We hope you are enjoying your well-deserved break from the demands of classes and college business. Unfortunately, everything else keeps on rolling, including this unprecedented legislative session replete with attacks on higher education, K-12, and public sector unions. There are some dangerous bills moving through committees in Tallahassee that call for urgent action from members. This post will share some tools that will allow you to make your voices heard.

SB 256 — Urgent action needed

SB 256, the bill attacking our constitutional right to be union members is fast-tracked and is set to be heard in its last committee stop in the Fiscal Policy Committee at 8:30 a.m. Thursday, March 16. FEA has created an easy way to make contact legislators with the link below.

Contact Legislators on the Fiscal Policy committee to tell them to stop the attack on Educators’ freedoms!
NOTE: there are talking points but it is always good to add your own edits to make it unique

HB 999 — a direct attack on academic freedom and Free speech

According to a recent WFSU Capital Report episode, the American Historical Association strongly condemns this bill. AHA Executive Director, James Grossman says “…it would prevent prevent professors from teaching American History with professional integrity.”

Read the American Historical Association statement, cosigned by 72 other organizations
The statement expresses “horror . . . at the assumptions that lie at the heart of this bill and its blatant and frontal attack on principles of academic freedom and shared governance central to higher education in the United States.”

Representative Anna V. Eskamani (FL House District 42), a staunch ally of FEA, UFF, and Higher Education, has released a number of helpful resources in the fight against this extreme bill, including a link to contact Higher Education Appropriations Subcommittee members.