If you recall, The University of Florida recently tried to prevent several professors from providing expert testimony in a lawsuit that challenges the state’s new voter suppression law. Well, a federal judge just squelched the bejeezus out of that.
First the setup from the judge’s ruling:
For more than twenty years, an imposing, eight-meter-tall statue stood on the University of Hong Kong’s campus. Commemorating the 1989 Tiananmen Square Massacre victims, the statue—known as the Pillar of Shame—was “a towering entanglement of human suffering cast in bronze, copper and concrete.”1 Its base said simply: “The old cannot kill the young forever.”
In December 2021, however, the University decided to remove the statue. A statement explaining the decision declared simply that removing the statue was in “the best interest of the University.”
…
Some might say, “that’s China, it could never happen here.” But Plaintiffs contend it already has… [T]hey say, UF has bowed to perceived pressure from Florida’s political leaders and has sanctioned the unconstitutional suppression of ideas out of favor with Florida’s ruling party.
Then the hammer:
[The University of Florida] must take no steps to enforce its conflict-of-interests policy with respect to faculty and staff requests to engage as expert witnesses or provide legal consulting in litigation involving the State of Florida until otherwise ordered
In short, score a big win for the good guys!
Also, I thought things looked good the other day when I read that the judge had said this when the University’s lawyers wanted to introduce last minute evidence into the case, saying they’d just discovered it:
It strains credulity when you say these are newly discovered facts when they are all part of the public record. These are the very reports and experts we knew about, but we just learned in the last two days the Earth is not round and there’s gambling in Casablanca and these professors had their reports before they submitted requests for approval.
I love this judge.