Federal judge holds that University of Florida cannot block professors from testifying

This is good news:

In an opinion that referenced Communist China, Walker sounded baffled at times by arguments the university had put forward in defense of its policy. UF claimed to have “unlimited discretion” to restrict professors’ speech if it determined the speech “would harm an ill-defined’ ‘interest’ of the university.”

“It’s worth pausing to note just how shocking the defendants’ position is,” the judge wrote....

In his opinion, the judge blasted the university for taking the “remarkable position” that professors might not have a First Amendment right to testify about topics related to their expertise against the state while working at UF. In so arguing, Walker wrote, university officials had “denigrated their own professors as being no better than two-faced mercenaries when they seek to testify as experts in their field in cases challenging Florida law.”