A wave of tenured professors leaving their highly coveted positions say the DeSantis administration is the reason they're leaving Florida

MicroWave@lemmy.world to politics @lemmy.world – 852 points – A wave of tenured professors leaving their highly coveted positions say the DeSantis administration is the reason they're leaving Florida
businessinsider.com

Professors from across the country have long been lured to Florida's public colleges and universities, with the educators attracted to the research opportunities, student bodies, and the warm weather.

But for a swath of liberal-leaning professors, many of them holding highly coveted tenured positions, they've felt increasingly out of place in the Sunshine State. And some of them are pointing to the conservative administration of Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis as the reason for their departures, according to The New York Times.

DeSantis, who was elected to the governorship in 2018 and was easily reelected last fall, has over the course of his tenure worked to put a conservative imprint on a state where moderation was once a driving force in state politics. In recent years, DeSantis has railed against the current process by which tenure is awarded, and with a largely compliant GOP-controlled legislature, he's imposed conservative education reforms across the state.

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I’m sure republicans love that since it is their goal to replace them.

They won't. They don't want universities, because that implies more education.

What I suspect will probably happen is the universities will shrink or close, and/or lose their accreditation, further increasing their brain drain.

What I don’t understand is why no politician who’s against this has proposed an education act under the guise of national security.

What republicans are doing with education is very dangerous. Stupid voters are easy to manipulate, which seems to be the goal, but they have to do more than vote for the other 364 days a year. Having a poorly educated population means you have less engineers designing infrastructure, less trades people building that infrastructure, less doctors to treat injured and ill people, and less skilled professionals overall. The US is largely in the economic and geopolitical position that is in due to the manufacturing and research capacity we had after WW2. For decades, the US was where people went if they wanted to be at the bleeding edge of design/research, because we had very good higher education and the skilled manufacturing to bring those designs to life. Attacking education only hastens the decline of that legacy. A few decades like this means the US will no longer be able to make the advanced military equipment used to project power across the world, or US companies not being able to find people who can maintain, improve, and innovate on products without hiring foreign contractors. If Desantis’ attacks become a national thing, they’ll be putting the US on a fast track to rapid decline and economic collapse.

I agree with what you've said, but you're missing something. Look at the U.S. as a whole. The brains who leave Florida aren't generally going to Canada. They're coming to California, or going to other more liberal, better educated, states.

Further, kids who grew up in the better-off states will continue to pursue higher education.

Republicans don't need to control the entire population. Just enough of them

more liberal, better educated

definition of oxymoron

So what’s the alternative? More conservative, better educated? Is that oxymoron too or are you the moron?

Use progressive instead of liberal and they may not respond that way. It's a super ambiguous term on the internet, and even more ambiguous on Lemmy.

DID I SAY THAT? NO. Why's everyone here just jump to conclusions? fcuk man, this is why we're in the state we are in politically. "If you're not my friend, you're my enemy". There's no such thing as nuance any more and we're incredibly worse for it.

The conclusion is pretty clear in your comment: that liberals are uneducated. I’m inverting your logic to test if that holds and the conclusion there is that conservatives are educated. There’s not much nuance here and I called you a moron because your post makes a pretty moronic conclusion.

Conservatives strike me as less educated if you want to know what I think, but that’s a really broad generalization and it’s not a fact at all and just my opinion. That’s the nuance that your post completely missed. There just wasn’t much in your comment to glean any nuance anyways, and in fact I believe you are doing exactly what you are complaining about with the the not my friend rhetoric with making such comments in the first place.

Don’t make such polarizing comments if you don’t like how people respond. If you want to make the world a better place take a look at yourself and make change, as MJ said.

If Desantis’ attacks become a national thing, they’ll be putting the US on a fast track to rapid decline and economic collapse.

I doubt that's the goal for many of them (because who wants to rule a castle that's crumbled), but they have a fair number of accelerationists in their ranks who see Republicans as useful to their own goals.

As much as we try to paint them all as a fascist monolith, they have their own subgroups with their own awful end goals, and once the rapid decline has started, it is a lot easier for them to keep the momentum going.

You’re ignoring the big argument: less engineers and scientists to design and build next generation defense technology. America doesn’t give two shits until our ability to make bombs is threatened

Pretty sure that goes with “America won’t be able to field the advanced military equipment we use to project power across the world”

You're right...but the core assumption is the Rs care about our place on the world stage. They don't.

Part of the overall plan for the Rs is isolationism. They want to close the boarders and pull out of our trade agreements. Hell, I think Trump wants us out of NATO.

If we are alone over here on our big ass island, the people will be dumber, desperate, and much easier to brainwash.

The big picture is dystopian order for the US.

So any way you slice it, this is not a loss for Republicans, they're getting precisely what they want here. Unintended consequences? Probably, but they're too blinded by their belief in their own superiority to be able to imagine any.

It just means that science communicators on the internet are becoming vitally important, so the young can still access quality information.

It might be a double edged sword, but unless Republicans can stem the flow of information on the internet (and they have and are trying different ways to do that), this is a battle that they have no chance of winning.

It just means that science communicators on the internet are becoming vitally important, so the young can still access quality information.

That'll only work until the Internet is drowned out by fake AI bot science videos and blogs, stressing certain narratives.

YouTube is already today fighting those videos, AI generated trash science stuff.

It's happening now, today. That's why I always rage against shills and bots, because it really will mean the death of communication for Humanity if it goes to its logical conclusion. And when Humanity doesn't communicate, War is not far behind.

can stem the flow of information on the internet (and they have and are trying different ways to do that), this is a battle that they have no chance of winning.

If you pollute the virtual 'Town Square' badly enough, those who want communication to not happen will win.

It's worth mentioning that AI has a self correcting factor. If we can't tell what's AI output and what isn't, AI is going to be trained itself on AI output, which breaks it.

I'm not saying you're wrong, but it's good to remember that the "public square" is vast. Poisoning it isn't going to be as simple as poisoning 4chan.

Also, on the topic of AI, what if their information-gathering improves over time, too? Sure, there will be bad versions, but there are already bad human actors, and we've mostly learned how to identify and fact check them.

I think your scenario is certainly reasonable, but I don't think it's the only option, either. Plus, I've already seen people saying things like, "That sounds like an AI wrote it." Current and future generations may simply learn to detect AI and take any claims skeptically.

Either way, hard to say what the future holds with any real accuracy.

I’m not saying you’re wrong, but it’s good to remember that the “public square” is vast.

Well there's one Facebook, there's one Twitter/X, there's one Reddit (or two if you want to count Lemmy), etc. Not as vast as you might think.

Bots are very fast and inexpensive to use and can be done multiplicatively very easily.

I hope you're right, but I don't have your confidence in the future that you seem to do.

I have the striking feeling that 'Jews will not replace them.'

There has never been a project in my life that I walked away from that I regretted later doing that.

Here is the delusion: you stick it out, you triumph when you should have failed, you made a difference, and people love you for it.

Here is what really happens: you stick it out until you are broken/fired, you got some wins and took some Ls, you didn't make a difference because the disaster is bigger than you are, and everyone blames you for not being good enough.

Don't mix your success with their failure. Don't be a hero to people who don't want to be rescued. If Florida is making your job hard to do the best thing you can do is head north.

Needed to hear these words, very applicable to my current environment. Cheers :)

I grew up in a town of under 500 people deep in the Northern Appalachian mountains. If you work at it, it gets better. I never visit home and am upper middle class yuppy liberal atheist.

Take control of your life, move away from that crap. When you get to NYC send me a message, buy you a fancy latte or an IPA.

Cheers. Since this, I've got an incredible offer in Providence & just submitted my one month at my current environment. Very excited for the future 😁

the brain drain is real. the 'red' states are getting dumber and dumber, and as a result, 'redder' and 'redder'.

A friend of mine was military and also moved all around the country for school and work. He said the dumbest people he ever met, that didn't realize they were dumb, were in Florida.

All these doctors and professors they drive out have to go somewhere, and they're probably not going to be giving Republicans the time of day. They're consolidating power in firmly red states at the expense of swing states

Is that true? That would imply the younger generations are getting dumber, and I'm not sure if that tracks. It might be correlative with the fact that younger generations are getting more and more info from Internet sources (Tiktok, YouTube, podcasts, etc.), however.

Talented and ambitious young people from such places leave

Or never realize that they actually have the talent because no one has helped him with it, so they stay with that undeveloped, making the world a lesser place in their lives as well

This is true to an extent, but it's complicated. Money talks more than cultural vibes, and so to that end, there are plenty of smart and educated young people moving to southern states simply because of affordability. Texas in particular has been attracting a lot of tech workers who don't want to deal with cost of living in San Francisco or NYC.

The top ten states by net migration are: Florida, Texas, North Carolina, Arizona, South Carolina, Tennessee, Georgia, Idaho, Alabama, Oklahoma

While the bottom ten are: California, New York, Illinois, Massachusetts, New Jersey, Louisiana, Maryland, Michigan, Ohio, Minnesota

Those bottom five also have the worst housing markets in the country, which probably isn't a coincidence. Blue states have been torpedoing themselves in the foot by not building enough housing to meet demand and causing prices to explode way past any semblance of affordability. While this data relates to all people, not just young educated people, and is also influenced by things like conservative boomers wanting to join DeSantis in building the Christian Republic of Florida, the effect of housing costs can't really be denied.

Blue states have been torpedoing themselves in the foot by not building enough housing to meet demand and causing prices to explode way past any semblance of affordability.

You're not wrong, it is definitely a housing issue as well, but it's also an infrastructure issue, it's just the land and infrastructure can only handle so many citizens living there before it doesn't work.

Ask anyone trying to drive to and from work in Los Angeles every day as an example of the freeway infrastructure how much it can handle.

Brain drain affects both the states that people are leaving from, and the states people are moving to.

That's an inherent flaw in that kind of car-centric design. Even then, red states have the same fundamentally flawed design; it's just not being stretched to the breaking point like a lot of blue cities are. That's just a matter of time though.

Population density can go way higher than what's in most of LA without turning it into Manhattan, but you have to make significant investments in transit to support it. There will always be people who want large detached single family homes with 2.5 cars, and there's nothing wrong with that, but it shouldn't be the only option the way it is in most of the country.

The liberal brain drain. There are people at all levels of influence and all levels intelligence in all states nudging things in their chosen direction.

Those in position to influence red states cultivate social inertia based on faith and tradition instead of critical thinking or collective betterment. This is why authoritarianism prospers in this places and will continue to do so. Edit: forgot my point in my rambling: these brains do not drain and in fact desire this outcome.

Before any red supporters roast me, the left manipulates based on social cues and utopian promises. Their rabble is generally more critically thinking and educated, but opens themselves to hubris and idealistic naïveté.

Individuals with the ability and will to move away from perceived hostile environments increasingly are, and to places where they can live in an echo chamber. You can’t fault them, but as is discussed elsewhere, the effects on society at large in this age are concerning.

If an echo chamber is somewhere that most people aren't hateful bigots, then yes, I'll take the echo chamber.

Don’t blame ya. Just an academic curiosity in where it leads is all I have.

Society at this point is too large and has too many factors out of the control of individuals without power or money. Even if you find a hook to rally the masses against those in control ( see ows or blm) keeping the fire lit over distance via the internet and social media requires talent and energy to organize in the face of the current power and money that run the show. While the economy is fucked we’re all too busy keeping our heads above water to even get there in the first place.

Consolidating politics and energy into proper physical camps by moving to be around like minded individuals so we can get movements out of the virtual realm and into the physical one surely can’t hurt.

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My brother went to New College. It was a great alternative school where people like my brother, who did not do well in conventional public school, were able to thrive. DeSantis destroyed that. It's criminal.

Good for them. Everyone should bail on that piece of shit. Show future pieces of shit that pieces of shit won’t be tolerated.

All leaving does is turn Florida more red. Stay and vote!

I guess you and others could always move there and try to move the needle.

Right, let me leave my home to go to increasingly red and shitty Florida all because I want to add one more blue vote. No thanks, I want to flood the state with MAGAs and flood it with hurricanes.

Let's instead designate Florida the MAGA containment state and convince anyone living in a "too woke" swingstate to move there.

I do live here. Why do you think I care so much?

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The Red State Brain Drain continues. Professors leaving Florida. OB/GYN doctors leaving Texas.

Why would you want to work in a place that criminalizes your job?

right? crazy how many professors you see arrested on cnn every day.

deleted by creator

I have a PhD and wrote an article (that no one will ever read) obliquely criticizing Trump and every once in a while I wonder if that is what will get me shot.... but it will probably be the pipe bombs.

You guys sound like fucking Jehova's Witnesses.

Keep being you and making the world a better place. Buy a gun anyway. I don't want rednecks to be the only people with firearms during the next election.

You write it like it's already happening. It's not. Stop the fake outrage.

with the educators attracted to the research opportunities, student bodies, and the warm weather.

Possibly could have phrased that better, but OK.

with the educators attracted to the research opportunities, students bodies, and the warm weather.

That better?

Imma guess that they knew what they were doing when they phrased it like that

Maybe I'm wrong but this isn't good for anyone. Brain drain on the south only bolsters the southern strategy and will hand over the electoral college to the uninformed

Exactly. Being driven out is what the GOP aims to do so it can win those important states like some red and swing states

A nice unintended effect is that it's causing Republicans in swing states to move to these deep red strongholds. They're consolidating their base, but securing a state that may be slipping at the cost of losing swing states is a recipe for losing the electoral college.

Edit: Not to mention, all these doctors and professors have to go somewhere. If they go to a swing state that's a pretty much guaranteed blue vote.

Yup, this is a exactly what a person like DeSantis and his supporters want.

That can be true while at the same time it can be true that it isn't worth destroying your quality of life to fight when you can move to somewhere where people don't irrationally hate you for no good reason.

yeah this is something that needs to be regulated by stronger worker rights

The article keeps saying "conservative" when the correct descriptors would be "fascist", "bigoted" and "anti-education".

the conservative fascist administration of Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis

worked to put a[n] conservative anti-education imprint on [the] state

with a largely compliant GOP-controlled legislature, he's imposed conservative bigoted education reforms across the state.

The conservative platform is all of those things, so it's completely fair to call it that. The entire party is rotten to the core because they are simply ok with being the party of all of those things.

I think it is also fair to call them regressives since they are more interested in returning us to an earlier configuration of society than simply maintaining the status quo.

I'm not defending "normal conservatives" and other delusional participants in hate from being associated with this kind of barbarism. My gripe is with threefold:

1: Don't just repeat the same word when synonyms and even better suited words exist. It's lazy writing and annoying to read

2: More importantly, the rise of fascism and related far right demagoguery is a worldwide emergency, not least an American one.

When venerated right wing and/or centrist outlets such as Business Insider, CNN and New York Times keep calling fascism conservatism, they not only ignore the crisis and thus the need to adress it, they severely hinder anyone calling it out from being taken seriously, much less doinh anything to fight it.

The only University staff that most people care about is whoever is coaching the Gators or the Seminoles.

Florida > Highest paid public employee: Dan Mullen; University of Florida football coach > Annual salary: $6,070,000 > 2nd highest paid public employee: Willie Taggart; Florida Atlantic University football coach > Annual salary: $5,000,000 > 3rd highest paid public employee: Josh Heupel; University of Central Florida football coach

It's depressing how common that is.

https://247wallst.com/special-report/2020/09/20/these-are-the-highest-paid-public-employees-in-every-state/

Holy fuck. Almost every state. Red state or blue state, doesn't matter. Almost always the football coaches. Meanwhile, the person running the booth at the DMV takes home what, $20 an hour maybe?

Haha, about twenty years ago, I was working at a Honda dealership as a lot rat, bringing a used car in for an emissions check; there was a sign at the facility saying they were hiring, for competitive wages. I asked what they were paying, and the tech took a long drag on her cigarette and mumbled, “Minimum.”

So the DMV clerk is probably not even making $20.

I don't know what DMV clerks make, but in general, low-end government jobs pay somewhat better than low-end jobs in other fields. They also usually come with at least decent, if not good, health insurance.

So in that sense, even the worst job at the DMV is better than a lot of other jobs. But they still should be better paid, as should we all, and that certainly makes paying a football coach millions of dollars a year hard to justify. The "football makes lots of money" argument doesn't wash for me. Not even for sports. I'm in Indiana. Basketball coaches should be the top paid sports coach positions if this is solely about making money. But it's still football coaches. I can tell you as a former IU student who also grew up in Bloomington that IU basketball is much bigger than IU football. Someone can correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm pretty sure back in the 80s, Bob Knight wasn't the highest-paid public employee despite being one of the most recognized coaches in the country.

But I don't think any sports coach should be the highest paid public employee, so that's sort of moot.

college football at that level is revenue-generating; so it's not really 'taxpayer money' that pays those salaries, but rather the income generated from the football program itself (tickets, advertising, licensing, broadcast fees, boosters, etc.). that income also usually subsidizes the school's sports programs that don't generate a profit--which is, like all of them, other than mens basketball, and in parts of the country, mens ice hockey.

I don't think that justifies the coaches being the highest-paid public employees in the state. You don't have to pay them exorbitantly high salaries to put the revenue generated from football into other sports programs. In most of the states where it isn't football coaches, it's doctors who run the health departments. That makes so much more sense. Who do you want to be the most competent public employee? I would say the one most responsible for stopping people from dying.

Sounds like they should be private employees if it's so profitable. It's odd how we polluted our places of learning with sports programs in the states, by all indications, many sports programs deny their athletes a proper education and a proper salary for their money making activities while the coaches make bank.

Probably couldn’t hack it in the NFL.

After all, the NFL players are proffessionals at wearing tights and chasing other guys who wear tights. They know when the Coach is just torturing them with more laps and cult-like sayings.

If it makes you feel better… college football is big business. Schools make shit loads off the broadcast and advertising rights.

(And then shaft the players that attract that dough under some argument if ‘sportsmanship’ or something.)

ROI for college football is just that high.

That is the same justification for excessive CEO pay. It's bullshit in both cases.

until we get the musk vs zuck cage match, there's little by way of spectator entertainment from CEOs though.

I mean, this is a material and provable statement. I won't pretend to have data, but it's entirely possible at least that paying a football coach n dollars results in a return of 1.3n dollars.

I don't know if that's true, and it very much could be good ol' fashioned corruption, but it's not inherently implausible, and if it is true, then the choice is either pay for the coach and use the additional revenue to fund other programs, sports and academic, or don't, and have less money available for those other things.

I get that the optics don't exactly look great, but I wouldn't really agree with telling the women's lacrosse team that they're being disbanded because we decided that paying a lot for a football coach was a bad look and now the total sports budget is down.

Again, I'm not saying this is definitively what's happening; I don't have data or anything. But this is a legitimately plausible explanation for it. Of course, like I said, equally plausible is just plain corruption. I'd genuinely be curious in what the evidence says, to the extent that it exists.

I agree, but that is how the business world operates. It's tunnel vision.

Governments are not businesses, nor should they operate like businesses.

Any businessmen should have to cut all ties to their businesses before they take office.

That info is old, FSU's coach got paid over $8M to be screwed out of the playoffs :

https://www.tomahawknation.com/florida-state-football-fsu-seminoles-college-cfb-acc-norvell-team-roster-schedule-game/2023/2/8/23591619/mike-norvell-signs-contract-extension-salary-coach-acc-ncaa-conference-head-tallahassee-recruiting

And doesn't Florida have someone else now, too?

I stand corrected. Went with the first result. Silly me.

Shit. For five million, I’d shout random bullshit that sounds inspirational and doodle squiggles on a chalk board!

What could go wrong… it’s just guys in tights chasing other guys in tights…. Right?

Old joke.

PE teacher tells his class that he's the smartest teacher in the school. Everyone else has to wear nice clothes every day and deal with tough questions. All the coach has to do is show up in sneakers and tell kids to run laps.

I get why they're doing it,
But what exactly do they think is going to happen when those highly coveted positions get filled by people complacent or supportive of DeSantis' agenda?

The university system in Florida will get worse? Why should professors feel obligated to try to save Florida's higher ed system?

I'm just saying leaving isn't going to improve the situation. If they're leaving because they don't want to do it anymore, that's fine and I don't blame them at all.
But if they think they're making some kind of protest or statement by resigning, it won't change anything and will arguably make the problem worse.

They're not empowered to improve the situation. The only thing they can do is resign in protest and make a statement about why they are leaving. They should stay and suffer while the institutions they work for crumble?

Why would you stay working at a job where people are actively finding ways to fire you and you might get caught up in a literal witch hunt because someone decided that you are teaching "Anti-Christian Scientific Theories on Planetary Orbits" or whatever the latest stupidity there is?

But also? They ARE improving the situation. Florida is increasingly a lost cause where students get stupider by the year (and sometimes month). College professors are not qualified or trained in teaching basic education and all it does is take away time that can be spent teaching their passions... or whatever they got saddled with because they brought the wrong color of jello to the last department party.

But also? If someone decides "Well, Florida sucks but Professor Oliver does really interesting research work." and puts themselves in that shithole? There is an argument that Professor Oliver is actively causing harm.

Probably most realize moving out makes the situation in FL worse. Those that move probably prioritize improving their own situation. Maybe some think this will give a wake up call to DeSantis but if it is anything like mass resignations in a corporate setting, the kind of management that cultivates that kind of hostility also is unlikely to get the message; they certainly won't blame themselves for anything.

The situation in Florida won't improve. The situation in those professors' lives will improve.

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I mean, to the professors themselves? Nothing. To the university system? Arguably, what the people of Florida want and deserve

It's nice to say one would stay on principle and try and change things /fight back, but in reality, it's a huge emotional and professional drain, especially on families. I've personally drawn a line at applying for positions in Florida

That said, I've got a number of friends who work as professors in Florida and they haven't given any indication this affects them, or they're even remotely interested in leaving. Professors have high mobility and move often, especially if they have a competing (better) offer. The turnover rate only increased by 2% in the last year, according to the article...

Arguably, what the people of Florida want and deserve

Try considering the polling places per capita of blue versus red counties and several other kinds of voter suppression before you go victim blaming millions of people.

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Do you think they should stay in a hostile work environment dealing with reform policies they disagree with but have no power to change? If you get why they are leaving, what else is there for them to do? It's not a protest, it's people choosing to leave jobs they are no longer happy doing under the circumstances forced upon them.

Doing something for the greater good is admirable. But you can't expect everyone to do it and even those who do can't always spend a lifetime doing it. I'm sure these professors have considered the exact scenario you brought up, but at the same time they have to enjoy their life and raise families in a place that isn't hostile to them.

What's going to happen? They will get exactly what they want, which is students being taught what they want them to believe. It's an academic coup.

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The silver-lining in Florida becoming solid red is that maybe - just maybe - we see an end to the Cuba embargo. But democrats will loose a critical Florida voting block! And? Like having the anti-Cubans on our side will help us take Florida anymore.

Good old Florida. Who needs fancy-pants professors when you've got a gater on a leash?

It's not a bug, it's a feature according to Republicans.

I've got my share of "cases of the corporate Mondays", and it is chock full of its own brand of ghoulery, but I'm so glad I jumped ship from academia. So many of my colleagues are stuck in some awful situations.

Granted, some that tried to jump weren't lucky enough to cross the gap, and are stuck in THAT awful situation.

With the ratio of adjunct to tenured faculty, the state of obtaining tenure, and the increasingly toothless nature of tenure, not to mention these goons doing everything they can to demonize education at all levels that isn't a 5 page child's board story book of Noah's Ark....

This is the best summary I could come up with:

Professors from across the country have long been lured to Florida's public colleges and universities, with the educators attracted to the research opportunities, student bodies, and the warm weather.

In recent years, DeSantis has railed against the current process by which tenure is awarded, and with a largely compliant GOP-controlled legislature, he's imposed conservative education reforms across the state.

Neil H. Buchanan, an economist and legal scholar who specializes in tax policy, was recruited to the University of Florida College of Law in 2019 in a tenured position, a huge get for the school.

In a recent Justia article, Buchanan wrote that Florida Republicans "have shown in every way possible that they want to get rid of people like me," criticizing their "increasingly open hostility to professors and to higher education."

Sarah Lynne, the chair-elect of the University of Florida's faculty senate, told The Times that while some professors have left the state, politics is generally not the defining reason.

University of Florida law professor Danaya C. Wright told The Times that several job candidates have pulled back their interest in moving to the state.

The original article contains 633 words, the summary contains 185 words. Saved 71%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!

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