Florida law creates ‘suspicion’ of Chinese students and faculty, lawsuit says

Two doctoral students and a professor are challenging a 2023 Florida law in federal court, saying it harms their careers and “casts a cloud of suspicion” over Chinese people seeking to work at the state’s public universities and colleges.

In a lawsuit filed Monday and backed by the American Civil Liberties Union, the plaintiffs target SB 846, which was passed last May along with a series of bills designed to “protect American interests from foreign threats.”

The bill lists seven countries of concern: China, Iran, North Korea, Syria, Russia, Cuba and Venezuela. It prohibits state universities and colleges from entering agreements with “foreign principals,” defined as including anyone “domiciled” in a country of concern who is not a U.S. citizen or permanent resident. Most international graduate and doctoral students come to the U.S. on a student visa status.

Exceptions can be made by appealing individual cases to the state Board of Governors, which oversees universities, or the State Board of Education, which oversees Florida’s public colleges. Both entities are listed among the defendants in the case, along with education commissioner Manny Diaz Jr. and university system chancellor Ray Rodrigues.

The lawsuit was filed by a professor at the University of Florida and two doctoral students at Florida International University. It alleges that the law violates federal law and gives the state a right to override federal immigration and employment laws “even when these individuals have already satisfied all federal immigration law requirements — including national security screenings.”

It also alleges that the Florida law “explicitly discriminates based upon alienage,” and most severely impacts Chinese students, who make up the biggest percentage of international students in the State University System.

“Today’s lawsuit argues that SB 846 will codify discrimination against people of Asian descent in violation of the Constitution,” a news release from the ACLU said. “It will also cast an undue burden of suspicion on anyone seeking to study whose name sounds remotely Asian, Russian, Iranian, Cuban, Venezuelan, or Syrian.”

The two student plaintiffs, Zhipeng Yin and Zhen Guo, were accepted as doctoral students at Florida International University in Miami and offered assistantships.

Yin began his studies in the U.S. in 2021, and was accepted into FIU’s computer and information sciences doctoral program. His assistantship was set to begin on Dec. 18, and it included a $27,510 tuition waiver and automatic enrollment in the FIU-sponsored graduate assistant health insurance program.

He moved from New York and signed a 13-month lease in Miami before he received a letter in January telling him that the assistantship and tuition waiver would be deferred until it was approved by the Board of Governors because of the new process. The decision could take several months. Yin is now paying out-of-pocket to remain in the program.

Guo was accepted into the materials engineering doctoral program at FIU and received a similar offer, which was rescinded after he moved to the U.S. and began the program. He, too, is paying personally but is not allowed access to a research laboratory, which is a requirement for getting a doctoral degree.

The lawsuit said the professor plaintiff, Zhengfei Guan, is a researcher at UF studying citrus greening. He is from China and a lawful permanent resident of Florida. The lawsuit said he has received over $3 million in research grants and has collaborated on grants totaling over $30 million to the university.

His work has been presented to the White House and he has testified in hearings in front of the U.S. International Trade Commission.

When he advertised for hiring graduate assistants and postdoctoral researchers, he received 18 applicants, the lawsuit stated. All were international students. Three received degrees from China and two were from Iran.

The lawsuit said he tried to hire the best applicant, who was from China but was unsuccessful because of the four-month delay caused by the new process. The candidate opted for a competing offer outside Florida “due to SB 846′s discriminatory impact against individuals from China,” the lawsuit said.

The lawsuit claims the new law has “materially slowed his publication productivity and project progress, which threatens existing grant funding as well as grant applications, at an important time when he is subject to a five-year post-tenure review and promotion process.”

The lawsuit said it also negatively impacts citrus research, which is Florida’s largest industry.

On Tuesday, the Florida Chinese Faculty Association, along with the ACLU and other organizations, will rally outside the Board of Governors meeting being held at the University of Florida. Twenty speakers — including from the University of South Florida, the University of Central Florida, the University of Florida and Florida International University — are expected to express their concerns about the impact of the new law.

Divya Kumar covers higher education for the Tampa Bay Times, working in partnership with Open Campus.