Students and Faculty Organizing Against the Right in Florida

In this episode we speak with faculty and student organizers from three Florida campuses.  

In Florida, Republicans are attacking higher education on several fronts. In late October, Ron DeSantis and the chancellor of Florida’s State University system ordered college presidents to deactivate Students for Justice in Palestine on their campuses. This continues a longer trend, which our guests address, a trend of right wing attacks on trans students and on disciplines that the right sees as too woke, such as ethnic studies and gender studies. These attacks also undermine labor rights for faculty. Despite the intensity of these attacks and the radical right’s gains, our guests see opportunities for mass politicization and cross-coalitional solidarity.

Our interviewees provide an overview of the right wing attacks on higher education in Florida over the last year, and put them into a larger national context of higher ed privatization. Then we get into the different campaigns taking place on each campus, and break down some of the challenges of coalition building, overcoming student and faculty apathy, and attempting to fight for a more militant faculty union.

Our interviewees:

Katie is a Visiting Teaching Faculty at Florida International University and is the Membership Chair of the faculty union, UFF-FIU. She also organizes with Free FIU.

Robert Cassanello is an Associate Professor of History at the University of Central Florida, president of the faculty union, UFF-UCF, and the faculty advisor for YDSA at UCF.

Allan Frasheri is an undergraduate at the University of Florida, a co-chair of YDSA at UF, and an organizer with Free UF.

Links:

Florida Is Worth Fighting For: A Report on YDSA Organizing at Florida International University | Reform & Revolution

FIU community protests HB999 and administration complacency - PantherNOW

https://www.miaminewtimes.com/news/fiu-faculty-union-to-protest-stop-woke-act-15606486

Find us on social media: Instagram @officehourshighered Twitter @officehoursed

Episode Transcript

(00:18):
Hello and welcome to Office hours,
a podcast about campus politics.
In the end times,
we are your hosts,
Laura and David.
In this episode,
we'll be speaking with faculty and student organizers from three Florida campuses in Florida.
Republicans are attacking Higher Ed on several fronts.
For example,
in late October Rhonda Santi and the Chancellor of Florida State University System ordered college presidents to deactivate students for justice in Palestine on their campuses.

(00:46):
This continues a much longer trend which our guests address this trend of right wing attacks on trans students on disciplines that the right sees as to woke like ethnic studies and gender studies.
And these attacks also undermine labor rights that faculty hold and their,
their academic freedom despite the intensity of all this and the radical rights gains.

(01:07):
Our guests,
the opportunities for mass politicization and cross coalitional solidarity.
In our interview,
our guests provide an overview of the right wing attacks on Higher Ed over the last year and put them into a larger national context of higher ed privatization.
Uh Then we get into the different campaigns taking place on each campus and we break down some of the challenges faced by our organizers,

(01:31):
including coalition building,
overcoming student and faculty apathy and attempting to fight for a more militant faculty union.
Let's go to our interview now.
Welcome everyone to office hours.
Can you introduce yourselves to our listeners and let us know your campus position?

(01:53):
Um Your affiliation are you student faculty member also?
Um If you're organizing with any particular groups or um unions on campus,
please let us know as well and let's start with Katie and then we'll do Alan and then Robert.
So,
hi,
I'm Katie.
I am a um visiting teaching faculty member at Florida International University,

(02:15):
which is a large majority minority university um in Miami,
Florida,
I teach Sociology.
Um I'm the membership chair of our faculty union um UFFFIU and I also um was working with a kind of cross campus coalition um of students and faculty called uh Free Fiu.

(02:42):
Hello.
Um Yeah,
I'm Alan.
I'm a third year undergraduate at University of Florida and I'm also one of our co chairs of the Young Democratic Socialist America at UF,
composed of undergraduate socialist activists.
Um And I'm Al,
I've also been a leading member of Free U fa similar coalition that we formed in uh two years ago.

(03:05):
Um I,
the University of Florida to fight um for hired freedom and like other coalitions that we've been working together on campus.
I am Robert Kanella.
I'm an Associate Professor of History at the University of Central Florida.
Um I am president of our Faculty Union,

(03:25):
United Faculty of Florida at UCF.
I'm also the faculty advisor for our UCF Young Democratic Socialists of America um student Organization.
Hi,
all of you and welcome to office hours.
Um I'm gonna get started.
So basically,
we wanted to sort of start this conversation by first of all just giving some basic information to our listeners who might not know about what's been happening in Florida.

(03:54):
Um And then kind of putting it a little bit into its kind of bigger political and historical context.
And then after that,
we're gonna move into like talking more nuts and bolts about the organizing that's been happening.
So,
just to give our listeners information,
let's start with you,
Robert,
can you uh just give a brief overview of what's been going on with higher education in Florida and in particular,

(04:17):
let our listeners know about SB 266.
What's its current status?
And how does it affect being an educator or being a student in Florida?
Sure.
Um For the,
for the last three years,
our legislature has really done a great deal to attack um Florida Higher Ed specifically what we as faculty want to do in the classroom.

(04:44):
Um So if I give this a kind of a little bit of a history of this,
it started three years ago with a piece of legislation that required um the Board of Governors to um disseminate a um a survey that was to determine the extent and presence of um indoctrination is how they kind of introduced it.

(05:10):
Um And in addition to that,
this same piece of legislation allowed students to record lectures that could then be turned in um to some authority um later on to um sort of rat teachers out who were quote unquote,
indoctrinated.
So it kind of started there.
And then the following year,

(05:30):
the two years ago,
we got the famous HB seven or Stop Woke Act legislation which um prohibited the teaching of various uh concepts connected to race,
institutional racism,
structural racism.
Um And this past spring,

(05:52):
um we got uh what you just mentioned uh the piece of legislation as SB 266 and SB 266,
kind of it builds on all these things in various ways and out of all the pieces of legislation.
SB 266 is a very kind of miscellaneous piece of legislation.
Everyone,
you know,

(06:12):
the lawmakers just threw all of their kind of um attacks into one piece of legislation.
So part of that legislation prohibits the spending um of any universities on any diversity,
equity and inclusion um program centers efforts um even to the role of speakers and things like this.

(06:36):
Um 266 also in,
in the terms of,
of unions um prohibited arbitration um in um dispute processes at public colleges and universities.
And so we're all unionized and that really sort of impacts us in a negative way because what um the end of um arbitration does is make it much easier to terminate faculty um especially tenured faculty um through the disciplinary process.

(07:10):
Um and it also required some um a curriculum,
um you know,
curriculum um direction and part of a general education courses.
So these would be courses that all students take in their freshman and sophomore years.

(07:33):
Kind of a general ed.
We call it a General Ed program here in Florida.
And what SB 266 did is sort of um put some prohibitions on what can and cannot be taught um in these um GP classes.
And,
you know,
it kind of amounted to,
you know,

(07:53):
the kind of list of topics that um the legislature doesn't want to things around race,
gender.
Um You can even extend it to,
to sexuality um in that regard.
Um And it,
um you know,
what we're seeing now from this piece of legislation is our Board of Governors is taking kind of parts of it and creating regulations that are gonna be sent down to the specific um university campuses to create policy around.

(08:26):
So right now they're handling the DE I part and our board of Governors is meeting in about two weeks with a draft uh regulation that will require the various campuses not to spend money on DE I and um you know,
prohibit any programs or um even student groups from um not only um addressing de I but also um social activism,

(08:54):
right?
Student groups cannot engage in any social activism if the current draft policy or the current draft regulations go into effect that will um you know,
impact student organizations,
especially ones that have a so social justice um objective to them.
Yeah,
and that could happen in as well.

(09:16):
I like to talk about this.
Um I mean that,
yeah,
that last piece was really frightening um for us as like ST as a,
you know,
the YD A chapter and other student orgs on our campuses and across Florida uh because it did directly attack student orgs who were found to like,
violate this bill were prevented from like receiving funding from the state.

(09:38):
Um So it really opened us up to more investigation,
criticism from the state.
Um And like,
in addition to the,
like the legislative tax on freedom uh on like a higher educational freedom,
we've also been seeing like efforts from the administration and from individual board of trustees that run each university.
Um We've seen efforts there to like um restrict higher,

(10:01):
educate,
like the freedom,
academic freedom and also like uh attempts of political interference in our education.
So like,
I,
this is my third year at UUF.
So,
uh pretty much since I was a freshman,
I've seen this stuff like every year,
my first year at UF.
Um it was a huge scandal because three professors from the I think,

(10:23):
believe political science department um were trying to serve as expert witnesses against um a bill passed by the state legislator uh attempted to restrict voting rights.
And these professors were experts in this field of like examining voting uh voting rights and doing a lot of empirical research surrounding bills like this and how it impacts um the ability of marginalized communities to go vote.

(10:46):
Um And these professors were prevented from testifying in court by the administration.
The administration said that as we're a kind of branch of the state government,
um it would be a conflict of interest to allow these professors to go speak um and serve as expert witnesses in court.
So our Union uff released a massive statement against that.

(11:07):
Um Then later,
and we saw like a lot of kind of collaborative action with my cap of what you say and a lot of other student groups with the union signing that later on all the professors from the law,
the law college and also the medical college came out saying that same thing,
similar things have happened to them.
Additionally,
my freshman year,
um another big I think I news uh scandal that broke out was that a couple of professors from the College of Education came out saying that they were prevented from teaching classes and critical race theory.

(11:40):
Essentially,
these professors were hired by the college education as race scholars.
And in the wake of the George Floyd shooting,
uh graduate students at college education requested courses surrounding critical race theory and such.
And these professors try to create a,
a kind of a track of courses for these students.
And the Dean of the college education and one of the Vice Provost of the university had to sit down with these professors and tell them that if something like this were to happen,

(12:08):
that could jeopardize their funding as,
as a college.
Um So a lot of pressure,
a lot of the pressure we've seen uh coming from the administration,
I think has been more so self censorship than so coming up from above where the administration,
even if they don't politically aligned with the goals of restricting economic freedom from the uh from the governor's office and from Tallahassee,

(12:32):
they still kind of comply because they're afraid that if they don't comply,
that could mean worse things later on for them and for the university.
So in their eyes,
a lot of them are thinking that they're just making the right choices with the difficult sit uh constraint situations they have,
but they're still kind of acting as agents of,
I guess censorship on our campuses.

(12:54):
Um And so then additionally,
we've seen later on.
Um so even worse um examples of like political interference,
for example,
like the honors director at our honors college was fired unexpectedly by the board of trustees and usually the board of trustees doesn't bypass the president.
But this was a rare example of when that actually did happen.

(13:14):
The board of trustees directly fired um a honors director member of the administration and the there was no rationale given,
but the honors director stated publicly that the only time,
the last time he's interacted with the board of trustees before his firing was discussing of the new honors dorm being built on campus.
And they had a disagreement about whether there should be gen gender neutral bathrooms in the building.

(13:36):
And he,
he,
that was the only example he could give of like a potential disagreement that like result in his firing Katie,
you've written in,
in um a piece that we read to prepare about um how these fit into a larger national and longer strategy of privatization and transformation of,
of education.

(13:57):
Can you give us a,
a bit of a summary of,
of your analysis and how,
what's happening in Florida relates to something that we should all be paying attention to.
We wanna here at office hours,
we wanna be cognizant of not having people just right.
Put the geography out there and say this is just a Florida thing.
This is just Florida,
man,
this is just the South.

(14:18):
How does this relate to the rest of the country?
Yeah.
OK.
So,
I mean,
absolutely.
I think,
you know,
we can see the the curriculum bans.
I think,
you know,
Pen America is tracking like,
you know,
this kind of legislation modeled on HB seven.
It's happening everywhere as our vouchers.
Um,
but I think,
you know,
Florida uh,
was a really kind of early adopter of privatization and education.

(14:44):
And so,
um,
and,
and kind of by privatization,
I guess I'm talking about,
you know,
two related phenomenon.
One is,
um,
you know,
taking public goods and,
um making them private,
you know,
privately run,
um,
uh,
you know,
sometimes giving public funding to institutions that are,
uh,
privately run.

(15:05):
Um,
and then I think the second is like making a public institutions,
um,
you know,
operate according to like a market logic,
right?
And so,
you know,
Florida,
um,
was,
you know,
it's an early case,
I think of both of these trends,
right?
So we had,
uh,
this is before I moved to the state but,

(15:26):
um,
Jeb Bush was governor and,
um,
you know,
decided,
ok,
I'm gonna like reform the,
the state education system and,
uh,
you know,
introduced all these new state standards and then decided that schools were going to compete for performance,
uh,
funding and kind of bonuses based on the extent to which,

(15:51):
um,
they were meeting the kind of,
uh,
state standards measured in test.
And also at the same time,
you know,
a lot of charters were introduced that we're now kind of competing,
um,
with the public schools.
Um,
and then I think,
you know how this kind of worked out in higher ed,

(16:12):
uh,
you know,
what,
which is our topic today,
um,
is so universities were also made to compete for performance funding.
And um the kind of pot of performance funding money has,
you know,
really kind of,
it's increased over time,
it's increased each year.

(16:33):
And um and like,
so how are we competing for performance funding?
It's like to what extent do we adhere with different metrics?
And,
you know,
some of the metrics aren't necessarily tracking um educational quality,
right?
It's like how,
how,
um many students complete their degree in four years.

(16:53):
And so you have this um push within the institutions to get people in and out really quick,
which,
you know,
arguably could,
you know,
provide incentive incentives to kind of pass students um even,
you know,
pass them along,
uh even even before they're,
they're ready or kind of prevents them from changing their majors or kind of,

(17:15):
you know,
exploring uh as they're um completing their degrees.
And um and,
you know,
also Florida students have been encouraged to like select universities and select majors according to um you know,
earning potentials.
And so like the Florida,

(17:36):
uh I think it was the Board of Governors created this my Florida future dashboard that is encouraging university students and their parents to use,
which um you know,
where you can kind of type in.
OK,
here's my major and sort of like,
figure out like what university or program does it make the most sense for me to go to uh to maximize my,

(17:59):
um you know,
financial,
uh,
earnings.
And so,
um,
you know,
so how does this,
I guess,
like,
relate to the curriculum,
band.
So,
I mean,
I guess,
like,
arguably over time,
I think these changes to our education system,
both in K through 12 and higher ed,

(18:20):
um,
have reduced.
I think students opportunities to grapple with,
uh,
you know,
status quo,
challenging content in the course of their education.
Right.
Because teachers are increasingly teaching to the test to this um narrow curriculum.
Um And then,
you know,

(18:40):
in higher ed that are kind of uh encouraged to pursue,
um you know,
the,
the kind of majors that would maximize uh financial earnings.
And,
um and so,
you know,
I think that now,
so now we have um these,
these curriculum bands which are kind of like a more kind of intentional um and open blatant attempt to keep them from learning.

(19:09):
Um,
you know,
about uh certain ideas that uh the authorities find threatening.
Um And I think what's talked about a little bit less is there's also been these attempts to uh introduce um kind of conserve more conservative ideas and ideology on to university campuses.

(19:30):
And so,
uh Catherine Joyce has a really uh great piece,
the journalist about this in which she tracks how the right has shifted from the strategy of,
you know,
private donors funding conservative think tanks on campus to getting these centers to be funded um by appropriations,

(19:51):
the state legislature.
And so we see uh you know,
these conservative like ideological centers put onto the campuses of our universities.
There's one at Florida International University,
you know,
the Adam Smith Center,
which is,
you know,
set up to,
you know,
study economic freedom and free markets.
And it's brought in a lot of um you know,

(20:14):
conservative political leaders from Latin America.
Um And,
and then we also have,
um there was a,
a,
a law passed that uh requires campuses to hold four talks uh every year in which both sides are presented.

(20:38):
And this was based on model legislation.
And I went back and I,
I found the um the podcast of the author of this model legislation.
And one of the things that he talks about in that podcast is how,
well this is kind of a way to backdoor conservative ideas into campuses because,
you know,
students are going to attend these talks in their free time and they're going to begin to ask,

(21:03):
well,
why aren't we presented these conservative ideas in our classroom and then they're going to start um demanding those ideas.
Um And I guess I,
I wanted to also say that,
you know,
the right has been attacking educator unions for a long time,
right,
opponents of this uh privatization agenda,

(21:24):
right?
Um You know,
the public school unions would of course come out uh against the universal voucher program uh that they've um you know,
the the vouchers have been introduced for a while they made it universal um you know,
removed uh kind of restrictions on who could apply based on um you know,

(21:45):
the parents uh financial well being they removed those restrictions this past year.
But educators unions have long been targeted by the right because the right understands that,
you know,
when teachers are strong and organized,
they're going to fight back.
And so,
um you know,
this past year,
our unions where we're required now to have 60% membership in city uh or to face decertification.

(22:13):
Um However,
and this is the first time higher ed unions have been affected,
but teachers unions were previously required to be at like 50% density.
Um you know,
now,
uh tenure has,
has been threatened removed with post tenure review.
And before this,
like about a decade ago,
they uh eliminated tenure from teachers,

(22:35):
right?
So that uh you know,
continuing uh contract for,
for teachers was threatened.
I think it's super interesting the point that you're making,
which,
you know,
not everyone may um be thinking about,
you know,
most of the media coverage is really about the threat,
the threat to academic freedom and focusing on the curriculum bands.

(22:56):
But you're really pointing out how the conservative strategy,
how they understand that undermining teacher and student power through privatization is a key part,
a key aspect of being able to successfully introduce,
you know,
conservative content and,

(23:16):
and really kind of ban other content,
you know,
left left ideas or,
you know,
any whatever,
anything with the social,
social justice lens,
whatever kind of language you want to use.
And so I think your point about how um you know,
they're,
they're undermining unions because they understand that when teachers have power,
they,
they're going to be able to have more control over the content,

(23:38):
they're gonna be able to fight back.
So um really seeing privatization as part of that push to basically um con control the content of what what students are learning is,
is,
is interesting.
Um I wanted to kind of shift now towards really getting into the organizing that's been going on on,

(24:03):
on your,
your three respective campuses.
Um uh We're gonna be,
I think mostly or at least starting out talking about things that were happening in the spring if I'm correct because that there was kind of a wave of organizing um and just so that we can have a little bit more um order we were,

(24:25):
we thought we could start with you Allen and get the the student perspective first,
you're at the University of Florida.
So can you tell us a little bit about what students and faculty in the community have been working on,
you know,
starting last year in order to fight back?
Mhm Yeah,
I mean,
if I can,
I would like to kind of like provide the background content as well because sure,

(24:46):
please go ahead.
Yeah,
like for us at UF uh A lot of this wasn't just starting in the spring.
Um in reaction to SB 266 or HP 999.
A lot of the protest and like coalition work has been going on for a while before that.
So it was for us,
very naturally connected there,
very seamless.

(25:06):
Um So like,
uh IUF,
we first started kind of organizing.
Um,
my first year 2021 2022 as a response to professors being prevented from testifying and going to court.
Um We had a huge protest with our uh faculty union setting of solidarity.

(25:28):
Um Later in the spring,
we did a teach in about um academic freedom.
Um Yet there wasn't a lot of at that moment,
a lot of student energy or really awareness of what was going on.
A lot of this because a lot of the attacks were still kind of just like more like focusing solely on professors really.
Um And though it was affecting students because,

(25:49):
you know,
the restrictions on faculty's ability to teach also restrictions on students ability to learn because they go hand in hand.
It wasn't yet quite that aware among students yet.
But then in the fall and the spring of last year,
um there was much more um student mobilization and energy.
Um So in the fall,

(26:11):
um a new presidential candidate for UF was announced,
Ben Sasse,
a former Republican senator um from Congress.
He was a senator.
Of Nebraska and it was clear to everyone that as soon as his name was like,
announced that he was a political hire.
Uh,
like,
and as he had very minor,
like educational administrative background,

(26:33):
he was the head of a small private college,
Christian college in like Nebraska.
That was,
I believe,
smaller than my high school,
there was a couple 1000 students,
um,
were all the other candidates,
I think there was like 12 candidates in total.
All the other candidates were from R one universities,
I believe,
or a large amount of them were like significant were um amount of candidates were like had administrative backgrounds at R one universities.

(26:59):
So,
um it was clear to everyone that they were not choosing the best candidate based on experience,
but based on their political alignment,
we had a huge,
I think the largest protest I've seen at UF since um coming here.
Um A couple of days later after he was announced and sole finalist,
um They announced that he'll be speaking on campus at the Alumni Hall in a couple days.

(27:20):
Um In those couple days,
I've seen pretty much a,
a ton of student orgs come together.
Um A huge coalition like 13 plus student orgs,
community orgs.
Uh The Faculty Union Graduate Assistants Union members are also participants like helping organize a protest.
Uh We had a huge protest.
Um It also ended the occupation of the building um and kicking Ben so out of the building made national news was unseen.

(27:44):
And um that was followed up by a lot of pressure.
We put a lot of pressure on our,
the president of our student government um to kind of vote against his hire as our president of the university.
We put uh pressure on donors as well.
We had a big protest outside of a um like a big high end donor event where we were hanging donors like leaflets and much say asking them to,

(28:11):
to,
to stop donating to the university.
Um as a protest um for this um with that,
we also protested the board of trustees meeting which appointed him to be president of our university.
Um There's a huge group of students outside.
We had like a two bus and horns just trying to make as much noise as possible because the vast majority of students were not allowed in the building.

(28:34):
It was supposed to be a public event and they had like 100 public seats reserved,
but 80 to 90% of those seats were reserved by people in suits who were just administrators and beans and provosts and all that.
Um Only like 5 to 10 students myself included,
got in the building.
We gave public comment,
but on the outside,
a lot of students were uh trying to make as much noise as possible to let them know about our presence.

(28:59):
And uh yeah,
there,
the board trustees appointed him to be our new president.
Um And then that was happening mainly in the fall of the spring.
And then with the spring,
we,
we saw a lot of the HP 999 SB 266 protests.
So we had uh a few black protests and walkouts happening in the spring as well.

(29:20):
Um So definitely smaller in comparison.
I think there's just been like a lot of organizing burnout because every week in Florida,
something new happens and it gets tires and to like,
keep up with protesting everything.
Um But also in the spring,
we saw some sort of coalition work being formed,
didn't really go as far as I like,
but maybe there's more room going ahead in the future.

(29:40):
But we saw attempts to kind of create a statewide coalition where um College Democrats at UFY DS A.
Uh So UF ID,
uh why do you say chapters and college Democrat chapters from the State of Florida and other like student orgs were kind of coming together to discuss the situation.
Uh These are like mass politicizing events where students usually who weren't really engaged in activism,

(30:03):
instantly became engaged,
became organizers.
We saw even like traditionally a political groups like Black Student Union,
pride Student Union.
All these like in uh identity groups kind of been being forced to become politicized because of their existence became politicized by the state.
So they're kind of forced into this activism.
Um So it was,

(30:24):
it was like like I would describe it a mass politization event.
Um Hundreds of hundreds of thousands of students instantly became aware of what was going on,
um,
and started to care about it and this wave kind of,
you know,
continues to today.
Anyone wanna maybe Robert,
do you wanna talk about UCF?
You know,
one of the things I,
I guess I didn't mention this one when you asked who we are earlier,

(30:48):
but,
um,
I'm a plaintiff on one of the,
um,
hb seven cases that's going through the courts.
And so I've been getting,
um,
a bit of media attention,
uh because of that and as a result of that students have kind of found me on campus and,
you know,
wandered into my office or approached me on campus students.

(31:09):
I've never had,
I don't know,
I didn't know previous who were saying,
you know,
are you the HP seven professor?
And I understood what that meant.
And I said yes and they spoke,
um,
about wanting to be in solidarity and what they could do and things like this.
And at first it kind of threw me and I,
you know,
I didn't really have an answer.
I don't have a bad answer that because I really wasn't expecting,

(31:31):
you know,
my,
my,
I,
I found students don't read the assignments,
I give them much less the news.
So I was kind of shocked to see that they were reading the news on their own,
but um,
at some point in time,
you know,
one student came into my office,
um,
and she was,
she was a student of color who was the,
um,

(31:51):
not sure if she was the president then,
but she's the president now of the,
um,
the UCF NAACP chapter.
And,
uh,
she came into her office and she said,
what,
what can we do as students?
And I just kind of,
and I said it a little bit flippantly,
you know,
and I said,
well,
I said,
you know,
you have a student government association.
Why don't you make a statement through that?

(32:12):
And she said,
yeah,
that's a great idea.
I'm gonna work on that.
And I didn't think anything of it.
I just thought,
you know,
she had left,
I ran to her a couple of times on campus and she said hello to me and we chatted quickly,
but I didn't really think of it until she came back to my office later on and said that resolution where we're gonna rebuke HB seven is gonna be read at the Student Government Association this Thursday.

(32:34):
Will you come speak to us?
And I was kind of floored.
I'm like,
I mean,
I remember the conversation at that point.
It was,
I forgot about it.
And I said,
wow,
you really did that.
And they said,
oh yeah,
all the students are,
you know,
all the student organizations are behind it.
And so I went and the student government association here,
you know,
did exactly that they passed a resolution rebuking um HB seven governor desantis Chris Ruffo the whole shebang and they asked me to speak before and I was really kind of honored to do that.

(33:07):
And um from that point on,
I've been kind of plugged in to a lot of the student activism.
And so some things that,
that have went on here since that moment,
um The same student I just mentioned,
she also organized a protest with a bunch of other student organization against um the elimination of DE I.

(33:31):
This was about a year ago,
she,
you know,
they went,
they protested at the Board of Trustees meetings at UCF.
They spoke during the public comments,
time each of them got onto the agenda.
They said they're three minutes,
they held up signs.
Um I don't think they did it inside because they couldn't put the outside.
They had all these students just showed up.

(33:54):
Um And they all spoke to each other.
They all had um you know,
they had um speakers and microphones and they gave talks and,
you know,
talked about solidarity and things like that.
Then in the,
in the spring of this past year,
a bunch of student groups organized um I,
I don't know if I'm gonna say this right,
a protest festival.

(34:16):
And so they had a like a half day festival where I'm sure I'm not saying it correctly.
And so they actually took over like a,
a little bit of the quad had tables out there.
They actually asked the,
our faculty union,

(34:37):
which I'm the president of to come out with a table and we did,
we went out there,
we talked to students,
we encouraged faculty to come by and talk to the student tables.
You know,
they asked me to speak um at the event,
uh they had music and things and it was all to bring attention to this um various pieces of legislation and how it's impacting them.

(35:00):
Um So it's really kind of created a AAA great deal of energy,
I think on campus,
um organizing wise and I know the same student,
these same groups are gearing up to protest the Board of Governors meeting,
excuse me,
which will be here um at UCF uh in about two weeks and they're planning a similar protest to what they did at the Board of Trustees.

(35:27):
They're going to get on the agenda,
speak to the Board of Governors about how eliminating DE I is going to affect students and things.
So,
um I,
I find it on the part of students pretty encouraging because,
um,
you know,
I,
I kind of,
you know,
watch these students,
um really kind of get activated and motivated and speak for themselves,

(35:48):
which I think we haven't talked about and certainly the news hasn't talked about because,
you know,
I've been following what the news has been writing about this various legislation.
And we hear from the professors,
you know,
we hear from the administrators sometimes when they want to speak and we hear from the politicians,
but very rarely do we hear from the students.
And I think this is kind of an important thing because,

(36:09):
you know,
one of the things I often get asked,
you know,
because of the lawsuit is,
do you have students who protest what you teach?
Because I teach the civil rights movement,
I teach a class called Jim Crow America.
And I said,
never,
I said,
I,
I have yet to see this mystery student who takes,
you know,
offense at what I teach or feels white guilt or anything like that.

(36:29):
I never met that student.
Um,
and so it's really encouraging to see these students speaking for themselves and saying,
you know,
this is how this legislation is impacting me as a young person.
And I was,
you know,
I might be inflating things a bit.
Um,
but it kind of gives me the feel of,
you know,
Berkeley and the free speech movement a lot.

(36:52):
Um,
it's almost like a 19 sixties moment and in some regard to this,
probably much smaller,
you know,
we don't,
I don't know if this is an event equal to the Vietnam War.
But,
um,
or the civil rights movement,
but certainly students are starting to speak and starting to,
um,
get their views,
you know,
get their views out there into the,

(37:13):
into the,
um,
the public sphere.
Yeah.
I mean,
I think definitely on that.
I think,
um,
I don't know,
I might be kind of like,
in a pessimistic headspace now but it just feels,
I,
there's protests on campus and I'm really glad that we have the protests we have but it,

(37:34):
it feels like it's just not at the magnitude that it needs to be,
it's not yet a mass movement.
It doesn't feel to me,
like,
you know,
it's coming to resemble the sixties yet.
Uh,
but I'm,
you know,
I'm kind of thinking about,
um,
you know,

(37:55):
how,
like,
what are we gonna see now?
Like,
it's the movement gonna continue to expand how I think in terms of what Alan talked about too,
like I've seen on my campus,
right?
Like fatigue.
Um,
because like bad legislation,
bad policies are coming again and again,
people go out and protest the protests,

(38:16):
sort of don't reach the scale of causing a disruption big enough to kind of change the thing and then,
you know,
people began to demobilize.
So,
I don't know,
I,
I think,
you know,
um,
in,
in our campus now,
uh,
this year,
I think there's,
there's been like,
very,

(38:36):
very little in the way of protest.
I think we've basically just recently around Palestine.
There,
there was a protest on campus.
But,
um,
but other than that,
um,
you know,
there,
there hasn't been a lot.
So last year,
I think we had Um So the first thing,

(38:58):
so I,
I can speak a little bit about um the faculty union and the approach on my campus.
So,
uh you know,
our,
our,
so it's kind of interesting and that our statewide union and our university administration took different approaches to HB seven and our statewide union,

(39:23):
they basically sent out um this legal advice to members.
Um,
you know,
I think their primary concern was making sure that everyone kept their job,
right.
And so they kind of instructed faculty,
ok,
choose your own risk.
Um And,
you know,
if you're high risk and want to kind of keep teaching the curriculum,
we've got your back.

(39:43):
But if you're low risk,
you probably want to eliminate topics about race and gender from your curriculum.
Um You'll probably want to take down,
you know,
artwork that supports certain social movements from your wall.
Uh So that was kind of the statewide unions approach.
The administration's approach was actually a little bit better and that they said we actually don't want you to totally cut any subject areas from your curriculum,

(40:15):
but we do want you to make some changes about with like how you teach them.
Um And so,
but our kind of approach among like a group of faculty that I was organizing within the union is like,
we should kind of just kind of continued to teach,
right?
We have academic freedom.

(40:35):
Um It's promised to us in the CB A and our collective bargaining agreement.
Um And,
you know,
if,
if we don't sort of uphold academic freedom in the classroom,
then our students will be missing really vital parts of their education.
Right?
And so,
so what we did was we had a,
a teach in um on around stop woke,

(40:58):
we got really um great labor organizer to come.
We had a historian come who could kind of speak to the mccarthy era.
Um And so we talked about kind of uh you know,
kind of like,
I guess the history of crackdowns on academic freedom plus resistance.
And we also had um this petition that we circulated where,

(41:20):
you know,
faculty just basically pledged to uphold academic freedom in their classroom.
So that's what we did in the fall.
Um You know,
I would say it,
it wasn't kind of tremendously successful and that I think that,
you know,
more faculty certainly attended the kind of administration's trainings on how do you both follow the law and keep your kind of topics in the curriculum then attended our kind of teach on,

(41:48):
hey,
let's focus on like affirming the importance of academic freedom and,
and maintaining academic freedom in our classrooms.
Um But,
you know,
I think it was,
it was important to present that alternative view.
Um even if it wasn't kind of widely taken up um among faculty,
uh I think that in so in the,

(42:10):
and,
and so we,
so that was kind of the first time that the union began to partner with some student groups,
we had student groups come to our teaching um,
and promote the teaching on their social media channels,
I think then in the,
uh,
in the spring,
you know,
HB 999 was this kind of huge moment,

(42:31):
right.
Because it,
you know,
it didn't end up passing it,
you know,
as Robert explained,
it passed in this,
you know,
modified,
um,
you know,
less bad version.
Uh,
but,
you know,
the kind of original hb 999 basically threatened to eliminate certain majors,
right?
So gender studies would be gone.

(42:52):
Um It could have threatened to do away with all these student groups on campus.
And so people were,
um,
were pretty mobilized and upset.
And I think the first thing that happened was,
and maybe Alan will remember,
it was maybe the Dream Defenders and one other organization called for a statewide walk out.

(43:15):
Um And,
you know,
I think that,
uh this,
this attracted actually,
like quite a bit of media attention,
you know,
on my campus,
there weren't,
there was a couple 100 people that participated,
uh which,
you know,
we were ii,
I think the,
the participation,
it wasn't,
it wasn't awful,

(43:35):
but in terms of like the number of it felt sort of small considering how many students would be impacted and um by these bills and sort of what we threatened to lose.
And I think one of the issues was the organization that called the statewide walkout.
They didn't really have a presence on campus,

(43:55):
right?
They weren't rooted in campuses.
They were just sort of calling for this on student media,
on social media.
And so then after,
after this walkout,
I think the students got together and they started kind of talking like,
ok,
well,
you know,
we are rooted on our campus.
Um we have student organizations,
we go to class,

(44:16):
what if we try to have an actual walkout where we cause a disruption by getting all of the students to walk out of class at a certain time.
And to basically say,
like,
not in our name,
we don't want HV 999 to pass.
Um,
you know,
we're,
you know,
we don't want curriculum bands,

(44:36):
we want academic freedom,
we want,
you know,
de I,
we want our student groups to continue to exist.
And so they started to organize,
um to this,
I think the original idea was to pursue like structure based organizing and to figure out what classes are meeting at a specific time and then to like,

(44:58):
find one person in each of those classes to be the leader and then to um to organize,
to have that person organize the whole class to walk out.
And um so I don't,
I don't think they like,
adhered to this approach particularly closely.
I think it ended up being,
um,
you know,

(45:19):
a lot of kind of canvassing people as they walked by.
And so,
uh you know,
in,
in the days leading up to the event.
And,
um,
and so you didn't actually see,
like,
you know,
the campus wasn't shut down,
didn't see like,
people,
you know,
whole classes um not have,
you know,
being disrupted by this,

(45:39):
however,
it did end up being,
I think what,
um you know,
faculty that have been at fiu longer than me have described as the largest protests in our university's history.
Right?
There were um I think like for somewhere between 4 to 600 people there.
And so people came together,
there were speeches against HV seven,

(46:01):
I mean,
sorry against HV 999 and uh from students from faculty.
And then I think uh there was,
you know,
a lap around campus and the student organizers had this idea and they had prepared post it notes of,
well,
what if we marched to the administration's building and put these post it notes on their windows um and tell them stand with us,

(46:26):
you know,
not the state legislature,
support faculty,
support student groups,
um you know,
support academic freedom.
And so that was a pretty popular,
powerful moment in that.
Um you know,
they led this march around campus that ended at the administration building and then they passed out post it notes and people walked up the stairs and posted the post it notes um on the building.

(46:50):
And then that was like,
almost at the end of the semester.
Um,
people are really tired.
Uh,
there's talk of like,
well,
we could keep some kind of political education going,
do some readings,
kind of figure out how to regroup and continue fighting.
And,
um,
and I think,
you know,
people have been pretty,

(47:12):
like,
demobilized since then.
There's been some kind of plans.
But,
um,
but I don't think we hit,
there's not as far as I can see,
there's not um yet kind of very strong infrastructure in terms of lots of coordinations between student groups.
Um And certainly the faculty union about how to uh to fight and kind of what the strategy is and what the next steps going forward look like.

(47:40):
And I will say that kind of on a personal note um as so like,
and this is of course,
very strategic,
but,
you know,
at the same time,
they're passing through all of this legislation that,
you know,
is absolutely killing our universities.
They've also tried to kill our faculty unions with this,

(48:03):
you've got to get 60% density or you get decertified.
And so,
you know,
we're uh you know,
the public sector has long been a right to work in Florida.
Um I know,
you know,
the whole sector,
public sector throughout the country is,
but our unions have like never had close to 60% density,

(48:24):
right?
Um Because,
you know,
I,
a lot of faculty,
I think faculty are broadly supportive of the union.
But they also many people,
you know,
also reason,
well,
you know,
we can kind of be,
you know,
get the benefit of the CB A uh without paying dues.
And so I think kind of my ability to organize around some of these issues has been kind of really hamstrung by the fact that I've got to like,

(48:52):
keep the union going and sign people up.
And so I think that basically,
since about February of last year,
the majority of my organizing focus has been on um just kind of,
you know,
keeping the union alive and having these non-member kind of organizing conversations.
And there's,
there's like a certain irony in it because it's kind of like,

(49:14):
I'm like selling people on this idea of the union because like,
oh,
it's like we need a union.
Um So faculty have a voice and,
you know,
we can collectively resist what's,
you know,
what's threatening us.
But then at the same time,
because like,
I'm just like,
so focused on the no number recruitment drive.
I feel as if,

(49:34):
you know,
the unions not putting forward a very kind of proactive plan or strategy of this is how we're going to fight.
And so,
um you know,
it's really difficult and I think we need that and we need to be,
uh you know,
show that we are,
we are fighting and fighting really hard um in order to keep up our membership numbers.

(49:58):
Um But then it's sometimes hard to like focus on that fight when you feel like you've just gotta like go out and have a bunch of like one on ones about,
you know why you should pay dues.
Katie brought up a lot of good points there.
But which yeah,
so for one,
our like protests and mobilizations have not yet quite yet reached a critical mass.

(50:21):
Even like a UF our large,
we had a huge,
I was mentioned before,
huge protests.
We occupied the alumni building,
kicked the future president now president of UF out of the building.
And you know,
that really didn't stop them from appointing Ben,
asked to be our president.
Definitely we need,
I think we need to see going forward is more statewide mobilization.
And I don't think we can also confine it just to higher education because these attacks are also happening to K to 12 education as well.

(50:44):
And I think we need to actually see um not only statewide mobilization but also mobilization from not only higher education but also K to 12 education and com communities um groups as well.
Parents um other uh like ally groups and against this whole slow like attack on education.
I do think that we need more like,
I guess important,
critical like infrastructure and I and I think the unions are extremely strategic in this regard where there,

(51:10):
there,
I I believe,
you know,
the,
the the faculty unions but also teachers unions more broadly,
are more able to like serve as this conduit of organizing across the state because our students were only,
you know,
on campus for four years.
It's very hard to,
in those four years,
we have to know like,
learn how to run these orgs,
but also then mentor and pass this information down to future organizers and maintain these relations.

(51:32):
And then a lot of our coalitions and relations across the state kind of break down have to be rebuilt every year because of this turnover.
Whereas I think that,
you know,
teachers are much more entrenched.
Um and they have much more institutional structural power than students do.
And I think um there's,
there is a really important ability here for like the faculty union UFF,
but also the Floor Educationist Association kind of serve as the hub or conduit a lot of organizing across the state.

(51:57):
And uh like that,
that's definitely a route or path I believe like the union short too because right now,
like as a student or organizing alongside uh faculty,
like the statewide unions current approach,
I'd say it's much more of a service model or even like a lobbying approach where a lot of it's oriented towards grievances and a lot of it's oriented towards like a lobbying state legislators to like water down the the bills to be less bad than they,

(52:22):
than they would be eye.
And that's important and a lot of it's also like injunctions which are also important at preventing the bill from taking place.
But we're not really seeing a lot of or concrete organizing and that's a direction I think we should be looking much more to,
towards,
to like,
like he was mentioning earlier,
you know,
in response to HP uh was it HP 99 or sorry,

(52:42):
one of the bill,
the legislative bills are passed,
the union just kind of responded by saying like,
how teachers can best,
you know,
protect themselves um which is important,
but there was no really confrontation there,
there was no sort of kind of mobilize um faculty and students together to oppose this sort of legislation.
And that's more the approach we're trying to see.

(53:03):
And II,
I think like at Y DS A,
a lot of our members have the kind of the approach of myself included of how can we impart kind of a lot of this energy and mo and passionate about all the students have to the professors and faculty because a lot of now what we're seeing is there's a lot of fear going on,
especially with all bills going on and like professors are afraid for their jobs.

(53:26):
Um A lot of them are trying to leave the state and it kind of resulted in a kind of silence of self,
a culture of self censorship where professors are self censoring their classes,
they are kind of keeping their heads down and they don't really want to make a fuss or make a noise.
And the only way to beat this like apathy is like through collective action.
And we need like we need to like,

(53:47):
I guess emphasize that we need a collective solution to this problem,
not an individual solution where it's not like individual professors can save themselves from this by like jumping ship to other states or by just keeping their heads down.
But the only way to kind of stop this if teachers come together with students with community members who prevent this attack on education.
So like this year,
we're kind of uh I think and Robert could also add if this is correct,

(54:10):
but like picking a book from a page from UCF book,
I know,
UCFY DS A and the union have been like working together to get uh union members to uh sorry faculty members to sign up to the union.
So we were doing something similar to UF now where we are like helping knock on doors for professors telling them how it's not only important for them but also important for us as students that they kind of get involved in the faculty union.

(54:33):
And then uh we're also looking towards a kind of similar event that happened fiu uh last year with like um the,
the walkout of coalition.
We're trying to build a coalition to fight against the ban this,
the ban on like uh transgender students and faculty and staff from using the bathroom that um of the gender they identify with.

(54:54):
This ban is not only a trans rights issue but also a labor issue because professors were given very vague threats.
But if they don't enforce this ban,
like they could be terminated.
So the state is trying to force professors into kind of acting as agents in enforcing this bathroom ban.
And now they're being forced to have to like gauge and assume the gender of students or other or even their coworkers and kind of enforce this legislation.

(55:18):
Um So we're working,
we're trying to work with the union really closely about this bill and hopefully through these actions,
we can see more mobilizing,
more organ,
more organizing and hopefully that has ripple effects across the union,
but also across the state.
Yeah,
and I just wanted to,
sorry,
can I really quickly respond to that?
So,
you know,
I think um yeah,
Alan's like,

(55:38):
really?
Right,
I think in his character earn their characterization of Florida educators unions as um basically engaging in this strategy of like,
like what's in harm reduction through the state legislature?
Let's lobby,
try to make these bills a little less bad and then in the case of it,

(55:58):
you know,
and then fighting in the courts and like,
what we haven't seen is educators,
unions investing lots of resources in organizing and by this,
I mean,
like not signing members up because like,
you know,
I think like all hands are on deck just to get like people to sign up for the union now.

(56:20):
But in terms of like,
what does resistance look like?
Right.
You know,
I think there's that famous um photo of students that occupied a building in the 19 sixties during like a Vietnam war or some other kind of mobilization which you know,
said,
like they can't kill us.
All right.
And there'd be no way that they could like,

(56:41):
fire all the teachers across the entire state.
Right?
And so,
you know,
I think the idea is that as a,
as a union,
um you know,
we need to give our members the courage to act as a collective and let them,

(57:01):
you know,
help them to understand that collectively we do have power and we don't have to go along with all of this and together we could resist and,
you know,
and it,
and this hasn't happened instead.
It's been kind of like,
ok,
well,
like,
hold on,
things are bad now,
but like,
we're like,
fighting this in the legislature and in the courts and we're gonna correct it and like,

(57:23):
eventually it's gonna be better,
which I think is the wrong approach.
Robert.
I'd love to hear you just um given that you've also been involved with the union as well,
just on this topic that both Alan and Katie have brought up about transforming the union,
the faculty unions into something that's a little bit more has more militancy has a little bit more horizontal organizing going on.

(57:47):
What's your impression on those?
And,
and how can some of those things um lead to,
you know,
better outcomes on these topics?
I mean,
you know,
I'm,
I'm much more pessimistic in,
in that regard.
I,
I have to say because,
um you know,
Katie had mentioned earlier that kind of history of us as a right to work state.

(58:09):
And um I think it kind of created a culture of um apathy,
you know,
which is the intent of this right to work legislation.
And so,
you know,
uh this year when we are,
you know,
confronted with the attacks by the legislature to get not only um 60% density,

(58:30):
but also no longer being on payroll deductions.
Now,
it all has to be through an individual basis with each person like they have to essentially OK,
their um bank account through an E do system,
you know,
which is very hard,
you know,
you go to a person saying,
you know,
give us your bank account information so we can draw your,

(58:52):
your dues out.
Biweekly is a much different thing than saying,
OK,
with the payroll deduction,
take care of it.
And then when I see my paycheck,
it'll be minus minus that.
All this is,
is really done to kind of weaken the union and you know,
which is already weak to begin with because of us being a right to work state.
So there's a,
a great deal of apathy out there and it's very difficult to organize in the ways that you're describing this,

(59:18):
this kind of uh building a militant,
let's say,
uh um at least I found as,
as president of our chapter uh building um uh militancy among our um membership is,
is really very difficult because we're all scrambling,
you know,
to,
to get the numbers,
to get the 60%.

(59:38):
And,
you know,
that that's our priority right now because it's our existence,
you know,
and unfortunately,
you know,
we can't,
we,
we know we can't kind of prioritize this type of mobilization.
Um But we talk about it and,
you know,
we,
we plan on,
you know,
getting to there at some point,
we're just not in a place now to do it.

(59:59):
And again,
this is the intent of the legislation is to keep us so occupied,
keep us so busy that we can't build effective militant organizations on the ground because,
you know,
day to day,
you know,
we've got um you know,
we've gotta spend our um our valuable resources and time finding new members.

(01:00:22):
I'm doing the same thing Robert's doing,
which is like,
like as I said,
spending most of my time trying to sign up new members.
However,
I do actually believe that like,
I mean,
and again,
this would be like more risky,
but there would be another way to approach the situation,
which is just to go all in on organizing and,

(01:00:44):
and then like,
once,
once you start winning,
I think people are more inclined to become members because they see the games.
Um And again,
this is difficult because it's like probably a multiple years long process and,
you know,
we're facing decertification.
Now,
I,
I do think from what from,

(01:01:04):
I also heard um speaking to teachers and faculty members that,
I mean,
this is also not only a problem for UFF but also for the fe A in general before Education Association K to 12 teachers where I think a part of it is also kind of a scramble where there really wasn't a lot of recon file militant scene activists,
activists,
we kind of prior to this um like developed.

(01:01:27):
So when like a lot of these bills were starting to be passed,
um you know,
uh shit started to hit the fan there.
It was kind of a scrambled from the union uh from the teachers I've been talking to,
to like kind of find a lot of the right,
like a lot of rank and file teachers like lead up these organizing this activism because they weren't really developed prior because it was much more of like a service kind of unionist approach when,

(01:01:49):
when like there now when there's an opportunity and there's not only opportunity but a necessity to fight back.
A lot of like the local uh like union leadership.
Um it's just are,
it's kind of struggling to find um you know,
teachers to help organize their coworkers and fight back.
And when they do find like any militant or like teachers who are willing to like,
take this up,
they're like,
just like throwing resources to them being like,

(01:02:11):
OK,
here you,
you,
you got this uh because they aren't a scramble to find organizers.
So that's definitely,
I think an approach but a long term approach that when like events like this could happen,
there is already kind of um an infrastructure already built that can mobilize quickly and organize quickly and fight back.
And I think there's definitely a culture that needs to be like created and uh definitely um well,

(01:02:34):
a lot of this could,
I think it needs to happen through also collaboration because it's not just the teachers alone and um that can fight this and like teachers need to know that they also are supported by their students,
by their community members.
Um But a whole range of organizations and I think,
you know,
building these kind of broad coalitions um kind of like a multi way.

(01:02:55):
It's,
it,
it's,
it's really awesome here just like even at,
in this call to hear about like,
like myself um at UF,
but also like how um UCFY Ds A and UCFUFF and um also Fiuuff and Fiuyd A have been kind of building off each other as campaigns and energies.
Whereas like,

(01:03:17):
like IUF,
we formed for UF and that later inspired free Fiu.
Then that kind of then um the,
the walkout that Fiu did,
then it's,
it is now inspiring Sauff to do something similar.
Uh We're initially,
we're additionally inspired by UCFY DS A and UCCF uh UFF kind of their relationship and getting members to sign up to the union.

(01:03:39):
So there's a lot of like cross g like uh inspiration going on and experience sharing and it's a lot of like actions are happening and then they're inspiring other actions and it's a lot of good positive feedback I believe.
Um So we're,
as it is like between campuses,
there's also a similar,
I think relationship between the community groups where like students are mobilized and energetic and we engage in actions that can hope hopefully inspire professors to do the same thing.

(01:04:07):
And then there's a positive feed about Luke Loops.
Staff get involved,
community members get involved um because this,
this is gonna need to be a multi stakeholder conflict.
Um We cannot win this.
No,
single group can win this alone.
Um I think every single community group and interest group um needs to come together because this fight at the end of the day affects us all.

(01:04:30):
Um on that topic of coalition building Alan.
And I do,
I want to point out,
I know we're,
we're starting to run low on time here.
I wanna try to um be cognizant of that,
but I did,
I wanna ask a little follow up question and then maybe we can wrap up by talking about the present and future.

(01:04:50):
Um But you know,
you've been talking a lot about building coalitions between faculty students,
community members and even with K through 12 teachers,
I was wondering also just in terms of across identity groups that are being targeted in particular by these attacks.
Like II I did um read an article about working with the um queer Student Union or,

(01:05:13):
or some type of queer student group.
Um you know,
folks in gender studies programs,
um you know,
students of color who are being,
you know,
targeted by bans on,
you know,
black history and all that kind of stuff.
Are you,
how is it going kind of trying to build coalitions with some of those groups?

(01:05:33):
Um and who might have,
you know,
political differences and things like that and,
and just,
you know,
maybe trying to be kind of concise with your reply even though I know that that might be hard.
No.
Yeah.
Um there's definitely been so much opportunity for coalition building.
I was like,
like I was mentioning before,
these are mass politicizing events.
So a lot of identity groups and students who are not,

(01:05:56):
we're not necessarily political prior are being forced to become political because they're being politicized,
like their existence being politicized essentially.
So previously,
we have collaborated with groups like Black Student Union which uh fighting against HP 999 this year.
Uh We're organizing with our Pride Student Union um for uh queer students as long additionally as um other like queer student orgs and um and audition like reproductive rights and feminist orgs as well as we're fighting against this uh like a lot of attacks on transgender rights um in the state and on campus specifically.

(01:06:36):
Uh So there's huge amount of like work like in an opportunity for this separate,
like cross collaborative work to be done.
Thanks,
Alan.
Um Let's,
let's end by talking a little bit about what's going on currently.
And,
you know,
when we were chatting just before we started recording,

(01:06:58):
we kind of,
you know,
we're talking about the current moment and it's,
it's pretty impossible to talk about campus organizing and academic freedom right now without talking about Palestine and the attacks on um student and faculty organizing or even just speaking,

(01:07:18):
right?
Um about Palestine.
Um This is something that's happening nationally,
but um considering everything we've been talking about today in terms of Florida,
you guys are kind of at the forefront of the,
you know,
the,
the most um aggressive attacks.
Um I'm wondering what's going on with,

(01:07:40):
with organizing around Palestine and then also just any other,
you know,
I guess ending on a maybe more positive note of just uh anything that you're looking towards in the future on your campuses that um you're hoping is going to mobilize people.
So do you wanna start Katie?
So I could,
I could speak a bit about like,
what the faculty union is doing,

(01:08:02):
which is that?
Um,
so every three years we bargain,
um,
for a new full book contract.
And so we're gonna be going into full book bargaining.
And I think,
uh,
you know,
our members,
what do they care about,
um,
among other things,
they care about academic freedom and I think they care about responding to some of the attacks that,

(01:08:24):
you know,
we're facing from the legislature at the bargaining table.
So there's been a little bit of discussion about like,
how can we,
um you know,
of,
of course,
like K through 12 unions have pioneered um this approach of like bargaining for the common good where um at the bargaining table you raise not just issues that could have narrowly impact you as an educator,

(01:08:47):
but like issues that could have impact the entire community,
right?
And so to what,
you know,
to what extent can we um use this as a moment to kind of push back to gain more protections for academic freedom to bring,
you know,
we have open bargaining in Florida.
So like bring student voices,
uh you know,
have students come to bargaining sessions,

(01:09:09):
um you know,
have students sort of talk and bargaining about what academic freedom means to them.
So this is kind of one possible avenue.
I think the students on our campus have um talked about like,
what can we do to support the faculty union.
Um So that's something uh that's kind of in the works,
but it's not super well developed yet.

(01:09:31):
Um I think that um what else?
Oh,
so I think the student government has a couple resolutions or for um gender neutral bathrooms on campus.
And so,
um so I think this is a,
you know,
potentially new uh arena of struggle and I think it's,

(01:09:52):
I think it's a um a really good goal because it's kind of concrete and it's something that could be realized on campus.
I think that,
I mean,
we do have a couple of gender neutral bathrooms now and I think they're hoping to expand the number of these.
Um And I think that,
you know,
it's really hard when our only target is the state legislature and kind of given gerrymandering,

(01:10:16):
given the composition,
it feels like,
you know,
you're not gonna be able to take any of these laws off the books in the near future.
Um But I think the kind of question is,
well,
like,
you know,
how can we uh like are,
is there any kind of um wins we can realize right now on our campuses and build kind of like the larger resistance movement that we need to ultimately,

(01:10:41):
you know,
be able to change the composition of the state legislature.
I,
I can go next and I wanna take uh Katie's challenge to offer something less interesting than she thought she was gonna offer here and that,
um,
as far as the,
the issue of,
uh,
speaking,
um,
towards the,
um,

(01:11:02):
the conflict in,
in Palestine,
um,
there really hasn't been anything,
um,
on our campus towards that,
that I've seen that I've been aware of,
I know the,
um,
UCFY DS A internally have been discussing this but,
um,
they have not made anything public.

(01:11:22):
I know they're,
you know,
they've been kind of going back and forth in leadership about what they could and should do in regards to um what's happening.
But they have,
you know,
not released a statement,
I believe under direction from the um from the National DS A and that I'm aware of,
they're not,
they're not planning any,
um any organizing protests at the moment.

(01:11:46):
Um But as far as organizing,
um,
you know,
one of the things that I had mentioned this earlier,
uh one of the things I'm sort of involved with is uh the protest,
um that will be at the Board of Governors meeting here at UCF over those D I regulations that I mentioned earlier.

(01:12:08):
Um What,
why DS A here is involved with um with that organizing.
Um The student I had mentioned earlier is president of the uh UCF NAACP,
she's involved in,
in organizing for that and I'm plugging them into our state UFF um President who is planning on coming here to um be engaged in the protest.

(01:12:34):
And so we're gonna,
this is gonna be a moment where not only um the students will be involved,
but um there'll be some cross collaboration with our um with our union as well.
Yeah,
then to end off with uh it kind of like talking about what we're doing across the state.

(01:12:55):
So like at UF,
there has been a lot of mobilization to protests surrounding like the conflict in um in Palestine and um a Ufy Ds A,
we're really like,
kind of using this event to like turn out for solidarity for other orgs.
Um So,
um you know,
we are,
we are currently busy like organizing mainly like looking for um like protests with uh transgender bathroom use and such.

(01:13:22):
So really,
you kind of use this opportunity to like plug into students for justice in Palestine and Jewish voices for peace who a lot of our members are also members of.
Um and unfortunately,
like the Board of Governors and the State just came out um announcing that they're dissolving UF um students for Justice in Palestine along with the University of South Florida chapter uh of that,

(01:13:45):
which is the first time I've ever heard of like the university or the state dissolving a student group.
Um at least,
well,
my time at UF,
that's the first one,
the first thing that happened.
So that is setting a dangerous precedent if the state is kind of like allowed to come in.
Yeah,
it really is,
it is scary,
like even us Iy Ds A now are kind of afraid we might be the next target to be like dissolved.

(01:14:09):
Um And not only that,
they also are targeting any like,
like,
not,
not,
not only faculty but also like university staff members who are associated with these groups,
um like quite explicitly called them out saying that their employment is at risk if they continue to associate with these groups.
So that's been very scary and it is like,
it is really a authoritarian culture um that we're seeing in Florida um which is just like,

(01:14:31):
like uncomprehensive at times how bad it's getting.
Um But like,
looking forward,
I got some good news.
It's like um hopeful stuff is like,
yeah,
we're continuing to work closely with the union.
Um We're having a kind of,
we,
we've designed door hangers to put up on faculty doors,
asking them to join the union and we're having our members kind of at our next GB M write personal messages and notes in each one.

(01:14:58):
kind of like as a student to a professor,
like asking them uh to sign up not only for themselves,
but also for us in the broader,
you know,
the broader movement for freedom of speech and higher and the freedom,
higher of academic freedom,
higher education.
And then going forward,
we're also um yeah,
collaborating much more,
like I said previously with like private student union and other um a queer like student orgs on campus to fight um against restrictions on transgender students.

(01:15:25):
Um So hopefully we see a lot of good action coming from that.
So at,
at the end of the day,
I am like an optimist even though like we're seeing such an insane legislation and such insane actions from the state.
I do think at the end of the day,
um we can,
we can see a better world if we just like stick through it and organize.

(01:15:49):
It's,
it's nice to hear both the,
the optimism and the pessimism and just the,
you know,
the II I just appreciate everyone's honesty about that and just the,
the uphill battle of it all and the fatigue and burnout.
Um You know,
it sounds like a,
a difficult struggle where people are really stretched thin and you're dealing with the type of situation where there's,

(01:16:14):
there's,
there might be a lot of support but there's a lot of apathy and,
and,
and maybe just a feeling of disempowerment that makes it hard for people to,
you know,
um get involved.
So,
I mean,
tho those are,
those are real issues that we,
we come across a lot.
I appreciate you guys talking about that.
Um I'm glad that you feel optimistic Alan and I'm glad that there's,

(01:16:36):
it sounds like there's a lot going on on your campus.
So I look forward to reading about it in the news.
Yeah,
I also just wanted to jump in kind of a similar message as you and,
and,
and say,
thank you all for joining us.
And also thank you for the,
the work that you're doing.
Right.
I mean,
for campuses are a puzzle of organizing um disparate groups,

(01:16:59):
disparate staff,
faculty students,
we go about our day often pretty distant from each other.
You know,
even Ro Robert's point about feeling students aren't doing the reading often as a faculty member,
I'm have,
I have that feeling and then to have some of those forms of alienation broken by solidarity by working together,

(01:17:20):
these are things that I think are pretty innovative and pretty exciting.
Um Alan,
what you mentioned in terms of,
you know,
these things that you're going door to door um testimonies by students pushing,
pushing faculty to be more involved in their union because of what it means for the whole community.
Super interesting stuff here.
And I think a lot for our listeners to dwell on a lot for me to think about as a union organizer on my campus.

(01:17:45):
So,
yeah,
again,
just thanks for all that work and we really appreciate your time.
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(01:18:06):
Thanks for listening.
Bye.