Two graduate students and a professor on Monday challenged the constitutionality of a 2023 state law that restricts employment of people from China and six other nations at Florida public universities and colleges.
Attorneys for Florida International University doctoral students Zhipeng Yin and Zhen Guo and University of Florida professor Zhengfei Guan — all of whom are from China — filed a lawsuit in federal court in Miami. The challenge alleges, in part, that the law is unconstitutional because it is trumped by federal immigration laws.
The lawsuit said that under the measure (SB 846), people “who are not United States citizens or legal permanent residents, and whose domicile is in China or one of six other specified foreign countries, are presumptively prohibited from any academic employment in Florida public universities and colleges.”
“This is so even when these individuals have already satisfied all federal immigration law requirements — including national security screenings, the primary interest Florida purports to protect through SB 846,” the lawsuit said. “Thus, the federal government has already extended them employment rights for academic purposes anywhere in the United States, including Florida.”
The law was part of a package of changes that the Legislature and Gov. Ron DeSantis approved last year targeting China. DeSantis said in May 2023 that the package was part of a “commitment to crack down on Communist China.”
“Florida is taking action to stand against the United States’ greatest geopolitical threat — the Chinese Communist Party,” DeSantis said as he signed the measures.
Monday’s lawsuit came after months of legal battling about another part of the package that placed restrictions on people from China buying land in Florida. A panel of the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in February that the land measure likely is trumped by federal law and blocked its enforcement against two plaintiffs. The appeals court is scheduled to hear arguments in April.
The education law deals with trying to prevent involvement in the higher-education system by China and six other designated countries of “concern.” Those countries are Russia, Iran, North Korea, Cuba, Venezuela and Syria.
The lawsuit focuses on people from China and deals with one aspect of the law that it says restricts hiring graduate students. The law prevents universities and colleges from employing people who are “domiciled” in China, unless the people go through a process to get approval from the state university system’s Board of Governors or the State Board of Education, which oversees colleges, according to the lawsuit.
The two Florida International University doctoral students have what are known as federal F-1 student visas and received offers to work as graduate teaching assistants. But Florida International later deferred the offers because of the new restrictions, the lawsuit said.
Meanwhile, the lawsuit said the restrictions have “severely and adversely affected” Guan’s ability “to recruit and hire the best postdoctoral candidates who have applied to work with him and assist in his research” at the University of Florida. It said Guan is a tenured associate professor who conducts citrus research and is a legal permanent resident of the U.S.
In addition to the issue of whether federal immigration laws trump the state law under the U.S. Constitution’s Supremacy Clause, the challenge also alleges that the restrictions violate equal-protection and due process rights.
The defendants in the case are Education Commissioner Manny Diaz Jr., state university chancellor Ray Rodrigues, the university system Board of Governors and the State Board of Education. The plaintiffs are represented by attorneys from the ACLU Foundation of Florida, the Chinese American Legal Defense Alliance and the international law firm Perkins Coie.
–Jim Saunders, News Service of Florida
Pogo says
@Hey, Meatball Ron
“Donald Trump could earn a windfall of $3 billion or more — eventually, at least — if shareholders in Digital World Acquisition Corp. on Friday vote to approve a merger with the former president’s social media company.
The vote by DWAC shareholders comes about two-and-a-half years after the so-called special purpose acquisition company announced plans to merge with Trump Media & Technology Group, the private firm that owns the Truth Social app platform…”
https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/companies/trump-windfall-could-top-3-billion-after-shareholder-vote-on-social-media-merger/ar-BB1kmf0I?ocid=nl_article_link
Warning: Big Words
“Digital World Acquisition Corp…”
“…On September 3, 2021, DWAC commenced trading on the Nasdaq, after selling 25 million shares in its IPO.[1]
On October 20, 2021, DWAC and Trump Media & Technology Group announced that they had entered into a definitive merger agreement that would combine the two entities, allowing TMTG to become a publicly traded company. DWAC was created with the help of ARC Capital, a Shanghai-based firm specializing in listing Chinese companies on American stock markets that has been a target of U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) investigations for misrepresenting shell corporations.[2][3][4] Some investors were surprised to learn that their investment money was being used to finance a Trump company.[5] In 2021, the DWAC Trump venture was linked with another company, China Yunhong Holdings, based in Wuhan, Hubei,[6][7] until its lead banker who was running the merger promised to sever ties with China in December 2021, stating that Yunhong was to “dissolve and liquidate”.[8][9] In February 2022, Reuters reported that the connection between Shanghai-based ARC Capital and Digital World was more extensive than thought, with ARC having offered money to get the SPAC off the ground.[9]…”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_World_Acquisition_Corp
MAGA (Make America Ginese After all)
Joe D says
Ok, so the State of Florida is saying that it has the right to subject graduate level (MS and PHD candidate) teaching assistants to a SECOND background and security check AFTER the teaching assistants have ALREADY been subjected to AND PASSED the FEDERAL background and security checks!?!
Wow, besides the OBVIOUS SMELL of a PURELY POLITICAL statement…all this double checking is EXPENSIVE and I’m sure will be paid for by Florida Citizens’ taxes.
When I attended the Pennsylvania State University, we had graduate students from all over the world, teaching study groups, and leading research studies. They were NOT pitching any POLITICAL agenda. It contributed to an incredible well rounded education that I still value today Sent my daughter to the same University!
Gee, why don’t we just lock them up in compounds, like the US government did to US Japanese LEGAL CITIZENS on the west coast, during WWII ( I didn’t know about it until AFTER college, as an adult…that’s how WELL history buried the truth). Citizens were placed in camps, even if only 1 of their grandparents was of Japanese decent (25% or more) !!
I had to remind my German/Irish mother, and my German/French father , that both they, myself and my brother were at least 50% GERMAN (if you substituted “German” for “Japanese” in that internment regulation during WWII), but no one suggested my WHITE parents and my brother be locked in holding camps…
I think the fact that potential teaching graduate students have passed all the FEDERAL security background checks, is sufficient for them to be considered “SAFE”…..
Just another example of the “dumbing down” of the college educational experience for Florida students. Fairly soon, not only will out of state parents send their children to Non-Florida colleges, Florida resident parents will be sending their students to Non-Florida colleges for a more rounded and WORLDLY educational experience, not allowed by the current Florida State Legislature…another Florida BRAIN DRAIN!
Deborah Coffey says
Look out anyone not male and white and Christian. You will likely be next. There seems to be no limit to the discrimination of the MAGAs.
dave says
But it’s ok to employee someone that has come into this country illegally. Where is the law for that. We do have a law 448.09 that notes, ‘It is unlawful for any person to knowingly employ, hire, recruit, or refer, either for herself or himself or on behalf of another, for private or public employment within this state, an alien who is not duly authorized to work by the immigration laws of the United States’. But there sure are a lot of illegals working in this state doing lawn maintenance, produce harvesting.
Alex says
That’s DeSantis Mr. Discrimination of all nationalities except his own. If you do a background check on someone who cares where they come from. Not DeSantis and the rules he continues to turn Florida into a state no one will want to come to. He will take their money if they come as tourists other then that he has no use for you.
Please vote this character out in the next election that he never should have won in the first place, the election was stolen for that one.
Jane Gentile-Youd says
Geez… any comments on the property ownership requirements in Switzerland? You must be ( or become a Swiss citizen – pass the test which requires that you can speak German ( not just Switzeldeutch) before you can buy property. I disagree about refusing to hire a foreign born from holding a job in the US but other countries, aside from Switzerland ( Mexico you have to have a Mexican 51% business partner) which do not allow non citizens to buy ( especially ocean front) property in their country.
I dislike 90% of De Santis but no way Jose should any foreign country be able to own land within 10 miles of any military base over 1/4 acre!