MIAMI — University of Florida President Kent Fuchs on Friday said the state’s flagship university will reverse course on a decision that had barred three professors from serving as paid expert witnesses in litigation against the state’s new voting law.
In an email message addressed to the campus community, Fuchs said he had asked the university’s Conflict of Interest Office to allow the professors to offer their expert testimony regardless of whether they are paid or not.
Earlier this month, university official told the professors that because the school was a state institution, participating in a lawsuit against the state would be harmful to the university’s interests.
After facing backlash for the decision, UF announced on Monday that the political science professors would be allowed to provide expert testimony only if they did not get paid.
The university’s decision to lift the restrictions on the professors comes after university officials faced calls to reverse course from its own faculty, professors from across the country and 10 Democratic members of Florida’s congressional delegation.
The move also comes after the body that set the accreditation for the university said it would be investigating whether “academic freedom” and “undue political influence” standards were violated, and the union representing faculty mulled potential legal action to get the university to back down.
As the university faced scrutiny, the Herald/Times found this week that the university had restricted at least five other UF professors’ participation in legal cases against the state.
In the Friday email, Fuchs said that the issue will continue to be evaluated by a task force the university convened on Monday to “review the university’s conflict of interest policy and examine it for consistency and fidelity.”
“I look forward to reporting back on the task force recommendations and my decision on how UF will apply the Conflict of Interest and Conflict of Commitment policy in future requests for approval of similar outside activity,” Fuchs said.
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(Miami Herald staff writer Jimena Tavel contributed to this report.)
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