House Democrats seek answers after Florida professors' testimony briefly blocked
A pair of House Democrats is requesting information about the University of Florida's (UF) conflicts-of-interest policy after the school made headlines in recent weeks for prohibiting, then allowing, three professors to testify in a federal voting rights lawsuit against the state.
News broke last month that UF was barring three professors from testifying as expert witnesses in a lawsuit brought by a coalition of civil rights groups against Florida over the state Senate's voting rights bill, which limited the use of ballot drop boxes and established new identification requirements for mail-in voting, in addition to other restrictions.
The Gainesville school told the professors they were not permitted to testify as experts in the case on behalf of the plaintiffs as part of their "outside activities." Emails sent to the professors revealed that the restriction was put in place because of conflicts of interest to the executive branch of the state.
The university reversed course days later, allowing the trio of professors to testify, but that did not stop the three educators from filing a federal lawsuit requesting that the state stop enforcing "any policy or practice" that allows the school to limit their ability to testify in cases that do not coincide with the "interests" of the state of Florida.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/house-democrats-seek-answers-after-florida-professors-testimony-briefly-blocked/ar-AAQSltE