Florida Hands Down Sociology Curriculum to State Colleges

Beginning this summer, professors at Florida’s 28 community colleges must use the state’s curriculum framework to teach their introduction to sociology courses. According to the state-sanctioned sociology textbook, the framework requires that courses “not include a curriculum that teaches identity politics” or that is “based on assumptions that racial, gender, oppression, and privilege are inherent in United States institutions and designed to maintain social, political, and economic inequality.”

Jose Arevalo, executive vice chancellor of the Florida State College System, shared information about the framework with representatives of Florida’s 26 colleges during a call on Jan. 20, according to an email summary of the call provided Within Higher Ed. The Florida Department of Education distributed teaching materials, including a textbook and a textbook, and requested that institutions submit their current introduction to the social science syllabus, “including detailed assignment schedules, subject calendars, or modules to demonstrate the lessons.”

“This framework serves as a foundation—institutions can add to it but must avoid removing important material or adding content that risks violating state regulations,” Arevalo wrote in an email. “Much of the language of the framework can be copied directly from the syllabus, providing supporting exercises and textbook chapters.”

All state colleges received written guidance this week, according to Robert Cassanello, associate professor of history at the University of Central Florida and president of the United Faculty of Florida union.

“People in the union are really upset,” he said. They see this as a threat to academic freedom. They see the revised letter approved by the Board of Governors as an audited document.

Sociology professors at public universities have received similar instructions through a game of telephone, with instructions relayed verbally from the Board of Governors to provosts, deans, chairs and then faculty, several Florida faculty members reported.

“They are doing everything in their power to avoid being prosecuted,” said Cassanello. “That’s why it’s all about the Board of Directors.”

The seven-page written outline applies only to sociology courses offered at state colleges—not electives. The document prohibits nine discussion points in the course content, including discussions that “state the purpose of today’s institutions to oppress people of color,” “which strongly opposes the diversity between men and women in learned characteristics and behaviors,” and “explains when, how, or why people decide on their gender and/or sexuality.”

The end of the text includes a “recommended lesson plan,” written as a syllabus, outlining seven units, suggested learning activities and course topics. A guide to teaching “social phenomena” includes several opposing views about race and gender. For example, the framework says that while biological sex chromosomes determine different sex characteristics in men and women, they also determine “how women and men behave. This behavior is also influenced by the social compatibility of these characteristics,” the framework says.

“Therefore, in teaching this, one may point out that women and men with the same qualifications enter into different occupations such that certain occupations are mainly carried out by women (that is, dominated by women), others are taken by mainly men (that is, dominated by males) and others have an equal number of female and male workers (that is, a non-gendered structure),” said the draft.

This text also discusses the limitations of personal freedom as a historical phenomenon, not a contemporary one. “Students will learn scientific facts, including demographic characteristics of people who lived during past generations when certain freedoms were restricted” and “how things changed as those restrictions were removed over time,” the outline says.

The state education department is likely to introduce a similar curriculum guide for other areas of study in the future. In his email, Arevalo said the department is working with history professors on a general education curriculum for American history courses that “satisfy the needs of social literacy.” The results of the exercise may be revealed as soon as April, he said.

Implicit Coercion

The curriculum barely covers the social politics of state education officials, said Katie Rainwater, a visiting professor of international and social studies at Florida International University who has taught introductory sociology courses. Many of Florida’s higher education decision makers come from think tanks and colleges, including Hillsdale College, where Arevalo earned his Ph.D. the Claremont Institute; and the Heritage Foundation.

“They are working very deliberately in the office of the Department of Education with these people who eat money,” said Rainwater. “What we are seeing is that … people who interact with this national organization fighting for human rights remove ideas that they don’t want students to be exposed to.”

The draft was created by a “work group of social scientists,” Arevalo said in his email. It is not clear whether the social science professors were the ones who created the book that was approved by the government late last year. That group met with four members of the Board of Trustees and four members of the faculty, but Phillip Wisely, a sociology professor at Florida Southwestern State College, was expelled from the group by state Education Commissioner Anastasios Kamoustsas for allegedly “advocating sexism” in his sociology class. Wisely, he is suspended from his teaching position, Cassanello said.

Florida Department of Education spokespeople did not immediately respond Within Higher EdRequest for comment on Friday.

It’s unclear how faculty members who don’t follow written or verbal guidelines will be disciplined, but faculty say they’re sure there will be some kind of backlash for ignoring the rules.

Zachary Levenson, a professor of sociology at Florida International University, said his department asked the provost for clarification on the rules and did not receive any details.

“We wrote to the provost … and said, ‘Please tell us what we cannot teach, what we should teach, and what the sanctions would be for violating this,'” he said. “He didn’t elaborate. He said … ‘There are no individual sanctions that I can say'” and then referred them to the Florida state guide to rule 1007.25, which outlines general education rules and qualification requirements.

He predicts that the punishment can be a sanction against the institution through the use of the sanction, or the discipline of the individual. Levenson moved to Florida to teach just two and a half years ago, but said he wants to stay in the state so he can fight for himself.

“This happens everywhere, but it’s starting to happen here,” said Levenson. “It was happening when I was teaching in Texas, North Carolina, but not like this. So if we don’t hide it … it will continue to spread across the country.”