Many who attend and work at Florida's public universities and colleges have their eyes on two bills moving through the legislature.
One professor said he's worried they could bring about new limits to academic freedom.
“I think it’s really dog whistle politics,” shared Matthew Marr.
Marr is an associate professor of sociology at Florida International University. He said these bills would be detrimental to our state’s public institutions.
“Most fields from medicine to business, are now very interdisciplinary,” he explained. “Those fields that maybe not be humanities or social sciences, if they can’t teach things like critical theories, understanding intersectionality or how people of different positions engage in medicine…it’s really going to take down the university as a whole.”
While the House and Senate bills have different language, they both would allow the State Board of Governors to oversee the curriculum of public institutions and provide certain direction.
Some lawmakers said it could potentially affect what majors and minors can be taught.
“In this bill—major or minor, is that determined by the name of the major, or the material of the major, or the content of the class? I’m confused by your definition,” asked a Democrat lawmaker to the sponsor of the House bill.
“I don’t provide a definition,” shared House bill sponsor Alex Andrade. “Again, we depend on the state universities to identify exactly what that means based on commonly understood terminology, and we also direct the board of governors to provide those definitions in their rule-making authority as they progress through the year.”
That statement from Andrade was made several weeks ago and he received pushback on the bill, specifically for its language that said schools would ensure students are not taught “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.”
The Senate bill says the same thing.
The Senate bill's cosponsor shared, “Nothing in this bill is meant to prohibit speech or to keep facts from being presented.”
But some faculty feel otherwise
“I teach Introduction to Sociology, which teaches that inequality is systemic across race and ethnic, gender, and class lines,” Marr said. “I don’t intend to change any of the way I teach it. You can’t teach Introduction to Sociology without teaching systemic inequality.”
The bills also make it more difficult for professors to hold tenure and change how their tenure is reviewed. It also creates three "civic institutes" at three state universities.
It’s this language that’s caused rallies at Florida Atlantic University, Florida Agricultural and Mechanical University and FIU.
“Just because they have been voted in doesn’t mean they have a blank slate to destroy our public education,” Marr said.
While language is still being weeded out in both bills, they will have to be reconciled before next Friday before potentially reaching the Governor’s desk.
