[HN Gopher] University of Florida reverses course, allows profes...
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University of Florida reverses course, allows professors to testify
Author : burkaman
Score : 165 points
Date : 2021-11-05 18:24 UTC (4 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.wuft.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.wuft.org)
| endisneigh wrote:
| not surprising. they've done it before.
| WarOnPrivacy wrote:
| Note: The chairman of the UF Board of Trustees is Mori Hosseini,
| a close DeSantis advisor+donor.
|
| Hosseini is also the same person who fast-tracked FL's new covid-
| nurturing Surgeon General, Joseph Ladapo.
|
| ref:
| https://www.tallahassee.com/story/news/local/state/2021/10/2...
| queuebert wrote:
| Sunlight is the best disinfectant.
| duxup wrote:
| >The university initially said that, because it was a public
| university and faculty are government employees, it would have
| been a conflict of its interests to allow three prominent
| professors to testify for plaintiffs in a lawsuit over new voting
| restrictions that Gov. Ron DeSantis signed into law earlier this
| year. It backtracked slightly days later when it said the three
| would be allowed to testify if they forfeited any compensation.
|
| What was the conflict?
|
| Don't question the government?
| throwawaycities wrote:
| There is no conflict of interest.
|
| Expert witnesses get called to testify by either party and it's
| industry standard they get compensated for their time. That
| doesn't create any conflict of interest, and for the University
| to suggest it does is basically saying they believe their own
| professors are so unethical they would commit the crime of
| perjury in exchange for a meager expert witness payment.
|
| Also, the idea they are a expert witness for the plaintiff in a
| case against the government creates a conflict because they
| work for a public university is the opposite of a conflict of
| interest. Whereas there would be more of a conflict if the
| experts were witnesses for the defendant (ie their employer).
|
| The University is so tone deaf they don't realize it's a
| conflict of interest for the university to prevent professors
| from acting as experts in cases against parties that fund the
| university and even worse that they back track in the face of
| public exposure and pressure by allowing them to testify on the
| condition they can't be compensated as expert witnesses...it's
| a clear attempt to punish the professors if they do testify,
| which they probably won't do now since they aren't being
| compensated for their time.
| endisneigh wrote:
| > a meager expert witness payment
|
| To be fair expert witnesses get a few hundred an hour in
| compensation for preparing plus actually testifying. That
| being said in the grand scheme of things it's hardly a
| fortune, but compared to an average professor salary it's
| probably a decent bonus.
| dekhn wrote:
| Most tenured professors can negotiate roughly one day a
| week doing consulting. In my field, the profs consulted for
| pharma and were sometimes compensated in shares. At least,
| before they retired on their proceeds.
| FireBeyond wrote:
| I was tangentially involved in a major healthcare medical
| error lawsuit.
|
| The physicians being called as expert witnesses had fee
| schedules that were in the range of $2,000 an hour for
| testimony, $1,200 an hour for document review.
| sonotathrowaway wrote:
| Without googling I'm betting that political science
| professors make less money than physicians, especially if
| those experts were surgeons. If your expert testimony
| required billionaire expert witnesses I'd bet their hour
| fees would be substantially more than a surgeons.
| nickff wrote:
| Many people make a living off being expert witnesses; often
| medical experts, computer experts, and others with subject
| matter expertise.
| dylan604 wrote:
| Those that can't do, teach. Those that can't teach,
| testify? Those that can't testify, teach PE?
| MisterBastahrd wrote:
| Meager? Most of the math professors at my university made
| more as expert witnesses than they did via their day jobs.
| supercheetah wrote:
| That shouldn't even matter. A conflict of interest doesn't
| invalidate what they would have to say. The problems with
| conflicts of interest in testimony is when that's deliberately
| hidden from anyone to see. Keep that in the open, and any
| problems from it will also be in the open.
| SketchySeaBeast wrote:
| Apparently if you don't like what you're employer is doing you
| need to keep quiet?
| klyrs wrote:
| More like, if you disagree with the politics that your
| employer's investors have lobbied for, you need to keep
| quiet. The lawsuit doesn't appear to have anything to do with
| the operation of U of F.
| ISL wrote:
| When you are employed to attempt to ascertain and share the
| truth to society at large, and your immediate-employer
| attempts to block that critical societal function, it is okay
| to appeal to the sensibilities of your employer's boss --
| society itself.
| dekhn wrote:
| Most of the time, yes. But in the case of a tenured professor
| acting in the interest of the public, academic freedom trumps
| that.
| ysavir wrote:
| Since the law suit is against the state, and as state school
| professors they are paid by the state and are employees of the
| state, it's somewhat reasonable to see a conflict of interest
| for them to testify when the defendant is their employer.
|
| That said, it should be up to the lawyers and parties involved
| in the law suit to evaluate that conflict of interest. There
| was no reason for the school to interfere there.
| newacct583 wrote:
| First, the idea of "conflict of interest" is not about
| allowing or disallowing testimony. That's (1) normally an
| argument you make after testimony and (2) absolutely not
| something one party to a suit (the State of Florida in this
| case, via its organ the University of Florida) gets to decide
| unilaterally.
|
| Second, your logic is _exactly backwards_. The reason you
| _might_ infer a conflict of interest and thus judge someone
| 's testimony because of their employer is that they might be
| induced (e.g. by being rewarded or punished) to represent
| their employer's opinions instead of their own. Here, they
| were called by the plaintiffs and are expected to testify
| against the interests of the State.
| klyrs wrote:
| > it's somewhat reasonable to see a conflict of interest for
| them to testify when the defendant is their employer.
|
| This statement appears to imply that you cannot sue your
| employer, because of a conflict of interest. I could almost
| see where you're going with this if the employer is the
| plaintiff, but when the employer is the defendant, that would
| be completely absurd.
| ysavir wrote:
| They're testifying as expert witnesses, being brought in to
| be informative to the jury, not as first-hand witnesses to
| the law suit matter. In theory such experts should be
| objective and not have a bias towards either defendant or
| the plaintiff.
| frankharv wrote:
| They are being "Brought in" or were they paid to come in?
|
| Many employers regulate the ability to work side jobs.
| This is known as an employment contract.
|
| This is especially true when it is related to your
| regular work.
| mistrial9 wrote:
| > it's somewhat reasonable to see a conflict of interest for
| them to testify when the defendant is their employer
|
| this is directly false in the US system of law
| NaturalPhallacy wrote:
| Which law?
| klyrs wrote:
| > system of law
|
| Your parent said nothing about a specific law. They're
| talking about the _practice of law_. But let 's turn that
| around. If this _is_ a conflict of interest, can you
| identify for us where that is codified?
| mistrial9 wrote:
| (I am not a lawyer and I do not play one on the Internet)
| lets say it is important to notice this is a State-funded
| school, the students are adults and the Faculty have long
| and detailed legal protections in law, in addition to
| Constitutional rights as individuals.
|
| yes, as noted, the legal framework of law in the USA
| [deleted]
| throwaway879080 wrote:
| not sure why you need a professor to testify that one needs to
| present an ID to vote, seems common sense
| dekhn wrote:
| I had even money on "capitulate to the obvious" and "double down
| on dumb" but after yesterday where the president was lectured by
| a prominent expert, it was pretty obvious they knew they had
| failed.
| CrazyStat wrote:
| > In the federal voting rights lawsuit, U.S. District Judge Mark
| Walker on Thursday blocked efforts by plaintiffs to question a
| representative of the governor's office to see whether it played
| a role in UF's decision to block the testimony by the professors.
| But Walker added that he was "not saying there is no issue here,"
| and openly speculated in his ruling that federal prosecutors
| could pursue felony witness-intimidation charges and said the
| plaintiffs might sue over the matter in civil court.
|
| Hopefully they don't just drop the matter here and actually
| pursue criminal and/or civil cases as suggested. There needs to
| be repercussions for this shit beyond just "oops, nevermind."
| WarOnPrivacy wrote:
| ref: Judge Mark Walker Ballotpedia
| https://ballotpedia.org/Mark_E._Walker
|
| Wiki: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_E._Walker
| burkaman wrote:
| An update to this story from a few days ago:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29065265
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(page generated 2021-11-05 23:01 UTC)