Washington (CNN) The liberal website Salon has changed a headline that falsely stated that a law signed by Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis would force Florida students and professors to report their political views to the state.
The 2021 law requires Florida’s public colleges and universities to administer annual surveys on “intellectual freedom and diversity of viewpoints.” But, contrary to Salon’s inaccurate initial headline, the law does not require anyone to register their political views. Students and professors can decide whether to participate in the surveys, which are anonymous.
Salon published the headline in June 2021. Its revision Wednesday, more than a year later, came after the article went viral among some Democrats on Twitter amid talk of a possible DeSantis run for president.
Prior to Salon’s review, his false claim was promoted this week by various Democratic commentators, Florida Agriculture Commissioner and Democratic gubernatorial candidate Nikki Fried (who subsequently deleted a tweet linking to the Salon article), and even noted novelist Stephen King, who more than 6.7 million Twitter followers and has been a vocal critic of DeSantis.
Salon Executive Editor Andrew O’Hehir said in an email Thursday that while another Salon editor defended the initial 2021 headline, the publication recently took another look and concluded that the headline “conveys the wrong impression of what the Florida law actually is says, and did not meet our editorial standards.” The Salon changed the headline from “DeSantis signs bill to require Florida students, professors to register political views with state” to “DeSantis signs bill to require survey of Florida students, professors on their political views.”
DeSantis spokeswoman Christina Pushaw said in an email Thursday that her colleagues tried unsuccessfully to get Salon to change the title in 2021. She said, “It’s good to see that Salon has finally changed the false title after the return they received yesterday. It should have happened much earlier. Even better, Salon’s reporter and editors should have read the law before writing an article about it (good journalism practice, in general!).”
In a comment sent by a rep on Friday, King said: “I regret posting the headline without being more sure the story was accurate. Salon is usually more reliable. Twitter is a constant learning experience, and I will try to do better .”
What the law says and what its critics say
What the law says and what its critics say
DeSantis signed the bill, known as HB 233, in June 2021. On the same subject : The Political Strategy of Ron DeSantis’s “Don’t Speak Gay” Bill. He argued at the time that universities promote certain “orthodoxys” while avoiding or suppressing other viewpoints.
The law requires that Florida‘s public colleges and universities annually conduct “objective, unbiased and statistically valid” surveys created or selected by the state board of education. Those surveys are needed to assess “the extent to which competing ideas and perspectives are represented” at these institutions and the extent to which “members of the college community, including students, faculty, and staff, are free to express their beliefs and attitudes on campus and in the classroom.” The state board of education is obliged to publish the results of the research every year.
The law was controversial from the start. Opponents described the polls as infringing on academic freedom and freedom of speech and association, argued that the surveys were intended to suppress political views Florida Republicans disagreed with, and expressed concern that those Republicans could use the results to target institutions or professors for funding cuts or other penalties. Opponents also argued that the first 2022 polls included inappropriately “leading” questions.
A lawsuit challenging the law goes to trial. And the United Faculty of Florida union urged “all higher education faculty, staff and students” not to complete the surveys.
People are entitled to their own subjective views on the matter. But viral tweets this week confirmed the fact: that DeSantis signed a bill requiring students and faculty to report their political views to the state. And that is simply untrue.
Nothing in the law says that anyone is required to fill out surveys. The law also does not specify that completing the surveys must be optional – but it really has been optional until today. The introduction to the 2022 surveys, which were sent out in April, made it clear that participation was “entirely voluntary” and that respondents were “free to answer any question or withdraw from the survey at any time”, as reported the Tallahassee Democrat in April.
Second, while the law does not specify that surveys must be anonymous, anonymity has also been state policy. The introduction to the 2022 surveys says: “No personal information will be associated with your responses. This survey is anonymous, and responses will only be reported at the group level, not at the individual level.” (Opponents argued that faculty members, especially members of minority demographic groups, could still be identified through their responses to survey questions.)
This article has been updated to add a comment from author Stephen King.
