UF students and professors are once again expressing concerns — and annoyance — over the political implications of the state’s “Intellectual Freedom and Viewpoint Diversity Survey.”
The survey, part of a 2021 state law backed by Republican lawmakers, aims to gauge how students feel expressing political views on campus and in classrooms. It asks questions like “How often have you not spoken up on campus because you thought your opinion would be unwelcome?” and “Have you lost friends on campus because of your political beliefs?”
Jane Bambauer, a UF law professor specializing in the First Amendment, said the survey could be a good-faith measure to promote intellectual freedom on college campuses but questioned whether its results will only serve to benefit conservative students and professors.
“There’s some legitimate efforts to increase viewpoint diversity, but there are efforts which I would also view as illegitimate to suppress what are seen as progressive or left-leaning ideological positions,” Bambauer said.
Gov. Ron DeSantis described the law mandating the survey as a response to some parents’ worries that students were being “indoctrinated” during lectures and classroom debates.
"It used to be thought that a university campus was a place where you'd be exposed to a lot of different ideas," DeSantis said in 2021. "Unfortunately, now the norm is really these are more intellectually repressive environments."
Students haven’t been as enthusiastic about the survey. When it was first administered in Spring 2022, only 2.4% of students filled it out during the five-week availability period.. The responses indicated college campuses weren’t hot beds for left-wing indoctrination; only about one-fourth of students who took the survey agreed professors were using class time to express their own political beliefs while ignoring others.
Engagement jumped to 14.5% last year — a 504% increase — when universities in Florida offered respondents an entry into a sweepstakes for a $500 gift card to campus libraries. That round of questioning revealed the amount of students who felt professors were expressing political beliefs in the classroom ticked up to 30%.
The state university system’s Board of Governors suspended the survey in 2023, citing a miscommunication about response deadlines.
Some students have criticized the survey for being politically partisan.
“To my understanding it's skewed conservatively,” said Kathryn Holmes, a 21-year-old UF public health junior. “I’ve heard that they’re not really a fair survey — they’re biased.”
Juan Osorio, vice president of UF College Democrats, warned the survey could be used to justify meddling in curriculum and student activist efforts. He said he’s more concerned about this year’s survey as the Trump administration has used Florida as a blueprint for pursuing action against institutions viewed as promoting liberal ideas, such as Columbia University.
“We were really the breeding ground for this type of action — seeing how far they could take it here,” Osorio said. “What they could do, what they could get away with, how they could target universities here in Florida and create a bit of a roadmap for themselves for doing that nationwide.”
Peter Rosa, president of UF’s Turning Point USA chapter, didn’t respond to an interview request. Another conservative campus organization, Young Americans for Freedom, also didn’t respond for comment.
Cassie Urbenz, co-president of Graduate Assistants United, said she and other members of the union didn’t fill out the survey, citing concerns that its questions were vague and responses could be used to further the state’s efforts to dismantle diversity initiatives.
“This is very, very vague and can be twisted for any political bias,” Urbenz said. “I just don’t think it was fair for our members to go into that blind, especially with the amount of aggressive messaging from the state.”
Faculty engagement is similarly low. In 2022, 9.4% of employees in Florida responded to the survey — nearly identical to the response rate for staff at UF. Of these respondents, 79% agreed or strongly agreed with the statement “I rarely inject my own political beliefs into my classes.” This same question was not asked in the 2024 survey.
The United Faculty of Florida sent out an email advisory March 16 urging its members — including those in the union’s UF chapter — not to take the survey, citing concerns it included leading questions that imply existing issues with viewpoint diversity and “an unwelcome surveillance culture.”
UFF unsuccessfully sued the state over the law mandating the survey, arguing it limited professors’ freedom to “teach, feel, think and believe whatever they deem best, in both their personal and professional lives,” according to a statement.
Politics aside, some students see the survey as just another email in their inboxes. Saanvi Kodiganti, a 20-year-old biomedical engineering junior, said even though she’s been both texted and emailed about the survey, she has no intention of filling it out.
“I don't really know what they are, I've never opened the link,” Kodiganti said. “It doesn't seem to be worth my time.”
This year, the state has issued at least a half dozen requests to students asking for them to complete it.
“I’m kind of getting spammed,” said Isabelle Torres, a 22-year-old sports management student. “With all the other noise and all the other emails I’m getting from advisers, people in my college and what not, I just kind of ignore them honestly.”
Contact Michael Angee mangee@alligator.org. Follow him on X @michaelangee
Michael Angee is a second-year journalism major and the Student Government reporter. When he's not at the Gainesville Sun building, he enjoys cooking and listening to music with friends.
