Florida Governor Ron DeSantis has done yeoman’s work in trying to reshape higher education in his state. The “progressives” are furious that he has been undoing their years of domination.
One of the governor’s ideas is that state ought to employ more Americans and fewer foreigners for its college faculties. In today’s Martin Center article, Professor Bruce Gilley takes a look at this concept:
A new proposed ban on foreign-faculty hiring, however, is novel. DeSantis has in effect called foul on an assumption that has never had to withstand scrutiny: that the most powerful country on earth is unable to produce professors and teachers in fields as diverse as social work and biotechnology. This assumption crept into the progressive ethos of universities in the 2000s with all the highbrow arrogance that academics can muster. DeSantis, who has ordered Florida universities to stop hiring faculty using the H-1B visa loophole, is right in seeing widespread abuse in this system.
Gilley observes that while H-1B visas are supposed to be available only if an American college or university has tried but has been unable to hire a U.S. citizen for a faculty opening, in fact, such efforts are rarely made. Schools are allowed to bring in foreign faculty at will.
Are American schools just looking to hire inexpensive labor? Gilley argues that they are:
One counterargument goes that many of these H-1Bs go to research scholars, including postdoctoral positions. An astounding 17 percent of non-tenure-track research scholars in the U.S. are on H-1B visas, according to CUPA-HR, and no wonder. They are cheap labor. As they might Mexican gardeners, the universities like them because they come cheap. It has nothing to do with their unique skills. The same academics who complain about being underpaid are contributing to the problem by undercutting themselves with foreign workers.
According to, Gilley, by allowing our colleges and universities to bring in so many foreign professors, we are stifling the creation of domestic human capital.