A Battle Over Florida’s General Education Courses

Florida International University’s Board of Trustees voted last week to drop 22 courses from the core curriculum, including Anthropology of Race & Ethnicity, Introduction to LGBTQ+ Studies, and Sociology of Gender. The move follows last year’s passage of SB 266, a sweeping higher ed bill that, among other things, limits the scope of general education courses permitted at public universities.

The FIU vote passed despite concerns by faculty and the American Association of University Professors, who allege that administrators are overstepping on curricular matters, which are traditionally the purview of the professoriate. Only two trustees voted against the move.

Critics have raised many concerns about Florida’s SB 266, which cut off funding for diversity, equity and inclusion programming, introduced post-tenure review for faculty members, and undercut collective bargaining. But its provision to reshape the general education curriculum has gone relatively unnoticed, playing out quietly on campuses over the summer and fall in a process that some faculty see as a betrayal of shared governance norms.

The state has already dropped Principles of Sociology from all general education offerings; last year state officials declared the discipline inherently liberal. Now more courses are on the chopping block: Starting next fall, students across Florida’s 40 public institutions will have many fewer gen ed options to choose from, particularly on the subjects of race, gender, sexuality and diversity.

The revisions are driven by a Florida statute established as part of SB 266 that states core courses “may not distort significant historical events or include a curriculum that teaches identity politics … or is based on theories that systemic racism, sexism, oppression, and privilege are inherent in the institutions of the United States and were created to maintain social, political, and economic inequities.”

Tensions at FIU

In a statement at last week’s FIU Board of Trustees meeting, Faculty Senate chair Noël Barengo argued that the curricular revisions seemed to go beyond what is called for by state law, alleging that the process was clandestinely driven by the Florida Board of Governors.

“This appears to be … an arbitrary opinion of the [Board of Governors] staff unsupported by anything in writing. If the BOG wishes to establish such a regulation, they can do so,” he said. “However, this proposed regulation would have to be properly vetted, including a public comment period. The absence of such written guidelines makes our job of revising the general education curriculum impossible.”

Until the BOG establishes such guidelines, he suggested that “these forced changes to our [core curriculum] be delayed.”

Barengo also disputed the notion that any of the canceled courses included distorted historical events or were based on unproven, speculative or exploratory content, which would run afoul of state law.

Katie Rainwater, a professor in the Global and Sociocultural Studies Department, teaches two courses that will be affected by the change: Introduction to Sociology and Sociology of Gender. She worries about what cutting them from general education will mean for students.

“Learning about race, gender, LGBTQ+ issues, issues of low-wage workers is relevant and important to our students,” Rainwater said. “We’re a majority-minority university. Most of our students come from working-class families. I think this kind of content helps them make sense of the social world, to understand systems of oppression and to learn about social movements that have created potential for people from these groups to experience more freedom. I think it’s a big loss.”

But FIU has defended its processes.

At a Faculty Senate meeting last month, Provost Elizabeth Béjar argued the university had worked to include the professoriate in the process of dropping or altering courses, noting that she thought other institutions had not engaged faculty to the same degree.

“We have done our level best to keep the faculty informed,” Béjar said.

“At FIU we value and respect faculty governance,” Jennifer L. Doherty-Restrepo, FIU’s assistant vice president for academic planning and accountability, wrote in a statement to Inside Higher Ed. “The Office of the Provost and Faculty Senate convened subject-matter faculty workgroups in Fall 2023 to review general education courses to ensure alignment with the standards outlined in the applicable state statutes.”

After they identified which courses to drop or change, “the President and Board of Trustees reviewed and approved a list of general education course offerings to be considered for approval by the Florida Board of Governors,” she wrote.

State Outlook

FIU is not alone in making sweeping changes to its general education curriculum; all Florida’s public institutions were required to undergo similar revisions. But few others have reported on or shared their efforts to comply with SB 266.

Of the dozen members of Florida’s State University System, most did not respond to a request for comment from Inside Higher Ed, or did not provide statements on how changes were enacted. The Florida Board of Governors also did not respond to a request for comment, and a public records request on revisions across all 40 institutions was not fulfilled prior to publication.

Besides FIU, only the University of North Florida and Florida A&M University offered a statement on the changes.

“UNF began an institutional review of its general education offerings in Fall 2022, which was a semester before the legislation was passed. A faculty-led task force was constituted to complete this review, and when the legislation was implemented, members of the task force remained to draft and review options for general education curriculum offerings that adhered to the state’s new guidelines,” spokesperson Amanda Ennis wrote by email. “Courses were removed for various reasons, including if they fit the state’s new definitions for the core categories.”

Florida A&M spokesperson Alonda Thomas shared a link to course changes and cuts approved last month. “We were not adversely affected by the general course changes,” she wrote. “The process involved collaboration between program faculty, program leaders, and the Division of Academic Affairs to review existing general education courses and ensure they conform to institutional and State requirements.”

Local and national media have largely ignored the story, except for some coverage on changes to general education courses at Florida Atlantic University and the University of South Florida.

But the matter has attracted the attention of the American Association of University Professors.

Isaac Kamola, director of the AAUP’s Center for the Defense of Academic Freedom and a political science professor at Trinity College in Connecticut, spoke virtually to the FIU Board of Trustees at last week’s meeting. He raised concerns that the “Faculty Senate was bypassed” and that revisions were driven by BOG staff.

In an interview with Inside Higher Ed, Kamola pointed to SB 266 as an example of a legislative attack on higher education, which he has written about in the past. Kamola cited the sweeping changes implemented across Florida in response to the law, from the closure of DEI offices to content restrictions, which he views as an attack on academic freedom.

“This seems to be another example of the Legislature giving greater authority to political appointees to make decisions over all aspects of the university, including curriculum,” he said.

Kevin Grove, a geography professor at FIU, offered a similar view.

Grove said the revisions are part of a long-term effort “to dismantle higher education and impose ideological agendas and to impose state censorship on what can be taught within public higher education systems that’s being directed from the highest levels of state government.”

Though none of his classes were affected, Grove is concerned about FIU’s Global and Sociocultural Studies Department. The cross-disciplinary department integrates anthropology, geography and sociology. Popular classes—including Sociology of Gender —enroll more than 100 students, offer multiple sections and serve as an introduction to the discipline. Without those courses, departmental numbers will fall, and fewer majors will likely enroll without an introductory class. As numbers fall, so will the funding that flows from the state to individual departments.

But Grove suspects that is precisely the point of scaling back general education course options.

“As they’re removed from the core curriculum, you’re going to see an artificial enrollment crater that’s being manufactured by the Board of Governors. This has long-term implications, not only for the health of departments, but for the very existence of departments such as sociology, anthropology, women and gender studies, African American and diaspora studies,” Grove said. “These are all programs whose very existence could be called into question in the future.”