As the spring semester began, Texas A&M required a professor to remove Plato from his syllabus, deeming the ancient philosopher a proponent of “race and gender ideology” in violation of new teaching regulations. The incident illustrates the absurdity of new censorious laws banning widely studied texts, an authoritarian impulse that is quickly spreading.
At Florida International University (FIU) where we teach sociology, instructors are now required to teach our popular introductory course with materials produced by staff from the Board of Governors (BOG), the body that oversees Florida’s public universities. The state has gone from prescribing what cannot be taught to dictating what must be taught.
Katie Rainwater is a visiting teaching professor of sociology at Florida International University. (courtesy, Katie Rainwater)
In January 2024, the BOG removed Intro to Sociology from the statewide general education curriculum, with then-Education Commissioner Manny Diaz asserting that the discipline “has been hijacked by left-wing activists.” Sociology courses were among those culled from university-level general education curriculums as university leadership moved to comply with 2023’s SB 266, a law prohibiting teaching “theories that systemic racism, sexism, oppression and privilege are inherent in the institutions of the United States.” The Basic Ideas of Sociology course was quickly removed, but surprisingly, Intro to Sociology was allowed to remain. Faculty speculated that the course was spared because it prepares students for the MCAT, a medical school admittance exam with sociological content.
Last fall, Intro instructors were required to submit syllabi for BOG review. The BOG found all FIU syllabi “out of compliance,” and a statewide sociology working group was convened. While the group initially included four sociologists, it was controlled by BOG staff, who decided that no existing textbook was compliant with state law.
The working group produced a censored “Florida version” of the textbook. A team of University of Florida sociologists found the working group’s course outline presented “a distorted representation of the field” as major topics — “notably stratification, race, class and gender” — are diminished or absent. The “narrow, incomplete version of sociology” would fail to even prepare students for the MCAT, as it excluded most of the sociological content covered on the exam.
Typically, a university’s faculty makes curricular decisions in accordance with their professional training and experience. In defiance of this well-established norm, decisions are now being made by state-appointed actors like Scott Yenor. An academic associated with the right-wing think tanks Heritage Foundation and Claremont Institute, Yenor also served on the board of American Reformer, a journal offering a forum for the discussion of Christian nationalism.
Zachary Levenson is a sociology professor at Florida International University. (courtesy, Zachary Levenson)
The Claremont Institute’s Center for the American Way of Life sent Yenor to Florida to further its stated project of “destroying and reconquering” public higher education institutions. In this role, Yenor advised DeSantis and decided which courses could remain within general education. As he later recalled, “you just went through and identified the ones that were left-wing ideology, and they eliminated them.”
Last January, after DeSantis appointed Yenor to the University of West Florida (UWF) Board of Trustees, community members revolted. In a well-publicized talk, Yenor derided professional women as “medicated, meddlesome and quarrelsome” and argued they were “a fundamental threat to strong, fruitful families.”
The chair of the Escambia County Commission, MAGA Republican Mike Kohler, insisted to his state senator that Yenor “would drag us many steps backward,” as his “public remarks, none of them retracted, denigrate women, non-Christians and racial minorities” and “cast a chill on a university that has always been there for the betterment of all people.” In the face of widespread opposition, Yenor stepped down from the UWF Board of Trustees.
But if Yenor was deemed, in the words of right-wing U.S. Rep. Randy Fine (R-FL), too much of “a flat-out misogynist and bigot” to serve as a trustee at a single Florida university, why was he empowered to make curricular decisions for our entire statewide university system?
Last October, Education Commissioner Anastasious Kamoutsas publicly lambasted Florida SouthWestern State College Professor Phillip Wiseley for “unlawfully” teaching “gender ideology,” removing him from the aforementioned working group and prompting his indefinite suspension as faculty. The message that Kamoustas was sending was clear: Toe the state’s line or your job is at stake.
Now, just as the public did in response to Yenor’s appointment, we need to be equally clear. Universities must remain spaces of free inquiry. Only in authoritarian states do politicians and their appointees dictate curricula and textbooks to professors. Is Florida now an authoritarian state?
Katie Rainwater and Zachary Levenson are both sociology professors at Florida International University. The opinions expressed are the authors’ own and do not reflect the views of their employer.
