An American legal scholar flees the divisive politics of Florida – and finds a home in Toronto

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In January, Neil Buchanan will begin teaching at two of Canada’s most prestigious law schools. It’s an unexpected career turn for the American legal scholar, who is giving up a tenured position at the University of Florida – one of several academics to flee the state for political reasons.

Prof. Buchanan, a 64-year-old economist and tax professor, ties his departure to a series of policy decisions that, from his perspective, hammer academic freedom in the state.

Florida is a hotbed of the U.S. culture wars and Republican Governor Ron DeSantis has focused his efforts on reshaping the education sector – including what can be taught in the classroom.

In recent years, Florida has passed laws that prohibit teaching about systemic reasons for inequality, ban public colleges and universities from spending on diversity initiatives and allow students to film their classes – in part, for the purpose of filing complaints about teachers. A new review process for tenured faculty sparked concerns that professors could face retribution for their political beliefs or teaching material.

Eventually, Prof. Buchanan had seen enough. Officially, he is on sabbatical from the Levin College of Law and will retire from his position in June, 2024. But he moved last summer to Toronto because he had taken roles as a visiting professor at the University of Toronto’s Faculty of Law and York University’s Osgoode Hall Law School.

It’s “not a healthy atmosphere” in Florida, Prof. Buchanan said in an interview. When he considered a new academic home, “Toronto was really where I wanted to be.”

Prof. Buchanan will teach a course on U.S. tax law for Canadian lawyers at U of T, while at Osgoode, he’ll teach a class that challenges economic orthodoxy from a left-leaning perspective. (In 2013, he published a book – The Debt Ceiling Disasters: How the Republicans Created an Unnecessary Constitutional Crisis and How the Democrats Can Fight Back – that speaks to his politics.)

“For some reason, lawyers are skeptical of everything – except what economists tell them,” said Prof. Buchanan, who received a PhD in economics from Harvard University, before pivoting to law. Lawyers should be “even more skeptical of what economists tell them.”

Prof. Buchanan is one of many departures from the University of Florida’s law school. In the 2023 fiscal year, the faculty turnover rate at the College of Law was 31 per cent, compared with the previous five-year average of 8.4 per cent, according to numbers provided by the university.

Over all, the University of Florida (UF) – which has an enrolment of more than 60,000 students – had a faculty turnover rate of 9.3 per cent in 2023. The university said this is lower than the national average and that hires exceed departures. However, turnover has picked up from 7 per cent in 2021.

Danaya Wright, chair of the faculty senate, and herself a professor at the College of Law, said there are myriad reasons for why people are leaving their positions: retirements, other job offers, family reasons, and so on.

But in some cases, politics are a decisive factor. UF’s College of the Arts “struggles to hire or retain good faculty and graduate students in the current political climate,” read a faculty senate report that was published in June.

“I believe there is a brain drain of those academics who teach in fields where they feel particularly threatened,” Prof. Wright said, pointing to those who teach theories of race and gender that are contentious in right-wing circles.

In 2022, Florida passed legislation that prohibits the teaching of sexual orientation and gender identity to children from prekindergarten to Grade 3 – what critics refer to as the “Don’t Say Gay” bill, which was later expanded to students through Grade 12, with exceptions. The state also banned transgender people from using public washrooms that align with their gender identities, among other laws deemed homophobic by LGBTQ advocates.

In November, a U.S. district judge issued a temporary injunction against parts of what is known as the Stop WOKE Act, thus allowing professors to teach theories of racial injustice that Governor DeSantis is trying to outlaw.

Prof. Buchanan said the politicization of higher education is going to make it difficult for the state’s colleges and universities to hire the best candidates – or draw interest from the best students.

“Florida’s gonna have a hard time keeping those kids at home,” he said of prospective in-state students. “They’re gonna look at it and say, ‘The wheels are falling off the bus.’ ”

Prof. Wright said there are notable upsides to the University of Florida – among them, high levels of funding from the state. (She also said the new review process for tenured faculty will focus on their “assigned duties” and not be wielded for political purposes, based on new regulations.)

However, “there are going to be certain areas where students are not going to get the education they want,” she said. “We’ve highly politicized certain areas of education.”

So far, Prof. Buchanan is enjoying his time in Toronto. He explored different parts of the city, such as the Danforth, in the warmer months, and he’d like to stay beyond the current academic year.

“I’m hardly the first person to have said that Toronto’s like New York, but cleaner and nicer,” he said. “But from my perspective, that’s a cliché for a reason.”