As many as 200 students, faculty and community members at the University of Florida protested a new law that bans the hiring of non-citizens from China, North Korea and five other countries as research assistants by state universities.
“It’s kind of like, ‘Hey, you people are not welcome here,’” said materials science and engineering professor Jiangeng Xue to the student paper the Florida Alligator. “We have seen people, faculty members, getting the position, getting the offer, but they don’t want to come here. They didn’t accept the offer because they do not feel like the environment is good for them.”
Earlier this week, the ACLU Florida sued on behalf of two Chinese students at Florida International and a professor at the University of Florida to overturn the law.
SB846 which was signed by Gov. Ron DeSantis applies to 12 universities in the state and non-citizens from China, Cuba, Venezuela, Syria, Iran, Russia, and North Korea from being employed as graduate assistants to conduct academic research projects.
It also bars partnerships between the universities and the seven countries.
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Jorg Peters is a professor from Germany, not a country targeted by SB 846, but joined the protest. He told WUFT Radio the law is “mean, wrong-spirited and un-American.”
“Closing the door and excluding talents from those countries will not make Florida more secure or better off. It will only create long-lasting detrimental impacts that will be extremely difficult to reverse. It will only hurt the reputation and competitiveness of all public universities in Florida,” said Yanshuo Sun, an assistant professor of Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering at FSU.
25 groups joined the protest including the Asian American Scholar Forum, Florida Chinese Faculty Association, United Chinese Americans and Asian Americans Advancing Justice | AAAJ, and APA Justice.
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This legislation likely violates the conditions of certain federal grants and programs awarded to the effected institutions! It effectively denies all impacted programs and individuasl the benefit of a truly quality education and experience.
But then what do you expect when the state’s government has permitted itself to become a bastion of white supremacist dogma!