Liberal Professors Fleeing Florida
The DeSantis crackdown on academic freedom is having its desired effect.
NYT (“In Florida’s Hot Political Climate, Some Faculty Have Had Enough“):
Gov. Ron DeSantis had just taken office in 2019 when the University of Florida lured Neil H. Buchanan, a prominent economist and tax law scholar, from George Washington University.
Now, just four years after he started at the university, Dr. Buchanan has given up his tenured job and headed north to teach in Toronto. In a recent column on a legal commentary website, he accused Florida of “open hostility to professors and to higher education more generally.”
He is not the only liberal-leaning professor to leave one of Florida’s highly regarded public universities. Many are giving up coveted tenured positions and blaming their departures on Governor DeSantis and his effort to reshape the higher education system to fit his conservative principles.
The Times interviewed a dozen academics — in fields ranging from law to psychology to agronomy — who have left Florida public universities or given their notice, many headed to blue states. While emphasizing that hundreds of top academics remain in Florida, a state known for its solid and affordable public university system, they raised concerns that the governor’s policies have become increasingly untenable for scholars and students.
This was predictable and, indeed, predicted. Florida will have no trouble at all replacing these professors, as there has been a glut of qualified academics for at least two generations now and the state generally has a lot to offer. But academics do lean liberal and the most elite have their choice of jobs, so states with policies that restrict academic freedom will be at a disadvantage in competing for their talents.
The University of Florida said that its turnover rate is not unusual and remains well below the 10.57 percent national average. Hiring, it said, has also outpaced departures. Florida State University and the University of South Florida released similar figures.
Again: no university in the country, lt alone one with doctoral programs, will have any trouble recruiting qualified faculty. Indeed, I suspect Florida, Florida State, and South Florida could fill their ranks with nothing but people who finished their PhDs in 2023. The question is whether the new hires have credentials comparable to those being replaced.
Governor DeSantis’s office did not respond to requests for comment. But Sarah D. Lynne, chair-elect of the University of Florida’s faculty senate, said that little has changed except that her campus has become the focus of national politics. Most people who leave, she said, do so for reasons that have nothing to do with politics.
“Florida isn’t really a unique scenario when it comes to the politicization of higher education,” said Dr. Lynne, who teaches in the Department of Family, Youth and Community Sciences. “It’s a beautiful state to live in and we have amazing students, so we’re staying.”
Data from several schools, however, show departure rates have ticked upward. At the University of Florida, overall turnover went from 7 percent in 2021 to 9.3 percent in 2023, according to figures released by the university.
A report by the faculty senate at the University of Florida found some departments hard hit. The school of arts — which includes art, music and dance — “struggles to hire or retain good faculty and graduate students in the current political climate,” said the report, issued in June.
In liberal arts, the report said: “Faculty of color have left.”
I’m not sure comparing departure rates on a year-over-year basis is all that useful, in that people retire or leave for new jobs for all manner of reasons. But I would imagine that, yes, something like a school of arts would have difficulty recruiting in a state seen as hostile to the LGTBQ community. And, in the MAGA era, it wouldn’t shock me at all if non-whites who had other options chose to live in a blue state.
Danaya C. Wright, a law professor who currently chairs the faculty senate, said she sees job candidates avoiding the state. “We have seen more people pull their applications, or just say, ‘no, I’m not interested — it’s Florida,’” she said.
At Florida State University, the vice president for faculty development, Janet Kistner, commented during a faculty senate meeting in September that the “political climate in Florida” had contributed to an upswing in faculty turnover, with 37 professors leaving for reasons other than retirement in the past year compared to an average of 23 during the past five years.
Paul Ortiz, a history professor at the University of Florida and a former president of the school’s faculty union, is leaving after more than 15 years to join Cornell next summer.
“If the academic job market was more robust, then a lot more people would be leaving,” Dr. Ortiz said.
I mean, a lot of faculty would have left Florida for Cornell, given the opportunity, at any point in the university’s history. I don’t think we can blame DeSantis for that.
Walter Boot, a tenured psychology professor who had secured millions of dollars in grants for Florida State, is headed to Weill Cornell Medicine in New York, where he will continue developing technology for the elderly.
Dr. Boot said he joined Florida State in 2008 and immediately felt at home on the Tallahassee campus: “This was the place I could see myself spending the rest of my career — great department, great university.”
Things began to change, he said, when the DeSantis administration started to push its education policies. Dr. Boot, who is gay, cited a 2022 law that limits what educators can say about gender and sexuality in elementary schools. It was not technically aimed at universities, but it fueled a frightening environment, he said.
“The run-up and aftermath of its passage involved hostile rhetoric painting queer and trans individuals as pedophiles and groomers, rhetoric that came not just from citizens but from state officials,” Dr. Boot recently wrote in the Tallahassee Democrat.
He pointed out that soon after the bill’s passage, a man threatened to kill gay people on Florida State’s campus.
“It’s been very difficult, from a day-to-day perspective, not feeling comfortable or even safe where I live,” Dr. Boot said in an interview.
Other gay professors cited recent state sanctions aimed at transgender employees and students who do not comply with a law, passed in May, restricting access to bathrooms, as well as state restrictions on transgender medical procedures.
Hope Wilson, who was a professor of education at the University of North Florida in Jacksonville, had served as an adviser to the school’s Pride club and worked with the L.G.B.T.Q. center.
Dr. Wilson said that she particularly objected to what she regarded as intrusive requests from the state for information — to which her school responded — on everything from how many students had received transgender care to expenditures for D.E.I. initiatives.
“It just felt very dystopian all the way around,” she said.
Her professional discomfort was matched by personal worries, because her child is transgender.
“Florida isn’t a state where I can raise my family or do my job,” Dr. Wilson said. She landed at the Northern Illinois University.
Again, this strikes me as much more compelling. While I don’t know that Florida was ever super friendly to open gays, the issue has been weaponized in recent years. But, again, they’ve chosen two examples of professors leaving for objectively better schools.
Regardless, this was my initial instinct when I saw the report on memeorandum:
To Christopher Rufo, a conservative writer and activist whom the governor appointed a trustee of New College of Florida this year as part of a campus shake-up, faculty departures are a plus.
“To me, this is a net gain for Florida,” he wrote in a statement, railing against diversity programs and transgender medical care. “Professors who want to practice D.E.I.-style racial discrimination, facilitate the sexual amputation of minors, and replace scholarship with partisan activism are free to do so elsewhere. Good riddance.”
The policies are having precisely the intended goal! To be sure, it’ll significantly harm the state’s universities in various ranking systems (although those seem to be falling out of favor of late, so who knows) but DeSantis and company very much seem not to care about that. (This, despite being products of elite schools.)
The University of Florida’s law school has been particularly hard hit this year, with a 30 percent faculty turnover rate.
Some of those professors said political interference contributed to their departures, while other faculty said Florida’s reputation had deterred professors elsewhere from joining.
Maryam Jamshidi said that after a 2021 law permitted students to record professors in the classroom, liberal-leaning professors feared they would see videos of their lectures on Fox News.
“As a Muslim woman who works on issues of racism and American power, I didn’t feel like U.F. was a place I could safely be myself and do my work,” said Ms. Jamshidi, who now teaches at the University of Colorado Boulder.
We finally have an example of someone taking a job at a considerably lower-ranked school!
Questions about gender and race are fundamental to an array of legal arguments, from constitutional law to criminal justice and workplace discrimination.
But in May, Governor DeSantis signed a bill that regulated what can be said in the classrooms and also barred university spending on diversity programs.
By that time, Kenneth B. Nunn had already decided to leave, one of several Black law professors who have recently departed.
In 2021, Mr. Nunn had been barred from signing a brief challenging state restrictions on voting by felons. Mr. Nunn said that signing such briefs is “something that is considered a matter of course for faculty to do anywhere else.”
The school later reversed itself on the question of whether he could sign, but Mr. Nunn took the episode as an indication of the university’s direction. He opted to retire from the law school, and is currently a visiting professor at Howard University.
For Dr. Buchanan, the economist and law professor, a final straw was the institution of a review process for tenured faculty, which he viewed as the end of academic freedom.
“It’s not just that the laws are so vague and obviously designed to chill speech that DeSantis doesn’t like. It’s that they simultaneously took away the benefit of tenured faculty to stand up for what’s right,” he said. “It’s tenure in name only at this point.”
Since Dr. Buchanan writes on tax policy from a progressive perspective, he said that he felt he could become a target any time.
“The Republicans who are running Florida,” he said, “are squandering one of the state’s most important assets by driving out professors who otherwise wouldn’t have wanted to leave.”
Post-tenure review is becoming increasingly common and I don’t necessarily oppose it. At some point, faculty that stop conducting research or putting in effort in the classroom need to go. Still, Florida’s version is highly problematic for reasons I’ve discussed previously. Beyond that, the freedom to write what one pleases is fundamental to the life of a scholar, particularly one who does policy-relevant work.
Florida is in a race to the bottom. Cutting the number of students and faculty one can recruit in half is about as stupid as one can get. Echo chambers do little more than reinforce ignorance.
James, much of this post is admitting that the goal and reasonable expectation is to purge faculty, and then nitpicking examples.
Florida’s university system was the crown jewel of the state’s education portfolio. Compared to other states, it was most affordable for residents and rated high in national academic standings. Thanks to Trumpism, DeSantis’ actions, and the GOP herd over common sense mentality, they are killing the one thing Florida had remaining to brag about from an academic perspective. The Florida man ethos and their Karen collaborators are just ruining the Sunshine state.
@Barry: I essentially predicted this outcome when the state abolished tenure back in February 2022. The post is part commentary on what’s happened and part media criticism. Interviewing a dozen people to illustrate a systemic problem, only one of whom left for a job that’s arguably lower on the academic hierarchy, simply isn’t that helpful and making the case—even though I think the exodus of liberal and/or LGBTQ and/or non-white professors is real.
Yes, it’s having the desired effect. But let’s be clear what that is. DeSantis has been able to grandstand to please the MAGA primary voters and Rufo has gotten himself a lot of attention and a cushy gig. Rufo may actually care about DEI, but neither of them really care about education.
One feels compelled to note that part of DeSantis, and Republicans generally, program has been to politicize local school board elections, including making them partisan. Two of his enthusiastic partners are the chair of the state GOP and his wife, a founder of Moms for Liberty and successful DeSantis backed candidate for Sarasota County school board. Two thirds of a now notorious threesome.
Here in Colorado, I’ve seen a lot of Florida license plates this year. How many are seasonal travelers who decided to drive a couple of thousand miles? Unknown, but it has been a year-round phenomenon.
@James Joyner: I wonder if the reporter knows the relative standings of the various universities involved? I suspect that for most people, myself included, there is Harvard and MIT and perhaps Berkeley on one end, the various Liberty University knock offs on the other, and everything else is in a vague middle.
As a Floridian, I really couldn’t give a hoot about this. How about the Democratic Party in Florida cancelling their primary to be held next march?
This hits close to home. Earlier this year, University of Florida came calling. Looking to recruit me as part of an AI initiative supported by NVIDIA.
The money and resources were, um, attractive. Very. Career changing attractive. As was the chance to be on the same campus with some longstanding collaborators and friends. And I have some personal ties to the state that also made it appealing.
Of course, I was well-aware of the specific shenanigans and overall “challenges” facing university faculty in the state. And especially those whose work touches on (in any way whatsoever) issues of diversity etc. Much of my research is deep in this space.
Even still, the opportunities were such that I decided to entertain the offer. Have some “what if” conversations and visits. But after visiting (again) and having further, more candid conversations (supplemented by supporting documentation), it became obvious that UF was not the place for me. I ended the discussions/negotiations.
I’m not an anxious or paranoid type. And I have no interest in becoming one. And I am quite certain that working at UF would have moved me in that direction. I expressed this to many of the higher-ups I met with, and most of them expressed genuine understanding if not outright agreement.
Broadening out from personal experience, these issues have been a major drag on recruitment in the state. As James notes, these universities (UF in particular) will have no trouble recruiting faculty. They will have (are having) trouble recruiting and retaining the best.
And they’ve reached a point where money/resources aren’t enough. Unless they are dissatisfied at their home institution, or have other personal/professional considerations, many top scholars aren’t even picking up the phone, much less seriously considering these poaching attempts.
I hope this simmers down once DeSantis exits and is no longer making (or gesturing at) policy to support his national political ambitions. I’m not confident but I’m not pessimistic either.
@gVOR10:
The problem with the Moms for Liberty’s founder us that she’s a fascist, not that she may be polyamorous. Focusing on the threesome will ultimately hurt Moms for Liberty’s victims more than it hurts Moms for Liberty
“sexual amputation of minors” – that’s quite the turn of phrase. I just read that the preponderance of people transitioning these days are trans men. Sometimes they get top surgery, it’s true. Somehow I don’t think the phrase “sexual amputation of minors” is meant to reference that.
That phrase is a lot like “weapons of mass destruction”, which I never heard spoken ever until W decided he wanted to invade Iraq.
@Stormy Dragon:
No, you destroy your enemies however you can. This is why liberals lose more battles than they should. Remind me never to be stuck in a cabin in the woods with you and a crazy killer. “Don’t call Jason ‘crazy,’ that word is offensive to people with mental illness!”
She’s a hypocrite and that is the lever you use with this polyamorous fascist bitch. (I know, I know, the ‘B’ word).
@Stormy Dragon: “The problem with the Moms for Liberty’s founder us that she’s a fascist, not that she may be polyamorous.”
Really? When she starts screaming about how evil homosexuality is, you merely point out that she has been involved in a homosexual relationship for years and thus clearly doesn’t believe a word of what she says, so why should anyone? Seems to me a pretty good way of demonstrating that she is all about power — that is, she’s a fascist — and much better than just calling her names.
@Bill Jempty: I think it is fairly routine in both parties to cancel primaries if the incumbent is from their party and is running again, absent a serious challenge from a national figure. Why spend the money and waste everyone’s time?
@Stormy Dragon: Her critics aren’t criticizing her “polyamory.” They’re criticizing her dishonesty and dishonesty in the context of her homophobia.
They’re right to do so.
@James Joyner: Fair enough.
Much ado about nothing. As Henry Kissinger remarked: “The reason that university politics is so vicious is because stakes are so small”. No doubt quite distressing in academia but the bulk of students who matriculate at Florida schools choose their university based on its proximity to the beach and the pleasant winter weather.
This is as true today as it was when it was published in 1923:
Who is teaching the economically useless subjects is of little matter. Now, a problem in hard STEM might need some attention but none of the examples were of professors in those fields.
@MarkedMan:
You have failed to note that there was a Florida Republican Presidential primary in 2000.
What we have here is Democratic party leaders ramming down registered party voters (me include) a 81 year old incumbent who there are serious questions about his ability to do the job today alone 5 years from now. Let the voters decide.
@JKB: Kissinger may have said it, but he didn’t originate it:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sayre%27s_law
@Bill Jempty:
What are the “serious questions about his ability to do the job today..? ”
Seriously. What are they? The Biden Administration has exceeded all my expectations on what it could have accomplished. Inflation is a global phenomenon, over which he his administration has had little control. He’s managed to keep up support for Ukraine and Israel, despite pushback from his own party. His admnistration has created more jobs at a historic pace. Unemployment is down to record levels. Wages are up to pre-pandemic trandlines and are outpacing inflation.
Seriously, Bill. In what way is Biden not doing the job he was elected to do?
@wr:
@dj******@gm***.com:
Are they? Look at gVOR10’s original comment:
Where is hypocrisy or dishonesty mentioned? The only descriptive word at all is “notorious”, which has nothing to do with hypocrisy or dishonesty, by rather public awareness, suggesting the issue with the threesome isn’t the hypocrisy or dishonesty, but rather the visibility. This line of argument may end up hurting the Zieglers specifically, but it is not going to hurt Moms for Liberty one bit. The people it will hurt is other people in non-traditional relationships who have to continue hiding their families from public view lest they too become “notorious”.
@Bill Jempty:
Who was the incumbent Republican President in 2000?
@Bill Jempty: You’re a day late. Roll over and go back to sleep.
@Bill Jempty: In 2000 there was no incumbent Republican. Did you mean to say 2020? As I said yesterday the Republican Party essentially coronated Trump. The National Party encouraged the state parties to cancel their primaries or, absent that, change the rules to make it a more overwhelming win for Trump.
@Mikey: Yes there was a primary. We have an incumbent this year also.
And if you read page 11 of a report found here. about the use by dems and republicans of the use of write-ins to close their party primaries. For years both parties have complained when the other party has done just that. The Democratic party leaders in Florida are showing their hypocrisy.
Oops here is the link- https://flcga.org/%C2%93ghost-candidates%C2%94-how-they-manipulate-and-sometimes-steal-florida-elections/
@EddieInCA: As I said back in 2016 when so many raged against nominating Clinton or in 2008 when significant number of Democrats felt Obama was too young and inexperienced to be Prez: There is always a reason why this particular candidate is the wrong choice and Republicans are incredibly good at playing the media into becoming a “legitimate concerns” marching band.
As you said, Biden has exceeded my expectations and I am very happy for him to have four more years. If there are health issues or infirmities I know he has a top notch team in place.
@MarkedMan: Yes I meant 2020.
@just nutha: Why is this place supposed to be an echo chamber?
@Michael Reynolds:
@wr:
@dj******@gm***.com:
The point of queer liberation is to set all of us free, not just the people we like, EVERYONE. The problem with tarring her polyamory with claims “hypocrisy” is in your zeal to burn her, you’re going to burn everyone in non-monogamous relationships. That won’t hurt her, it won’t hurt Mom’s for Liberty, or their fascist causes. It will simply allow people in the squishy middle to turn off their brains and say, “oh, she’s just freaky deaky, no big deal.” They won’t go, “oh, maybe she’s got a lot of internalized homophobia and that has lead her to the comfort of fascism to help get her through the dissonance.”
Too many Straight people (and way to many Queers) seem to think hypocrisy is some sort of slam dunk that absolutely crushes and defeats your opponents for all time. If that was the case, Thomas Jefferson, one of the absolute biggest hypocrites in American history would be utterly reviled today.
It lets people off. They don’t have to think about what’s bad about being a fascist. They don’t have to think about the the ways that enforced patriarcal monogamy destroys people. They don’t have to think about the ways that internalized homophobia eats away at a person like a cancer. Instead, Daddy Reynolds gets to shout “HYPOCRITE!” from on high as if it would banish some sort of demon.
I wouldn’t expect the NYT to focus on any level other than the top tier, but I’m frankly more concerned about how these efforts trickle downwards to the regionals and the community colleges. It’s relatively easy for someone who has secured a placement at UF or FSU to find an appointment at some R1 or R2 school whose political climate suits them better. And there will always be somebody in the wings who wants their spot if only to make it easier to start their academic career trajectory.
I doubt the same will hold true at the other layers, and the impact will vary depending on field. In my own field, which relies a lot on current practitioners choosing to switch over to academia rather that recent graduates choosing academia directly, I’ve noticed an uptick over the past couple of years in the number of postings that get refreshed over and over on Higher Ed Jobs. My own department still has not replaced a former colleague who passed away over two years ago. I have to think that professional disciplines overall – like nursing, accounting, undergraduate business law – are going to feel the effects first and at the regional / community college level.
“The DeSantis crackdown on academic freedom is having its desired effect.”
This kind of says it all, doesn’t it? If/when Democratic-led states take actions that cause folks to leave, all we hear about is how those states and their policies are failed and how everyone hates them and how they better shape up or they’re just going to spiral further and further downwards.
When GOP-led states take actions that cause folks to leave, well, good riddance!
@EddieInCA:
@Bill Jempty:
Still waiting for an answer as to what Biden has done, as the actual President, which shows he couldn’t do the job in a second term.
Inquiring minds want to know.
@Bill Jempty: neat…there was no Republican incumbent in 2000.
(Nevermind…i see you corrected yourself).
Glad the slow brain drain of your home state doesn’t mean as much to you as being able to lodge one of maybe a 3% vote for a rich boy political gadfly.
@Stormy Dragon: I didn’t read that phrase as a sexual threesome at first reading, but as a trio working in concert.
@EddieInCA:
Apparently, he has aged. The nerve of that man. Who told him he could do that?
Seriously, Biden, IMO, is doing far better a job than I expected. And he’s finally getting into the structural issues that have depressed wages and concentrated capital. All prior presidents largely went along with that trend (Obama not so much).
@JKB:
The risk those universities run as they allow more and different types of discrimination is running afoul of rules about federal science grants. Federal money shows up in odd places. When I was in graduate school the first time it was in an applied math field. The US Navy paid my research assistant salary for a couple of semesters.
@Bill Jempty:
If you don’t care about this thread’s topic, why post here? There’s an open thread.
@Kingdaddy:
Here in Washington, I have seen two Hawaii license plates this month. I have no idea how they got here.
I guess I do have an idea, but I would have thought it was way more expensive to ship a car across an ocean. These were not fancy, expensive or even new cars.
@Michael Reynolds: We should use people-first language: Person with psychosis and a meat cleaver.
I would skip the “bitch” though. It adds nothing, applies no wedges between her and her base, and is just gratuitous misogyny.
I might be oversensitive about that though — working in STEM there are a metric shitload of incels who diminish and ignore women, or dismiss their ideas out of hand because they are women. And if the women ever push back or stand up for themselves, they are quickly known as a bitch.
At least in that environment, casually and frivolously reinforcing that mindset, even against awful people, does more harm than good.
@Kingdaddy:
My wife was talking about this just the other day here in Michigan, but she pointed out they were all rentals. Could it be Florida has become to car rentals to what Panama is to cruse ships?
As a reminder, Louisiana also recently lost one of its three pediatric heart specialists because he and his husband no longer felt safe raising their family in LA.
@JKB:
Out of curiosity, what is your field? The dismissal of other subjects is common among junior software engineers who write terribly, can barely think, and who never grow to have an impact beyond the edges of their desk.
The best engineers I have ever worked with were the ones with completely insane degrees in early Turkish (hmm, is that Turkiyish now?) history or whatever, who then learned software elsewhere.
(Aside: even “pointless” requirements in STEM degrees, like “three credits in basket weaving” prepare one for work in the corporate world, by giving people the skills to jump through stupid hoops)
@Gustopher: 100% agree. I have a “useless” BA in English Lit and an MS Accounting. My advantages over my cohort in grad school were noticeable immediately. I had a much easier time writing tax memos and audit opinions, developing effective presentations, etc.
About halfway through, I had assembled a “group project” group of four that would align our class schedules and sit together so we could group up immediately in every new class. They all had strengths that were complementary, but I was the only one that could take all of their respective contributions and turn them into a cohesive written product that sounded like it was written in a single voice.
@Gustopher:
It could be that the cars were bought by Hawaiians on the mainland, registered in Hawaii and being driven for a period for while touring, to be either shipped back or sold on the mainland.
@Bill Jempty: No, but we covered that the Republicans did the same thing in other states other years already yesterday. It’s inefficient and tiresome to argue about the same bogus nonsense every day. We’re not FNC, you know.
@Thomm: Me neither. I’m glad to not have to contextualize everything as an attack on my identity. I had enough of that fight during the breakup of my marriage.
@Kingdaddy:
In my part of Colorado, the ones that have become more common over the last year are Texas plates. Still not as many as the California plates, though.
And I thought political interference at UF was a problem in the late 60s and early 70s when I was there. Sheesh . . .
@Gustopher: Back when I was young (people in the military can refute the rumor if they wish to) it was said that a person could have their car registered and licensed in whatever state they wished regardless of where they were stationed. Additionally, when I would stop in Spanaway–across from what is now Joint Base Lewis/McCord–lots of cars sported licenses from all over the nation. Additionally, people occasionally lie about their permanent residence to avoid paying Washington State’s confiscatory license fees by licensing their cars through their “home” states (even though the cars–or even the people, I suppose– have never been there).
I will admit that I read “threesome” as “working together” and not “having sex together” as well.
The whole push against trans people and gender-affirming care is laced with what might be called “hypocrisy”, but I don’t think that’s what it is. I think it’s bad faith. You can look at people who, for instance, want to ban breast reduction surgery for trans minors. There are several thousand breast reduction surgeries every year for cisgendered minor girls, and those aren’t being addressed at all by legislation.
So, is “hypocrite” the best shot to take at this? I don’t think so. I think “blatantly discriminatory” is the best shot. I think its fair to say that if they thought the procedure was bad for minors, they they would put a stop to it regardless of any gender dysphoria or not. But they aren’t.
This is something much worse than hypocrisy, in my book. It’s bad faith. It’s mendacious. All the “think of the children” is meaningless garbage. Their aim is to rid the world of trans people, as they don’t think gender dysphoria is a real thing.
“Hypocrite” is a word I use to describe a different condition, one less knowing, less examined. You just live a life that lacks consistency. Everyone does this.
I could be wrong about this but I think that calling someone “hypocrite” is not especially powerful. I prefer to call them liars and haters.
If you think you have to lie and cheat and scheme to do God’s Will, I say your faith is sorely lacking.
@JKB:
I too would very much like to know what your degree is in. I’ll second this comment from
@Gustopher:
I’ve worked with some who fit that description almost exactly, who couldn’t even get through a three-line email without grammar and spelling errors.
A few years ago, there was a shortage of graduates in that oft-derided field of philosophy. Tech companies wanted to hire people who actually had studied things like the implications of, say, turning over decision-making to a CAR. The trolley problem has real-world impacts when you’re programming a self-driving car.
I’ve found people who sh!t on non-STEM degrees–in your parlance, “economically useless subjects”–are usually pretty limited thinkers with narrow worldviews who do not understand how businesses actually operate.
@Jen: Ill also add that when I quit stacking boxes and went back to school to become a teacher (at a significant cut in pay–thank you, trade unions, for making me rich enough early) I decided to get an endorsement to teach English–despite the fact that I’m not a “lit” person–specifically because the great weakness I had seen during my 15 years in the biz world was the most people were poor at communication at large and written communication specifically.
@Just nutha ignint cracker:
What do they tell their insurance companies?
@Jen: It’s a sign to me when people cannot ascribe worth to the things they are not interested in or are not good at, but it’s very common. Not just in work, but in life too. People who mock Star Trek nerds but know every Baseball trivia question back to 20 years before they were born. People who love music genre A but go on and on about what losers the ones who listen to genre B are. When I was a kid I thought like that, but then I grew the f*ck up.
@Gustopher: Probably navy personal. Last I knew when stationed at Pearl Harbor they’ll move your car with you. I could see the reverse happening when moved to the states from Hawaii.
@Michael Cain: I wouldn’t know; I’ve never found license fees expensive enough to try to evade them. But I do know that the state has claimed the problem as a serious leak in the revenue stream in the past.
@Stormy Dragon: I apologize for any offense given. I should have taken time to be more clear. My first paragraph is about Desantis being motivated by politics, not concern for education. I expanded into the politics of my local FL school board as the insincerity on display there is currently in the national news. I agree no one should be “notorious” for what goes on between consenting adults, but Ziegler allegedly went beyond consent.
@Michael Cain:..In my part of Colorado, the ones that have become more common over the last year are Texas plates. Still not as many as the California plates, though.
In June of 1970 I spent two weeks in Denver staying at a friends house thinking that I might relocate there from Southern Illinois. It’s been long enough ago that I can’t recall much about why I didn’t stay.
One image that I still have in my head is the proliferation of bumper stickers that read:
DON’T CALIFORNICATE COLORADO!.
I can’t say that every car sported that message but a hell of a lot of them did.
Fifty three years later (damn, it’s been that long?) I wonder how that campaign turned out.
@Gustopher:
Because nobody gets it. Posters are complaining that academics can’t say what they want but are perfectly fine with not allowing voters to voice themselves. That’s hypocrisy.
In Florida, democrats scream foul if Republicans use a loophole* to close a primary. Then they move to cancel their primary.
the practice of claiming to have moral standards or beliefs to which one’s own behavior does not conform
Either you should want sides to shut up or both of them to have the same freedom. We’re not talking about hate groups either.
I have an open mind. At least one of the commenters here doesn’t.
*- At the link below there is a pdf file. Read the part starting at page 11.
https://flcga.org/%C2%93ghost-candidates%C2%94-how-they-manipulate-and-sometimes-steal-florida-elections/
@Jen:..that oft-derided field of philosophy.
When I was allegedly in college I met a wizened old grad student who told me:
“Major in Philosophy. You will be unemployed but you will understand why.”
@Michael Cain:
Well, discrimination certainly hasn’t caused problems for Harvard. Well, until now with the newly opened investigation into antisemitism.
But Bill Ackman posted an open letter today reporting on his discussions with Harvard faculty where they revealed long standing discrimination against white males, Asians and conservatives.
This bit is revealing “and students can’t share points of view that are inconsistent with the accepted narrative on campus”. Because if you can’t have open discussions, then you can’t learn how to discipline your intellect or regulate your emotions. Talking and writing from many viewpoints is how students develop their ability to think things through.
And for those who asked, I have BS Physics. An economically useless degree on its face to work in Physics, but valuable as you become educated in the discipline of intellect, regulation of emotions, establishment of principles true definition. That and the ability problem solve served me well.
@JKB:
Are you a bore in real life, or do you just play one on the internet?
I’m not an academic (though I’ve most recently worked for an academic medical group) and recognizing that an individual personal example is dot data but I can confirm that in my current job search my family and I have ruled out Florida as an area we are willing to relocate to.
@JKB:
Are you under the belief that physics is the only field of study by which students could gain such skills and traits? Or that you can’t get them in non-stem areas? If so, you would seem to be demonstrating that you might be wrong about your own abilities….
@anjin-san:
I’m so old middle school was called junior high back then. Amusing how so many never matured out of middle school girl bullying.
@JKB:
There’s no lock on those items with a BS in physics, for crying out loud. That describes a LOT of people I know, with degrees in English, Poli Sci, Biology, Geology, pre-med…etc. That’s the point of college. It’s supposed to teach you HOW TO THINK.
@JKB:
Yeah, I went to middle school too, along with who knows how many boomers. As for “bullying”, that seems to be a pretty stock conservative complaint when serial goalpost moving and generally weak arguments don’t gain any traction.
I learned a lot about bores in my bartending days when I was in my 20s. They look for captive audiences, as people tend to avoid them when possible. Bars are attractive because event if people on adjacent stools flee, the bartender is more or less trapped back there. People on blogs are pretty much a captive audience unless they want to let one or two commenters drive them away from a blog they otherwise enjoy.
Pro tip – talking about how the behavior of others is “amusing” to you is kind of a “teenage dude who never gets invited to parties” line. Rather dull and best avoided.
Bottom line – don’t be a troll, deliberate or otherwise. It’s beyond tiresome.
LOL Just what we need, a blog post with pearl clutching over conservatism in academia when in reality………the liberals have dominated – almost totally dominated – for years.
What next? Someone leaving MSNBC for perceived conservative bias?
Speaking as an academic who is on the market right now, Florida (and Texas) are making their bundle of compensation far less attractive today relative to 2020. In 2020, if I was on the market, plenty of schools in Florida and Texas (public and private) could make one hell of a competitive offer on the basis of pay, colleagues, academic climate and local living conditions. In the past four years, pay is still reasonable, colleagues are leaving and the climate, on and off campus, have cratered.
I recently saw an unpublished analysis of movement in and out of states with abortion restrictions post-Dobbs. The key finding was the only subgroup with substantial changes in migration patterns were young, high option women who lived in low restriction states. Their movement into no-abortion states cratered. People with options and who highly prioritized certain aspects of an environment/choice space can opt out real easily.
Those slots will be filled by people without options. The same is happening in academia. ABD candidates who are coming out with CVs that are very likely tenurable on a blind analysis aren’t applying to jobs at public universities in Florida. Yep, those jobs will be filled by folks who aren’t getting fly-outs to top universities. The ABD market is the least locked in group with the most options.