Clay Calvert Comments on New Florida Law Requiring Annual College Student Viewpoint Diversity Survey

Clay Calvert, director of the Marion B. Brechner First Amendment Project and Brechner Eminent Scholar in Mass Communication at the University of Florida College of Journalism and Communications, is quoted in “In Push Against ‘Indoctrination,’ DeSantis Mandates Surveys of Florida Students’ Beliefs” published in The Washington Post on June 24.

The article features information on a new Florida law requiring public universities to assess “viewpoint diversity” on college campuses each year through a survey developed by the State Board of Education.

According to Calvert, the law raises a crucial question: Why a survey?

“I think the answer is that it is being mandated because it gives a conservative state legislative body a tool to withhold funding from a university that, based upon the survey results, seems to discriminate against conservative viewpoints,” Calvert said. “The answer could also be more benign. Maybe the state is just gathering information.”

Through the law, Florida can require that the survey be distributed, Calvert said, but the state cannot ensure that students take it. This could lead to participation bias in which students who think their viewpoints have been discriminated against are more likely to participate.

Calvert compared the survey to the course evaluations some universities ask students to fill out at the end of a term.

“So if you did fine in the class, you got a B-plus or an A-minus and you liked it but you didn’t really care too much, you probably didn’t fill one out,” he said. “But if you got a C and you felt somehow aggrieved, a person might be more likely to then fill out the survey and take it out on the professor, saying the class was somehow against them.”

Calvert also said the survey could chill speech on campus and make professors second-guess what they say in class.

“Professors probably will start to ‘play it down the middle’ and not address controversial viewpoints for fear of being accused of espousing them,” he said.

Posted: June 24, 2021
Category: College News, Marion B. Brechner First Amendment Project News
Tagged as: Clay Calvert, Marion B. Brechner First Amendment Project