We, the undersigned, are an ideologically diverse group of university professors who have served as expert witnesses on election administration, voting rights, redistricting, campaign finance, and similar cases. Some of us have worked in support of plaintiffs bringing complaints against state laws. Others have worked to help defend state and local governments against these complaints.
Regardless of our opinions about election law in general or any particular case, we are joined in being strongly opposed to decisions by administrators at the University of Florida in barring Professors Sharon Austin, Michael McDonald, and Daniel Smith from providing expert analysis and testimony in Florida Rising Together et al. v. Lee et al.
Administrators at the university concluded that because the State of Florida is a defendant in this litigation, the professors’ engagement as expert witnesses is “adverse to its interests.” This is not only a serious violation of academic freedom and faculty speech rights, but also a fundamental misunderstanding of the role of expert witnesses in election-related litigation.
Expert witnesses are not advocates, nor do they argue in favor of any particular legal position. The role of an expert witness is to provide answers to specific questions based on data, reliable methodologies, experience, and technical knowledge. Their role is to provide information and empirical answers to courts so that judges have the best information available as they evaluate legal arguments.
In denying these professors the ability to offer evidence and testimony to a federal court and prohibiting them from answering empirical questions about the effects of voting law changes, the university is acting as if faculty are agents of the current leadership of Florida state government. Because the university is not a defendant in this litigation, it cannot claim that its interests are adversely affected by the professors’ engagement. Rather, administrators are taking the position that faculty must act in a way that does not affect the interests of a funder of the university. In doing so, the university has transformed academic freedom – the right to conduct research and teaching without political interference – into something that faculty have so long as their work meets with the approval and policy goals of state political leaders or influential university donors.
We call on University of Florida administrators to reverse their decision, and to allow Professors Sharon Austin, Michael McDonald, and Daniel Smith to offer expert testimony in this case.
(Click on the link above to see the signatories)