2/3/25 Update: UM Faculty Senate News, DOJ v. Courts on Federal Research Funding, and FIU Under Threat
"No one has a right to sit down and feel hopeless. There's too much work to do." Dorothy Day
Before we get rolling: please continue to share our local AAUP newsletter with your colleagues. Encourage them to subscribe. Our chapter's leadership team will be meeting this week, and we intend to hold a chapter meeting soon. We also have a multi-institutional Zoom meeting in the works with academics at universities and colleges outside of UM to troubleshoot and coordinate strategies. More information will be forthcoming on both of these events. In the meantime, here's your information rundown for this week:
UM Faculty Senate News
Unsurprisingly, at the last Senate meeting, faculty and administrators discussed the financial fallout associated with the pause of NIH and NSF funding (among other federal funding streams). UM would face devastating losses in research revenue. Also, as a recent university email made clear, DEI language is being scrubbed from all university web pages in an effort to comply with the new Presidential administration. In place of diversity and inclusion will be the longstanding "culture of belonging" grounded on the morally and rhetorically malleable notion of excellence. While such moves are intended to display political savvy, they leave our colleagues and students most at risk wondering who will stand with them.
Meanwhile, while universities run scared from diversity initiatives, prominant investment firms–such as Miami-based Citadel–with fundraising ties to the current state and federal administrations still recognize the important role diversity and inclusion play in achieving their bottom lines.
Federal Research Funding to Resume Following Court Order . . .
. . . but the Department of Justice has already insisted that the courts cannot block the suspension of funds. As of the writing of this newsletter, there are no signs the NSF will halt its funding obligations, but the Trump Administration seems intent on challenging and possibly disregarding the courts' rulings.
FIU Under Assault
Gov. DeSantis targets FIU's academic freedom with his reported backing of the institution's next President. We must hold the line. We must support our FIU colleagues, friends, and neighbors. If we fail to stand together, we will always remain vulnerable to the suspension of research and teaching funds.
From the Herald:
His latest apparent maneuver — the Miami Herald reported Thursday he seems to be positioning Lt. Gov. Jeanette Nuñez of Miami as the front-runner for the presidency of Florida International University — offers yet another example of prioritizing of political loyalty over academic excellence.
This potential move, likely leaked to the media as a test balloon, follows a disturbing pattern of DeSantis’ direct interference in Florida’s higher education system, with qualified candidates sidelined in favor of political allies, a trend that threatens to erode the credibility of the state’s institutions of learning. Now FIU, South Florida’s largest, public, four-year university, is in danger of being used by a governor to reward a loyalist.
Read more at: https://www.miamiherald.com/opinion/editorials/article299503984.html#storylink=cpy
