How Ron DeSantis won the pandemic with cancel culture

I assume Intellectual Horse Paste SubStack is aflame over this partisan and authoritarian attack on a major research university:

Fear of upsetting state officials is pervasive among faculty at the University of Florida, to the point that race-related references have been edited out of course materials and researchers felt pressure to destroy COVID-19 data, according to a report released Monday by a Faculty Senate committee. The six-person panel was convened three weeks ago to investigate academic freedom issues after the university decided to bar three political science professors from testifying in a lawsuit against the state. But its findings go well beyond that episode and were so disturbing — especially regarding COVID-19 research — that the group decided to speed up its work, said Danaya Wright, a constitutional law professor and former Faculty Senate chairperson who served on the committee.

[…]

The report discusses several “challenges” faced by UF researchers who were working on COVID-19 with an unidentified state entity. It describes “external pressure to destroy” data as well as “barriers” to accessing, analyzing and publishing the numbers. Taken together, the report said, those problems “inhibited the ability of faculty to contribute scientific findings during a world-wide pandemic.”

The fact that the COVID death data in Florida are so dire despite DeSantis leaning on researchers to cook the books makes you wonder how much more atrocious things would look if we had accurate numbers. It’s also unnecessary — DeSantis’s supporters see high COVID death rates as a badge of honor — but the cruelty is etc.