The Florida “Brain-Drain” Study Is Flawed

A new study by two University of Southern California economists claims that Florida’s 2022 post-tenure-review law caused a significant exodus of professors from the state’s public universities. According to researchers Simon Quach and Zhengyi Yu, the policy led to the departure of “high-performing researchers,” failed to improve faculty productivity, and diminished the research quality of new hires. Yet the authors grossly overstate the policy’s impact while curiously downplaying the possible effect on faculty of the state’s aggressive rollbacks of diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) initiatives.

The new policy, enacted through Senate Bill 7044 on April 19, 2022, requires tenured faculty at Florida’s public universities to undergo performance reviews every five years. Those rated “unsatisfactory” may be terminated, while underperforming faculty are placed on probation. By September 2024, the first round of reviews had led to 10 firings and 64 probation warnings among 861 reviewed professors.

To evaluate the policy’s impact, the researchers employed a difference-in-differences method, comparing Florida faculty outcomes to those in other South Atlantic states. They found that the likelihood of professors leaving Florida public universities increased by roughly one percentage point post-policy, a 26-percent relative jump. The effect was especially pronounced among younger, more productive faculty in non-STEM fields. Meanwhile, those who stayed showed no measurable boost in research output, and the publication records of new hires allegedly declined.

The study’s claims rest on a fragile premise: that the post-tenure review process is primarily responsible for faculty departures. On its face, the study appears somewhat damaging to the case for post-tenure-review policies. But its claims rest on a fragile premise: that the post-tenure review process is primarily responsible for faculty departures. In reality, the study isolates one variable in a storm of sweeping changes to Florida’s public higher-education system. The authors gloss over the most obvious compounding factor: Governor Ron DeSantis’s broader campaign to reorient Florida’s universities ideologically.

Many of its findings come with large confidence intervals, making the strength of its conclusions questionable. By 2022, Florida was not merely tweaking tenure rules. It had launched a frontal assault on what DeSantis called “woke indoctrination” in higher education. Alongside SB 7044 came the Stop WOKE Act, restricting how race and gender could be taught; the ideological remaking of New College of Florida; a 2023 ban on DEI offices and trainings; and new limits on gender and race instruction. These reforms disproportionately affected the humanities and social sciences, precisely where the USC researchers found faculty exits were most concentrated.

The study tries to dismiss this context by noting that private universities in Florida didn’t see similar exit patterns. But this proves little. Private institutions weren’t subject to any of the new policies. Their curricular freedom and governance remain untouched. Citing their stability to isolate one public-sector policy among many is a methodological sleight of hand.

The study also suffers from more structural weaknesses. Many of its findings come with large confidence intervals, making the strength of its conclusions questionable. For instance, the decline in new-hire quality may be statistically insignificant—a detail buried beneath the headline findings. Moreover, the selection of control states is problematic: None experienced controversies or policy shifts in higher education remotely comparable to the intensity and scope of Florida’s upheaval, undermining the validity of the comparative analysis.

Perhaps the most telling sign that something else is going on lies in the disciplinary breakdown. The exit surge was concentrated in non-STEM fields—the very areas most targeted by DeSantis’s reforms. Yet the authors curiously downplay this, focusing instead on a finding that faculty with “white-sounding” names were more likely to leave. From this, they argue that DEI rollbacks weren’t a factor. That logic is flimsy. It assumes, oddly, that only nonwhite faculty object to ideological crackdowns on DEI. Even passing familiarity with academic and broader political coalitions gives the lie to this contention. The authors’ conclusion baselessly assumes that white researchers are unaffected by and unconcerned with sweeping DEI reforms.

Ultimately, the study inadvertently underscores the very thing it tries to sidestep: Florida’s post-tenure review was not an isolated policy but part of a larger ideological project. Treating it as a lone lever ignores the bigger story. A small minority of faculty left because the nature of their institutions changed. Accountability alone wasn’t the issue; culture, autonomy, and mission were. Reformers who want to reshape higher ed should take note. But if we want reliable research, we need to disentangle single policies from sweeping political upheaval—and this study fails to do that.

Sherman Criner is a junior at Duke University studying public policy, history, and political science and a 2025 Martin Center intern.