AFA Speaks Out on Firing of Chinese Professor from Florida College
New College of Florida fired Kevin Wang over fears his employment violated law
PRINCETON, NJ – The Academic Freedom Alliance (AFA) today sent a letter to the Board of Governors of the State University System of Florida regarding a professor’s firing from New College of Florida. The college reportedly terminated the professor, Kevin Wang, because of a 2023 Florida law that prohibits universities from employing people from “countries of concern,” including China. Wang is a Chinese national who sought asylum in the United States after criticizing the Chinese Communist Party.
The AFA’s letter reads, in part, “It seems evident that the legislation is aimed at the influence of foreign-controlled institutes on American college campuses. Even within the statute’s core concern, the statute grants the Board discretionary authority to approve an ‘agreement . . . with a foreign principal, if such partnership or agreement is deemed by the board to be valuable to students and the state university and is not detrimental to the safety or security of the United States or its residents.’ The Board’s guidelines indicate that ‘hiring a foreign principal for academic’ purposes requires case-by-case approval by the Board.”
“Our concern is with the academic freedom implications of this policy as it is being implemented by the Board,” the letter continues. “Restricting access to foreign scholars based on nothing more than their country of origin carries the risk of seriously impinging on the ability of students to be exposed to a wide range of ideas and perspectives. … We hope the case of Professor Wang at New College is primarily one of administrative error and can be easily remedied, but we urge the Board to allow as a default the hiring of foreign nationals as instructors.”
Additional Resources:
- The AFA’s full letter to the Florida Board of Governors
- Coverage of the case in Inside Higher Education
- Local coverage in the Tampa Bay Times
The Academic Freedom Alliance is a diverse alliance of college and university faculty members who are dedicated to upholding the principles of academic freedom and professorial free speech. These principles are central to the mission of our institutions of higher education for the pursuit of truth and knowledge. The AFA is committed to defending universal principles of academic freedom and will come to the assistance of professors regardless of their individual views. As always, the AFA is not concerned with the substance or merits of a professor’s ideas but with the principle that universities should be places that tolerate controversial ideas and allow free inquiry and debate, not public opinion or political pressure, to separate error from truth.