U. of Florida's Accreditor Will Investigate Denial of Professors' Voting-Rights Testimony
https://www.chronicle.com/article/u-of-floridas-accreditor-will-investigate-denial-of-professors-voting-rights-testimony
No paywall
https://archive.ph/31JvL
The University of Floridas accreditor plans to investigate the flagship campus over the revelation that administrators denied three professors requests to serve as paid experts in a voting-rights lawsuit.
Belle S. Wheelan, president of the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools Commission on Colleges, told The Chronicle on Monday that the accreditor would follow its policy on investigating unsolicited information. Under those rules, accreditors can dig into campus happenings between review cycles if they learn of potential significant issues of compliance. Accreditation is needed for colleges to receive federal student aid.
Wheelan said the accreditor would send a letter to Floridas president, W. Kent Fuchs, on Monday or early Tuesday asking for information to verify or clarify the news medias account of what happened, she wrote in an email. From there, we will decide if there are any noncompliance issues. She declined to comment further.
Many accreditors, including Floridas, demand that governing boards be independent and free from influence from external sources.
In a federal-court filing on Friday, plaintiffs lawyers in the case wrote that university administrators had told the three faculty members that they were not authorized to serve as experts in a lawsuit that challenges a new Florida law limiting the ways in which state residents can vote. In a statement, the university acknowledged that it had barred the three professors from taking part in the lawsuit, saying that such paid work was adverse to the universitys interests as a state of Florida institution.
*snip*