Sara Hejazi, 32, had finally persuaded her best friend to relocate from Iran to Florida so that she could accompany Hejazi in her medical studies at UF after six years.
But as soon as her friend started getting her application ready, Hejazi, a medical intern at UF, learned of Florida’s newest law that is strictly prohibiting the recruiting of foreign graduate students.
“I did my best for years and years to convince a best friend, confidante, sister-like friendship to come live close to me,” she said. “You cannot imagine how difficult it was for me to inform her that maybe this is not the best time to apply.”
The Florida law bans “partnerships,” including recruitment programs, between state universities and any non-U.S. citizen living in a foreign country of concern — including China, Iran, Venezuela, Russia, Cuba, Syria and North Korea. It was passed in May and went into effect Dec. 1.
According to an email sent to the physics faculty by department chair Steve Hagen, the statute has been construed by the UF dean’s office and upper administration to mean that faculty cannot grant any assistantship or fellowship to students in these nations for the 2024–2025 academic year.
The upper administration is still attempting to determine how best to carry out the law’s terms, leaving many students and staff members with unanswered questions.
It’s unclear if UF will accept students who pay for themselves, students from “countries of concern” who have already immigrated to the United States, and students who accepted offers prior to the law’s implementation but haven’t started their studies yet.
The law does not apply to students who are already in the graduate program — they will continue to receive support as usual.
Most U.S. graduate school applications are due in late December or early January, meaning UF faculty are navigating the changed application process in the height of recruitment season. More than 300 faculty members have signed a petition to UF President Ben Sasse to protest the law.
In 2022, 28.7% of incoming UF graduate students and 33.3% of all UF graduate students were foreign nationals from the seven “countries of concern.” China accounted for 1,165 of the seven countries’ total UF graduate students, followed by Iran with 82 and the other five combined with 32.
“I am considering leaving the university as we speak”: Faculty speak out
Abdelsalam “Sumi” Helal, a UF engineering professor, knows the U.S. must stay competitive against foreign competition, he said. But the politicians who made this bill forgot the reason the U.S. became a global competitor in the first place: attracting the best brains from other countries, he said.
Instead of weakening “countries of concern,” this bill will give them an advantage, he said.
“What has been working beautifully for America is denying these countries the best brains and bringing them here,” he said. “The bill is saying, ‘No, no, no, keep them there.’”
In 1982, Helal left Egypt to pursue his doctorate in the United States, which at the time was considered the global center of knowledge. However, he believes that Florida researchers’ heyday in academia is drawing to an end at this time.
“I am considering leaving the university as we speak,” he said. “We will not get the best students ever again if this bill continues.”
This year, UF assistant professor Rachel Houtz was appointed, and she is currently hiring her first post-doctoral student for her theoretical particle physics research.
Houtz stated that she will not be letting the candidate’s place of origin affect her hiring choice at this time because she has not gotten any formal direction from the institution regarding how the law will affect hiring. In any case, she expressed concern about how the bill may affect UF’s standing.
“I was at a conference recently and other faculty from other universities and post-docs from other universities knew of the law and were concerned,” she said. “So it is something that is being talked about in our community.”
Students unsure about future
Florida’s anti-Chinese laws are becoming more and more commonplace for Chinese students. A Florida law that restricted Chinese individuals’ ability to acquire real estate was very controversial when it was passed in May.
Xinpei “Ryan” Yue was not surprised by the curb on Chinese graduate student recruiting. However, the fifth-year graduate student at the UF Scripps Institute believes that the new law prohibiting Chinese research students from attending Florida public universities won’t have a significant impact on them.
“The United States has 50 states, it’s not just Florida,” he said. “They will go to other states, other countries.”
According to him, Florida colleges would bear the brunt of this as they will be deprived of some of their most talented and diligent students.
The number of new Chinese foreign students at UF fell by 33.4% between 2021 and 2022, while the overall number of new international graduate students at UF reduced by just 0.15%.
Because of the state’s reputation for biological research, beach, and climate, Yue decided to attend Florida State University over offers from a number of other universities, he said. He stated that the present administration will not be able to keep him here, though, because of the palm trees.
“I will definitely not stay in Florida after graduation,” he said. “I will definitely go to a state like California and New York.”
When Zimu Tian first learned about the bill on social media, he immediately assumed it was “just another stupid law” that would discriminate against individuals based only on where they were born. However, after doing more investigation, the UF chemical research assistant claims that the ambiguity of the regulation is his biggest worry.
Application processes are slowed down by the time it takes the administration to interpret its specifics, which is unfair to graduate students, according to Tian. He’s heard on social media that a lot of Chinese applicants are avoiding Florida universities entirely, public or private, due to uncertainty regarding the assessment of the law.
Tian stated that although the law doesn’t directly effect him at the moment, it nevertheless causes him to worry about the future.
“It is possible that it’s just a start of stopping international collaboration between certain countries,” he said. “It makes me nervous.”
Reza Esmaeeli, a doctorate student at UF and head of the Iranian Student Association, claimed that confusion is growing at every stage of the admissions process.
According to Esmaeeli, he is aware of Iranian students who have accepted admission offers from UF but now have to wait to hear back from the university. They don’t know if they should start applying to other schools or if their offer is still valid.
Some Iranian students have already enrolled at UF, but their spouses are still in Iran awaiting a visa. As a result, they fear that their path may be blocked, he added.
“If families are going to stay separated because of this, it will be disastrous,” he said.
He comprehends the U.S.’s desire to defend itself against rivals like Iran, having come from a strict Islamic regime. However, he claimed that barring all Iranian students would harm global scientific advancement as well as academics and the post-graduate employment market in the United States.
“It’s not like if I sit here in Florida and draw a wall around myself and do some experiment and come to a conclusion, I can go to the wall and say, ‘Hey, I discovered something,”’ he said. “It should be accessible to everyone. It should be reproducible. That’s how science works.”
Hejazi’s friend, a leading breast cancer researcher whose papers have received hundreds of citations, has begun applying to schools outside Florida, Hejazi said.
“She was like family to me, and I know how good she is in her experiments and her field,” Hejazi said. “She could do great work for the people who are suffering from this disease.”
According to UF Spokesman Steve Orlando, UF is required to abide by the ban. Deans and center directors have been informed of the law by the administration, he stated. Regarding the interpretation of the law or in response to the petition, UF has not released any additional public statements.
