Florida House: Are students safe to express their views?

Florida may soon be conducting a poll in some of its universities to estimate if their students have the freedom and power to express their views or not. 12 universities are expected to run this poll on intellectual freedom and viewpoint diversity if the bill that has been presented is passed by the authorities. This comes as a result of an incident that took place little while back when Richard Spencer’s speech at University of Florida sparked outrage and protests from the student body.

This led to the questioning of the causes of frustration and tension existing in the students and their outrage indicating that they had been unable to express their thoughts or ideas in a civilized manner before.

House Majority Leader, Ray Rodrigues said that legislators want to assure that the students are being allowed to express their ideas and thoughts and that they also feel safe in expressing their point of views. The aim of this legislation is to help determine the "extent to which competing ideas, perspectives, and claims of truth are presented." The results of these polls, if conducted, would be overseen, analyzed and evaluated by an impartial panel that would be overseeing each university.