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University of Florida bars professors from testifying in a voting rights case

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Re: University of Florida bars professors from testifying in a voting rights case

#201

Post by bob1029 »

Public education institutions are potentially the most politicized arenas in our nation today.

Especially K-12 education, where you have to somehow bridge a new chasm between insane ideologies while also keeping a classroom full children working "productively" towards pointless standardized testing objectives. All of this despite most of their dopamine loops being totally burned out from hours of smartphone use before they even get to school.

The whole education system is heading towards "totally fucked". This UF politics issue is just 1% of the puzzle behind why everything sucks so hard now. If you personally know any teachers working in K12, lend them your ear. You would be surprised how many people are internalizing the problems and don't even know who to talk to about it anymore. The rest have succumbed to apathy or new careers.

Re: University of Florida bars professors from testifying in a voting rights case

#202

Post by finite_jest »

blululu wrote: post #9
twofornone wrote: post #3

>As part of the testimony, the plaintiffs were seeking three professors from the university — Dan Smith, Michael McDonald and Sharon Austin — to testify as expert witnesses. All three specialize in voting rights and behavior and election law. Regardless of your stance on the issue, does anyone actually believe that three "voting rights" professors will give a politically unbiased testimony in 2021?

The simple answer is yes. You could make some elaborate post-modernist point about the impossibility of a value neutral perspective, and there is some merit to such claims, but there are also clear mathematical criteria that can be used to asses the fairness of a voting/districting scheme. This is as unbiased of a criteria as one can establish for voting rights and districting (unless your idea of bias is simply, def…

I don't think the GP is asking whether it is possible to objectively assess the fairness of voting schemes. (Though of course that would be an interesting question)

He is implying that their testimony would most likely be very biased politically. I think that is probably true, and you can see that by skimming through their Twitter accounts [1][2][3].

However, this does not justify the university intimidating them with legally dubious means. [4]

[1]: https://nitter.fdn.fr/electionsmith

[2]: https://nitter.fdn.fr/ElectProject

[3]: https://nitter.fdn.fr/SharonFLUMC

[4]: I am tempted to say that the correct course of action would be to defund all social science departments (except perhaps economics), but that's politically unfeasible.

Re: University of Florida bars professors from testifying in a voting rights case

#203

Post by supperburg »

ceejayoz wrote: post #72
chmod600 wrote: post #42

If schools have become as much political institutions as educational institutions -- and there's little doubt about that -- why do they get public money at all? The real conflict of interest here is politicians spending your money for their political goals.

> why do they get public money at all? Because we still believe there to be a societal benefit to an educated populace.

Pick a random 18 year old and see if they can point to the country of Argentina on a map. The populace can read but not much else.

Re: University of Florida bars professors from testifying in a voting rights case

#204

Post by scohesc »

analog31 wrote: post #148
scohesc wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is what I don't understand. Why can't legislators be proactive when it comes to protecting voting rights? We don't need to see any evidence of fraud to ensure the safety of voting rights.

Gerrymandering erases any hope that they will take up a genuine interest in voting rights when they can just manipulate the entire system in their own favor.

I never mentioned gerrymandering at all - not sure why it's being brought up...

Re: University of Florida bars professors from testifying in a voting rights case

#205

Post by Loughla »

R0b0t1 wrote: post #198
ninjinxo wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Aren't there usually provisions to override requiring all party consent, if it becomes reasonably necessary as criminal (not civil) evidence or for your own legal/physical protection? Edit: I looked into it, nope, Florida is utterly insane - a child didn't get consent to record their rapist soliciting/threatening them, so the evidence was denied; On December 11, 2014, the Florida Supreme Court held in McDade v. State…

You should still record anyway. Use it in the court of public opinion.

Except if the recording is illegal, it can be used, in some states, against you criminally and civilly.

I was just having this conversation. You can be sued and/or jailed if you record someone without their consent in a two party consent state.

Not saying it's right or wrong, but it exists and is something to think about.

Re: University of Florida bars professors from testifying in a voting rights case

#206

Post by throwawaylinux »

x86_64Ubuntu wrote: post #182
throwawaylinux wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which calls into question the perception of authority and freedom from bias that academia tends to have. We should all be a little more skeptical. Nobody should be above scrutiny based on their job title or profession, their prior work, or anything else.

I'm curious as how this relates to the topic at hand.

How the trustworthiness of academics being affected by academic institutions pressuring them, relates to examples of universities forbidding and threatening their academics not to speak freely about inconvenient topics?

I'm not really sure how to explain it better. Is there something particular aspect of what I wrote that was confusing or poorly worded?

Re: University of Florida bars professors from testifying in a voting rights case

#207

Post by Supermancho »

whatthesmack wrote: post #187
cmh89 wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My state in the US (Oregon) has had universal mail-in voting for two decades and we don't have any voter fraud to speak of. There isn't really a debate here. Anyone complaining about voter fraud is uninformed or purposefully making a bad faith argument in order to justify voter disenfranchisement.

> we don't have any voter fraud to speak of You probably mean you're not aware of any voter fraud. The whole objective of fraud is to have it not be discovered, so it's possible fraud has in fact been occurring and it has not yet been discovered (and/or nobody in a position to do so is interested in discovering it).

> The whole objective of fraud is to have it not be discovered,

I don't think so. The objective of fraud is to misrepresent. Finding out about it is incidental to that objective. Although not all fraud relates to identity, it's obvious that fraud is used to leverage all sorts of slippery side effects that often benefit an individual - eg https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-essex-59069662

Re: University of Florida bars professors from testifying in a voting rights case

#208

Post by dragonwriter »

kodah wrote: post #197
dragonwriter wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In California a recording without required consent is a crime when made . Intended use doesn't play into that. It is also separately prohibit from use as evidence in court except as evidence of violation of the law prohibiting such recording itself. > If you wanted to play it on the news, however, you're still free to do that as far as I know. Sure, if you want to advertise the crime you committed on the news you are…

Ah, today I learned. I had searched on this a while back but couldn't find provisions for the civil side of things.

Yeah, I don't have much concrete on the civil side, but it seems likely to be a case of public disclosure of private facts. Where everything contained is a matter of legitimate public interest, that might not apply.

Re: University of Florida bars professors from testifying in a voting rights case

#209

Post by deepsun »

lotsofpulp wrote: post #173
cormacrelf wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sorry, where does it say that all proof must be in the form of an audio recording? Prosecuting crimes worked perfectly fine before the invention of the tape recorder.

I am deducing it based on the fact that if one person is threatening someone by talking to them in person with no one else around, then he said she said accusations will not be sufficient to convict one of witness tampering in a criminal trial.

But how then verbal intimidation was proven in an age before audio-recording?

Re: University of Florida bars professors from testifying in a voting rights case

#210

Post by jeffbee »

supperburg wrote: post #203
ceejayoz wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> why do they get public money at all? Because we still believe there to be a societal benefit to an educated populace.

Pick a random 18 year old and see if they can point to the country of Argentina on a map. The populace can read but not much else.

Speaking as a person confident that I could point out Argentina on a map, why is geographic trivia a very important topic? I'd rather have a population with a good understanding of means and medians, thermodynamics, and the relationship between rates and accumulations, than one that can readily tell me the year that William the Conqueror invaded England.
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