Florida Is Trampling on Academic Freedom. Politics Is the Only Reason Why.

The University of Florida prohibited two of its professors from testifying in a voting rights case

Conservative thinkers talk a good game when it comes to the protection of free speech by institutions and the importance of academic freedom. But conservative politicians are a very different matter. As the recent battles over the teaching of what’s been broadly labeled critical race theory have shown, conservative politicians have no problem restricting the freedom of academics — even on the university level — to teach material the politicians find ideologically offensive. More strikingly, they also have no compunction about limiting academic freedom when it threatens their political interests, as the egregious new crackdown on the free-speech rights of professors at the University of Florida shows.

The professors in question — political scientists Daniel Smith, Michael McDonald, and Sharon Wright Austin — are voting-rights experts who had been hired to testify as expert witnesses for the plaintiffs in a lawsuit challenging a new Florida law enacted this summer, which put in place a host of new restrictions on voting. The law was championed by Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, as part of his ongoing efforts to appeal to the GOP’s…