A Nov 29, 2018 file photo showing students and passers-by carry book bags as they walk past an entrance to Boston University College of Arts and Sciences MIAMI: Two graduate students from China whose studies were put on hold, and a professor who says he is unable to recruit research assistants, sued Florida education officials on Monday trying to stop enforcement of a new state law which limits research exchanges between state universities and academics from seven prohibited countries.
The law is discriminatory, unconstitutional and reminiscent of the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, which instituted a 10-year ban on Chinese labourers immigrating to the United States, according to the lawsuit filed in federal court in Miami. The law has forced two of the plaintiffs who are from China to put their graduate studies at Florida International University on hold and denied them entry into their research labs. The University of Florida professor who also is originally from China said the law has stopped him from recruiting the most qualified postdoctoral candidates to assist with his research, which has slowed his publishing productivity and research projects, according to the lawsuit.
According to the law, international students from the prohibited countries can be hired on a case-by-case basis with approval from the Board of Governors which oversees state universities or the state Board of Education, but the lawsuit said the law's “vagueness and lack of adequate guidance empowers and encourages arbitrary and discriminatory enforcement across Florida.”