- [Narrator] This is a production of WEDU PBS, Tampa, St. Petersburg, Sarasota.

- Coming up next, the state of Florida argues that what's taught in public university classrooms is government speech, and can be controlled by the government.

The state does not officially recognize Juneteenth, the date enslaved people got word that they were free after the Civil War, but shouldn't.

Democrats are predicting that they will make big gains in the November elections, but are they being realistic?

And is the legal system being weaponized here in Florida?

All this and more right now on "Florida this Week."

(dramatic music) (music continues) Welcome back.

Joining us on the panel this week.

Jason Garcia is a journalist and the publisher of "Seeking Rents" newsletter and a podcast.

Adriana Novoa is professor of Latin American History at the University of South Florida.

Trimmel Gomes is a journalist and president of Gomes Media Strategies, and Darryl Paulson is the emeritus professor of Government and Politics at USF-St. Petersburg.

Nice to have you all here.

Thank you for coming.

Well, last week, lawyers for the state of Florida told the federal appeals court panel that the state could prevent college professors at public universities from criticizing the governor during classroom instruction.

The argument came as the state defended Florida's Intellectual Freedom Act, also known as the Stop WOKE Act, which was passed two years ago.

The law forbids educators from promoting concepts that make anyone feel guilt, anguish, or other psychological distress related to race, color, national origin, or sex because of actions committed in the past.

Several university professors have challenged the law saying it limits academic freedom.

The state's lawyers argued that because professors are government employees, the government can restrict professors on a content-wide basis, and they can restrict them from offering viewpoints that are contrary.

If they did not wish to comply with Florida's rules, the lawyers argued, the professors could leave for other states friendlier to their viewpoints.

Adriana, you're part of this lawsuit.

Tell us why you joined this lawsuit?

And what did you think of the arguments at that federal appeals panel?

- Well, honestly, I was shocked.

I was shocked the first time, and I'm shocked after what I heard, particularly because at this time one of the judges seems to be persuaded by Florida arguments.

And let me tell you that the question that she asked several times was why Florida cannot impose these laws protecting the values for the people.

And the answer is very simple, and that's very irritating for me that, you know, the media and in general, nobody made the case that these laws are unconstitutional.

Florida passed, actually, an amendment to the Constitution that clearly separate the obligations between the board and the legislature, okay?

The Board of Governors is part of the power, not the legislature.

There were changes that were careful to separate.

There was an agreement in 2010 in which the power of the purse remained with the legislature.

Everything else was by the Board of Governors.

So I don't know why the Board of Governors had not stopped this and sue the legislature as they did in the past about fees, for example, and try to stop this overreach that has to do with the Florida Constitution.

- Hey, Adriana, do you feel like when you're teaching in the classroom that you represent the government and what you're teaching is officially government sanctioned?

- Absolutely not.

I represent the field of history and I need to teach the best practices within my profession.

This idea that it was in the courts that we enter their classroom and do whatever we want is a lie.

The idea that we have no oversight is a lie.

If a student complains, and this has happened several times since I'm at USF, overreach, try to impose ideas that are personal on the students, try to humiliate students, or do anything related to indoctrination, that person will be suspended.

So the idea that we are going to the classroom doing whatever we want is not true.

Second, this is proven by facts.

They have a questionnaire, a survey for students and faculty that try to determine people who complain about this.

Nothing, only 2% of people replied.

Students didn't report any problems because we don't have any problem.

So the idea that is a cabal of Marxists, and all that is preposterous.

- All right, let me bring Darryl into this.

Darryl, the state does have a right though, to limit what professors teach.

And I'll give you an example.

If somebody wanted to be a Holocaust denier in the state of Florida and teach a history class, European history class, I don't imagine that that person would last in the state of Florida very long.

- Yeah, and there are ways for dealing with that.

I mean, every university has a committee that looks into these aberrant cases, so-called.

And make a judgment as to whether this is so far beyond the pale that that person needs to be removed from the classroom, or at least that course.

What the problem is here is that we don't represent the views of the state, nor should we, because oftentimes the views of the state have been proven to be wrong.

And all you have to do in the state of Florida is to look at the example of race relations.

The state of Florida was a state that mandated segregation, that mandated separate but equal, that mandated privacy in hotels and restaurants and theaters.

It was wrong.

And the professors shouldn't be upholding something that they view as wrong.

They should be pointing this out.

That's the whole purpose of the university, is to get the competition of ideas, and not simply spouting the ideas of one particular side, including the state of Florida.

- When the state attorneys said in this federal court hearing that what you teach in class is government speech, was that the first time you had heard this?

- Well, you know, it's a novel notion, but as U.S. District Court Judge Mark Walter said in the case when it was originally heard, this WOKE law is positively dystopian.

Those were his words.

Translated, that means it's a stupid law.

It's a 1984 kind of law, and it's nothing that we need in the state of Florida.

Once again, universities should have a diversity of ideas and not simply engage in one particular viewpoint, especially when that viewpoint, even if it's a state viewpoint, proves to be wrong.

- Jason, let me bring you in on this.

The WOKE law, the so-called WOKE law is being expanded, right?

Tell us about that.

- Yeah, there's been, like, a strategic effort or an intentional effort to expand this into as many places as possible.

And so the latest example was trying to impose some of these same restrictions on what teachers can say and what students can hear in teacher preparation programs.

That was a law that the governor just signed.

And I think one point that folks often don't realize in this is when you really drill down into the nature of what they are trying to stop professors and teachers from talking about, or in some cases learning, or students or even employees from hearing is really basic stuff.

So often the politicians that support this stuff will talk in terms of we're trying to stamp out racist speech, or they'll use, like, academic terms, like critical race theory, not even understanding it themselves, but, like, when they were pushing this bill this year to stamp this stuff out to restrict what teachers can say in teacher preparation courses, the sponsor of the bill, a guy by the name of Senator Blaise Ingoglia, a Republican from the Tampa Bay area, claimed he had a binder full of examples of egregious materials that he had found in these programs.

And when he was actually pushed to read some of those examples, what you found is he was objecting to, like, materials that taught people how to respond and prevent hate crimes, right?

Or that analyzed inequities in education across disability status.

These are things people should be learning and talking about.

And the last thing you want is politicians deciding what is accurate history or not, versus academics and experts.

- Trimmel, what's your take on this?

That what's taught in the classroom, at least according to Governor DeSantis's lawyers is government speech, or should be government speech.

- There's a big disassociation going on about what actually happens in a college classroom.

As an adjunct instructor myself, none of this, we're not seeing real concrete examples of what they are pushing forward.

Like, we don't see this happening.

Also, as a student there are many adults, especially in Tallahassee going back to school as adults, professionals continuing their education.

So even these lawyers can go into a classroom right now and see for themselves that what they're claiming is not happening.

Professors are usually doing the opposite, being accommodating to students, listening to different viewpoints, making sure very carefully that everyone has a chance to have a point and have discourse.

So I think the challenge is like, you know, stopping all of that, that healthy conversation that you would expect in a classroom where all sides have the ability to be heard.

- Adriana, are professors afraid now to teach some of what they've taught maybe a few years ago?

And are some professors being discouraged and leaving the profession?

- Absolutely, and this is a major issue, happens in the K-12 system.

It's happening at universities.

I have in my own department two tenure people who abandoned the academy because of this.

So this will pay a price for this.

And I already mentioned to the president of our university that we work hard.

I arrived at the same year Dr. Gashi arrived to USF.

We work hard to get to the top of research at universities in the AU.

AU is all about academic freedom.

So we are losing that for sure, if this craziness continues.

And the issue, also, is that we have another thing that is going on the radar, which is 266.

Now the Board of Governors and the Board of Trustees need to approve our gen ed courses.

Already faculty in my university receive emails suggesting for now to change the title of the classes.

And the problem was with words like race and Black and Blackness, okay?

So this is happening and now we don't have tenure anymore.

That was removed by 266.

We have no protections.

So I just will finish with this.

I had a Cuban student who was a TA for me.

And this student, when he heard about HB7 had tears in his eyes and said to me, I left Cuba only to come to United States and be told that I cannot speak freely in the classroom, okay?

So this is the gravity of what is happening and this will have major consequences as the K-12 system destruction will have major consequence for Florida.

- Darryl, last word.

- One of the consequences of this may be that national accrediting agencies which review the University of South Florida, and all universities across the country may find Florida in violation of their accrediting standards.

They've done this in the past for the University of Florida and Florida State University, and the University of South Florida goes back to the Johns Commission that they restricted freedom of speech of professors.

They fired professors at will.

- [Ron] You're talking about late '50s, early '60s.

- Yeah, yeah.

And these universities essentially were put on probation and it's very embarrassing.

Here you have the University of Florida reaching a very high standard right now compared to other state universities.

And this has the opportunity to reverse all of that in one moment because of this crazy policy on the part of the legislature to prevent freedom of speech.

- Well, this is certainly an issue we'll continue to pay attention to.

Juneteenth was this past Wednesday.

President Biden signed legislation making it a national holiday three years ago.

It commemorates the day in 1865 after the end of the Civil War that enslaved people in Texas were informed that slavery was no longer legal.

Banks, the post office, and the stock market all close on Juneteenth, however, Florida does not recognize Juneteenth as a holiday for state workers, not even as an unpaid day of commemoration, as it does for Robert E. Lee's birthday, Confederate Memorial Day, and Jefferson Davis's birthday.

Governor Ron DeSantis issued a proclamation in 2020, recognizing Juneteenth, but has not done so since.

Efforts to make it a state holiday have stalled in the legislature.

Trimmel, tell us more about the significance of Juneteenth and what do you make of it that we at least have not followed the national lead and not made it a state paid holiday?

- Well, the significance of Juneteenth it's so important.

It signifies when people like myself have been aware that they are no longer slaves, they're free.

It sends such a deep meaning that no one has control over your person.

You can do whatever you want.

You can really live this American dream, or have a chance at really get at it, but what we're seeing is anything but in speaking to civil rights leaders and activists in Florida, that it's still a fight that they're fighting for, this freedom.

And even with the Stop WOKE Act, the restriction of being able to talk about diversity issues, or what recently happened with being able to break those shackles from freedom is showing that it's still a fight that needs to be had, and it's happening today.

- And there have been some attempts in the legislature to make it an official holiday of the state.

Those have not done well in the last few years in the legislature.

- There's been several attempts and there's not the will, there's not the political will, especially at the top.

Coming from the DeSantis administration, you're seeing the opposite of what you would believe to seeing that becoming an official state holiday following the federal holiday.

One of the other things that in speaking to civil rights leaders on the local level is the governor's use of the term freedom.

They see it as, like, this perverse sort of co-opting of what it means to use that word freedom.

And the governor is using it freely in his agenda.

Like, he started the Freedom Act.

He fights for freedom and education and freedom everywhere else, but for what it really means and this big impact in this country for African Americans to really be free, and the power that comes in using that word, they feel that it's being co-opted and used for frivolous things, or the feeling like manufactured discomfort or oppression in terms of some of the policies they're seeing the governor put forward.

- Jason, the governor does say that this is the free state of Florida, but his definition of freedom is not exactly the definition that many other people have.

- Yeah, yeah, it's Orwellian, and I'll give you an example of this, so, it's important to note that the first segment, this story about the Stop WOKE Act controlling what professors can say and teachers can say and teach about racism.

And that legacy is absolutely linked to this story about refusing to recognize Juneteenth, but to give you another example of just how sort of Orwellian this gets is, so another part of that law, we were just talking about the Stop WOKE Act, which is technically called an act relating to individual freedom attempts to stop what private employers can teach their own employees.

So it attempts to restrict what employers can say in diversity trainings, in sexual harassment trainings, those sorts of things.

And that part of the law is also being challenged in court.

And when attorneys for the DeSantis administration were pressed by Trump appointed judges about the scope of that, they revealed that their goal here was not to stop employers from forcing employees to hear about this stuff, who don't wanna hear about it.

Their goal was to stop employers from talking about this stuff altogether.

Even employees who would want to learn more about diversity stuff, they didn't want those employees getting that opportunity.

So, so much of this is designed to make sure that nobody hears any sort of different perspectives from the government's perspective, to make sure that nobody thinks about these kinds of histories or experiences in any sort of different lens.

- Darryl- - [Adriana] I must say something if you allow me.

- Okay.

- That what Jason just mentioned, it was so outrageous that they lost the appeal.

So the 11th Circuit upheld, a very conservative court, upheld the injunction, so.

And another thing that I would like to mention is the grounds for doing this are so absurd, because the issue is that collective guilt, that's the main thing behind this Stop WOKE Act.

Collective guilt is essentially a Christian concept, okay?

We believe that we carry the sins of our ancestors, okay?

And even now (indistinct) for that matter, so the idea that on one side this is to protect Christianity and Christian values and so on, and another to attack teaching about race because this bring collective guilt to people it's anxiety.

So these are the type of things that, you know, this law pulses for us.

It's not only that it's in Constitution in Florida law, you know, federal law, it's also incoherent.

And that is something that they need to be enhanced, particularly as I said that this is like Fidel Castro, everything within the revolution, nothing outside the revolution.

So we can discuss everything that the governor tell us how to discuss, but we cannot discuss anything outside the limits imposed by the government.

This is Cuba.

- [Ron] Darryl.

- Well, one quick point.

I mean, how you recognize Juneteenth is an important matter.

Do you need a paid holiday?

I mean, there are different ways to do it.

We don't have a paid holiday for Abraham Lincoln.

So do we need one for Juneteenth?

I mean, it should be recognized, but there are different ways to do it.

It is a very expensive proposition when you think about it, having workers take the day off, all of the lost time in terms of state work that has to be accomplished, and the cost to taxpayers who have to foot this bill.

So if we don't have one for Lincoln, do we need one for every event?

And so that would be my only cautionary word here.

We can do Juneteenth without having to have a paid state holiday.

- [Ron] Okay.

Well, Florida Democrats- - I would only add to that point and not to really hone on that, like speaking on the time and then the labor, think of the free labor this country has benefited from for the enslavement of African Americans.

All of that time has been given away.

And so as far as compensation on the point of that, it's been paid forward so to speak.

- Okay, well, Florida Democrats vowed this week that this November their party will break out of super minority status in the Florida Capitol.

In 1996, Republicans took over both houses of the legislature, and have made gains almost every year since.

Party Chair, Nikki Fried, said Democrats will turn things around this year because they are running candidates for every open legislative seat.

In addition, she says conditions favor Democrats.

She points out that consumer complaints about the affordability of property insurance and housing are rising.

No party affiliated, or NPA voters are breaking towards the Democrats by 60 to 70% margin.

Loss of abortion access is continuing to promote interest in campaigns.

and Democrats' main talking point is that Republicans have made Florida unaffordable.

However, it will be an uphill battle.

Republicans control every statewide office, most of the congressional seats, and have a huge fundraising advantage because they are the current party in power.

On top of that, Republicans currently have 930,000 more registered voters in the state, and they've been winning the registration battle for the past four years.

Darryl, do Democrats have any realistic chance of picking up seats in the legislature, or even winning the U.S. Senate race between Scott and Mucarsel-Powell?

- Well, yeah, they certainly can do better because they can't do much worse than what they've done in the past elections.

The last election is just one example, 2022.

Republicans won super majorities in both houses of the Florida legislature.

So they've got two-thirds control of each chamber of the legislature, so.

Democrats are at the lowest point they've ever been in the state of Florida.

So the only way they can go is up.

And whether they'll do it remains to be seen.

One of the things we had both Nikki Fried, the chair of the Democratic Party in the state of Florida, as well as the chair of the National Democratic Party in Tallahassee this past week.

And reporters asked the question, how much money are you willing to invest in Florida to make it competitive against the Republicans?

This was the question asked of the head of the National Democratic Party.

He never answered that question.

So without the resources, it's not gonna go anywhere.

- All right, well, lawfare is a term used by both major political parties to describe the weaponization of the legal system to attack political opponents.

In a new podcast on his website "Seeking Rents" our guest, former "Orlando Sentinel" reporter Jason Garcia, says Florida's governor is using lawfare to remove Democrats from office, not because they've broken the law, but over policy differences.

Jason, tell us more about whose been removed so far in the podcast that you've done.

- Yeah, and so we should start by saying what we're talking about here is the suspension power that the governor has under the Florida Constitution, which, obviously, it gives him the ability to suspend essentially any locally elected official in Florida.

And, obviously, that's a pretty anti-Democratic (indistinct) elected folks.

So historically this has been a power that has been used sparingly.

And it's also important to note that the Constitution is pretty vague about when this power should be used.

So there's a couple of cases where it says in the commission of a felony, which is pretty clear-cut, but it also says in cases of neglective duty, or malfeasance, or incompetence, right?

These are terms that are not defined in the Constitution, and are not really well-defined in state law.

So there's broad latitude to do this.

And historically, governors have used this power very sparingly, primarily when someone commits a crime.

What we've seen under Governor DeSantis is a willingness to use this power to suspend locally elected officials, all Democrats so far, who have challenged, who he disagrees with their policy.

So we've seen it happen now everywhere from the sheriff of Broward County when there was anger over the sort of poor response to the tragic Marjory Stoneman Douglas mass shooting, high school mass shooting, to a pair of prosecutors, Andrew Warren in Tampa, and Monique Worrell in Orlando, over what essentially amounts to disagreements about how aggressively they are prosecuting certain crimes.

- So, but doesn't the governor have kind of broad authority, for instance, the Florida Supreme Court just sided with the governor in the Monique Worrell case.

The Florida Supreme Court backed up what the governor did.

- Yeah, that's exactly right in terms of as I said, the Constitution is very vague and the legislature has never really colored in to sort of try and put parameters on what these powers are.

And as I said, other governors, because this is such a big power, such an anti-Democratic power have used it very sparingly.

So I'll give you one classic example.

A few years ago the state attorney in Orlando announced a policy that she would no longer pursue the death penalty in any cases, just a blanket, no death penalty case.

Rick Scott could have made a case to suspend her claiming that was neglective duty, or malfeasance, or incompetence.

He did not do that.

He removed all death penalty cases from her jurisdiction, but he did not remove her from office because the accountability mechanism in these cases are the elections, right?

If voters think that.

And so you're right that the Florida Supreme Court has sided with Ron DeSantis, but this court has basically said the governor can do whatever he wants.

We have no role in this.

They're not going to challenge him in any way.

- All right, well, thanks.

Thanks to our guests this week, Jason Garcia, Adriana Novoa, Trimmel Gomes and Darryl Paulson.

We ran out of time.

If you have comments about this program, please send them to us at ftw@wedu.org.

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The show is available at wedu.org, or on YouTube.

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And from all of us here at WEDU, have a great weekend.

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