In ‘free state of Florida’ dodgy COVID-19 research is welcomed, critical thinking muzzled | Opinion

In the “free state of Florida,” academics have plenty of freedom to contest the efficacy and need for COVID-19 vaccines, but they are muzzled if they question the belief that America is a color-blind society where systemic racial injustice doesn’t exist.

This double standard is the inevitable result of a state government that handpicks the kind of speech that’s allowed at state universities and colleges. The same state government that, under the heavy hand of Gov. DeSantis, complains about “censorship” of conservatives by privately run social-media platforms, yet engages in the same tactics it decries.

Florida has ordered its public colleges and universities provide “a comprehensive list of all staff, programs and campus activities related to diversity, equity and inclusion and critical race theory.” The latter is an academic theory that, among other things, studies how racism is embedded in American institutions and laws. Conservatives have turned CRT into a scarecrow to repel anything that makes white people feel they are personally blamed for racism.

The state’s request comes as the governor’s office prepares its budget proposals ahead of the 2023 legislative session. The message is clear: CRT courses and diversity initiatives can put a university’s state funding on the chopping block.

This chilling effect appears to be the intent of DeSantis’ promise to end “wokeness” in Florida. And it’s working. A University of Central Florida sociology professor told ProPublica he’s canceled courses on race, which included a reading on the “the myth of a color-blind society,” out of fear he might lose his job. UCF’s provost blatantly told faculty the school would take disciplinary action against professors who repeatedly violated Florida’s “Stop W.O.K.E. Act” to avoid losing funding. The law prohibits classroom instruction that purportedly makes students feel guilty for past discrimination by members of their race (a subjective standard, to say the least). It also bars portraying racial colorblindness — which the law calls a virtue — as racist.

This is a blatant attack on free speech and academic freedom. Not surprisingly, a federal judge barred the law from being enforced in public universities, calling it “positively dystopian.” The DeSantis administration is appealing the case, ProPublica reported.

While CRT is treated as the abomination that Florida must root out, our university system continues to bankroll Florida’s chief vaccine denier, Surgeon General Joseph Ladapo. Appointed by DeSantis in the midst of the pandemic, he has peddled debunked treatments for the virus, such as hydroxychloroquine, and describes the scientific community as intolerant to different points of view on pandemic response. It turns out the administration he works for lives in a glass house.

Ladapo, a tenured professor at the University of Florida College of Medicine, recommended men aged 18-39 do not get mRNA COVID-19 vaccines. The guidance was based on a study by the Department of Health, which answers to Ladapo, on the health risks of the vaccines for men in that age group. A seven-page report authored by a committee of UF College of Medicine professors criticized the study, calling its research of “highly questionable merit” and relying on cherry-picked data to support an anti-vaccine hypothesis.

UF has no plans to investigate the study, the Tampa Bay Times reported this week. Its vice president for research, David Norton, told the Times that Ladapo oversaw the research in his role as surgeon general and not as a faculty member. Then, perhaps not sensing the irony, Norton said via a statement that his office “continues to strongly support the freedom afforded to university researchers to independently pursue topics and present findings.”

Those who toe DeSantis’ line appear to have ample freedom to pursue their academic and research interests, no matter their questionable methods or the harm they may cause. Those who question DeSantis’ belief on race and racism aren’t so fortunate.

In the end, the real losers aren’t university professors who are often vilified as leftist indoctrinators. The real losers are students, adults who should have the option to take a college course on critical race theory.

The state of Florida acts as if it’s protecting students from what DeSantis labeled “trendy ideology.” But it’s more like a helicopter parent who prevents their children’s exposure to perhaps uncomfortable truths. In doing so, Florida denies young people the tools to question their place in society and have their own beliefs questioned.

Perhaps keeping them in the dark is exactly the end game.