Students at Florida’s 12 public universities will no longer be able to fulfill their general education requirements by taking an introductory sociology course.
On Thursday, the Florida Board of Governors unexpectedly voted to remove Introduction to Sociology from institutions’ general education curriculum offerings, The Miami Herald reported.
“Sociology as a discipline is now social and political advocacy dressed in the regalia of the academy,” Ray Rodrigues, chancellor of the State University System, said at the board meeting at the University of West Florida in Pensacola. As a discipline, he added, sociology has been “ideologically captured.”
It’s the latest move in Florida’s Republican-led attacks on undergraduate curricular offerings—with a particular focus on sociology—that they claim advance a “woke” left-wing agenda preoccupied with attributing inequality to systemic racism and sexism.
In 2023, the Florida Legislature passed Senate Bill 266, prohibiting general education courses from including topics that “distort significant historical events,” teach “identity politics” or are “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.” Then, in January 2024, the Board of Governors voted to remove sociology from the state’s approved core course requirements. One year later, the board removed hundreds of additional courses, including many focused on race and gender, from general education offerings at all state universities.
However, universities were allowed to keep sociology as part of their institution-level core course requirement offerings. Most kept it, while the University of South Florida, Florida A&M University, the University of North Florida and Florida Gulf Coast University requested to drop it.
But last summer, the state asked to review the syllabi, textbooks and other course materials that would be used to teach Introduction to Sociology at all of its universities during the fall 2025 semester. The review found that none of the course materials aligned with state statutes.
Soon after, a working group composed of sociologists and state board administrators formed to provide recommendations on how the courses could come into compliance with state law. The result was a controversial state-approved framework and companion textbook, which critics characterized as “sanitized.” In February, the state told all of its 28 public colleges and 12 public universities that they must use the materials starting this summer.
But on Thursday, Rodrigues cited faculty complaints about the new sociology framework and textbook—some have described it as “subpar” and an “affront to academic freedom”—as part of his motivation for calling to ban sociology from institution-level general education offerings altogether, The Miami Herald reported. He also mentioned hearing reports that some faculty plan to still teach restricted topics, which he said undermined his confidence in keeping sociology as part of universities’ general education offerings.
The change doesn’t apply to the state’s 28 public colleges, which can still offer introductory sociology as a general education course using the state-approved framework. Meanwhile, the universities will still be able to offer sociology as an elective course. But faculty have already warned that removing it from the general education list will likely lead to lower enrollment and even less support for sociology departments across the state.
