All 12 of Florida’s state universities have had classes moved from the core curriculum to the list of electives by the state’s Board of Governors; mostly sociology, anthropology, and history classes. NBC6’s Ari Odzer reports
When students come back to Florida International University in the fall, they will have 29 fewer courses to choose from in the core curriculum. Those classes will still be offered, but they won’t count as bachelor’s degree requirements.
All 12 of Florida’s state universities are in the same boat, all have had classes moved from the core to the list of electives by the state’s Board of Governors; mostly sociology, anthropology, and history classes.
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WATCH HERE“I think it’s an effort to appease to the current political climate, but I think it’s important for students to take sociology courses,” said FIU sophomore Zulinda Diaz, who said sociology classes help students understand and adapt to the world around them.
Meeting on Thursday in Jacksonville, the board approved the curriculum changes to comply with a 2023 state law which was pushed hard by Gov. Ron DeSantis.
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“Our institutions are gonna be graduating students with degrees that are gonna be meaningful, we don’t want students to go through at taxpayer expense and graduate with a degree in zombie studies so this is gonna make a difference,” DeSantis said when the law was passed.
The chancellor of the state university system, Ray Rodrigues, told the Board of Governors that a Gallup poll showed only 36% of Americans approved of higher education in this country.
“The number one reason was political agendas, a belief that higher education has turned into indoctrination,” Rodrigues said.
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“We have never seen ourselves as indoctrinators, we are educators, we are educators who are trying to help our students get a good job, a good education, be ready for the global marketplace,” said Tania Lopez, who is an associate professor of English at FIU and the faculty union leader.
Her courses are not impacted by the changes, but she says the curriculum restrictions remind her of why she escaped communist Cuba.
“In my experience, indoctrination never happens from the teacher to the students, indoctrination usually happens from the state to the people,” Lopez said.
To comply with the law, the Board reclassified course that have “unproven, speculative, or exploratory” content or any that are “based on theories that systematic racism, sexism, oppression and privilege are inherent in the institutions of the United States,” broad categories which are open to interpretation.
“We can confidently say that our general education courses that students have to take to graduate will not contain indoctrinating concepts, no other public system can say that,” Rodrigues said.
Of course, how the state defines indoctrination is part of the issue here. Professor Lopez said with Florida’s state university currently ranked among the best nationally, why fix what isn’t broken?
