I was talking to Senator Yarborough earlier this week.

We had an exchange.

He's sponsor of Senate Bill 254 and it when asking him about this, he said, you know, a lot of gender affirming therapy, hormone replacement therapy, specifically, they view that as something that is very risky because there are a number of complications that can happen with it.

The American Endocrine or American Endocrine Society does agree with this.

There are risks to this, right?

Those being blood clots can happen.

However, those clots they happen to in older population and in very rare cases.

Now, as far as data goes and whether or not there is enough, I, I guess that's pretty arbitrary.

You know, I'm not really sure what is enough data for somebody because we have data that goes back to the forties and fifties about sexual reassignment surgery, you know, and the success that it's had for these populations.

>>Yeah.

And we heard Dr. Lash there basically sort of saying, look, you know, yeah, we know that there are risks, but there were risks to every type of medical procedure that you can possibly have.

I'm kind of keen to know in terms of the numbers here, how many people are sort of affected by by this ruling.

I mean, what is the size?

First of all, do we know if Florida's transgender community and how many are enrolled in Medicaid?

>>You know, that is a hard number to determine.

One that I've been trying to find for myself.

I've seen very different estimates on it.

But the most common one I keep coming across is about 95,000 Floridians.

And as far as Medicaid recipients go, the most recent data that we have on that is about 2021, and that shows about 1200 recipients of Medicaid with, I think between 2017 to 2021.

There have been about 3000 procedures, whether that was gender affirming therapy or sexual reassignment surgery.

>>Yeah.

Alexa let me come to you on this.

Channel 9 has reported on how transgender people in Florida have responded to this legislation.

What have you guys found?

>>There's been a big community effort to get the people who need the care, the care they need.

We've seen fundraisers happening with the LGBT, LGBT Plus center in Orlando, and they're raising money to help people access that transgender care.

And they're basically saying that there's a need and we're going to do what we can to help the people that are relying on this right now.

And when we reported this story in mid to late June, they had raised already $50,000.

So we are seeing that community support rallying around this this group and getting those funds to the people in need here in Florida to help them pay.

>>Ryan, just finally to you on this briefly if you can.

Florida's not alone in passing this kind of legislation by a long shot and the courts are responding elsewhere as well.

How are they responding?

>>We've seen a few of similar laws be blocked in Alabama, Arkansas, Indiana and Oklahoma.

So kind of a geographic smattering of-- >>I think Kentucky and Tennessee as well this week right?

>>Yes.

So we're seeing a wide range of those happen.

And I think, you know, a lot of those states that have challenged it kind of expected that.

So we might see, you know, some of those legal challenges continue and try to go to a higher court and maybe try to challenge precedent on that end.

>>Well, it'll be interesting to see how it all plays out in court going forward.

And you can find a link to the Florida Medicaid statute struck down by a federal judge last week on our website to read for yourself.

It's all at wucf.org/newsnight.

Well, that is all the time we have for this week.

My thanks to Joe Mario Pederson, 90.7 WMFE News, Alexa Lorenzo from WFTV, Channel 9, and Ryan Lynch from the Orlando Business Journal.

Thank you so much for coming in, guys.

Really appreciate it.

In the meantime, we'll see you here next Friday night at 8:30 on WUCF.

In the meantime, from all of us here at NewsNight, take care and have a great week.