Florida\u2019s higher education board \u201ccensored\u201d a general education sociology textbook, the state\u2019s faculty union says, cutting more than half of the book\u2019s original content and removing chapters on racism, genocide and inequality.<\/p>\n
The book, which is now required for introductory sociology courses at Florida State University, was edited down from 669 pages to 267. The state\u2019s cuts removed references and chapters on media and technology, global inequality, race and ethnicity, social stratification, and gender, sex and sexuality.<\/p>\n
The term \u201cracism,\u201d for example, appeared 115 times in the original version but six times in the revised one, according to the faculty union. The edited version also removed a section on the government-sanctioned genocide of Native Americans.<\/p>\n
The book changes are the latest skirmish in the state\u2019s battle against what it considers \u201cwoke\u201d liberal influences on education. In recent years Gov. Ron DeSantis and Florida\u2019s Republican-dominated legislature have also started reworking college curriculums, cut diversity, equity and inclusion programs and completely overhauled the leadership and direction of the once-progressive New College in Sarasota.<\/p>\n
The Florida Board of Governors, which oversees the state\u2019s public universities, did not respond to questions about the textbook edits.<\/p>\n
Professors said they were told by university administrators that the textbook was cut to comply with a 2023 state law prohibiting general education college courses that \u201cdistort significant historical events or include a curriculum that teaches identity politics.\u201d<\/p>\n
The original book was a free, \u201copen\u201d textbook written by 13 contributing authors from colleges across the country.<\/p>\n
The same law also prompted state agencies that govern colleges and universities in 2024 to remove introductory sociology from Florida\u2019s core course list. Students may still take the class but it does not fulfill their general education requirements.<\/p>\n
Then-Education Commissioner Manny Diaz said the principles of sociology class was removed from the list because it included \u201ccurriculum that teaches identity politics or theories.\u201d At the time, DeSantis called sociology \u201chighly ideological\u201d and \u201cnot the type of academic rigor that we\u2019re looking for.\u201d<\/p>\n
The edited textbook is not required to be used, but FSU made it mandatory starting this summer. The University of Florida said it made it an optional additional resource for its sociology instructors.<\/p>\n
The University of Central Florida it is not requiring it, according to sociology faculty.<\/p>\n
But Robert Cassanello, the president of the United Faculty of Florida and a history professor at UCF, said universities, even if not adopting the state-sanctioned book, may be editing other sociology texts to comply with state law.<\/p>\n
The union voted recently to condemn what it called a \u201cstate-created curriculum.\u201d<\/p>\n
Lawmakers and state boards appointed by the governor shouldn\u2019t be making the call about college student textbooks, Cassanello and others said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe legislation assumes that lawmakers are content experts, that lawmakers have curricular expertise, and they do not,\u201d he said. \u201cThat\u2019s dead square in the middle of why we have academic freedom, so lawmakers do not interfere in the classroom.\u201d<\/p>\n
Cassanello said he fears textbooks for history and psychology could soon meet the same fate.<\/p>\n
And he expects students will be upset.<\/p>\n
\u201cLawmakers are trying to handcuff them and silence their professors. Students take that personally. They\u2019re adults, they don\u2019t want to be treated like children,\u201d Cassanello said.<\/p>\n
During a virtual seminar hosted this week by the union, other sociologists echoed similar frustrations.<\/p>\n
Faculty at the seminar said they felt the state\u2019s committee that made the textbook cuts did so without their input and behind closed doors.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt really operated in the dark,\u201d said Zachary Levenson, associate professor of sociology at FIU.<\/p>\n
Aldon Morris, an emeritus professor of sociology at Northwestern University and former president of the American Sociological Association, said sociology threatens political conservatives like DeSantis because it reveals injustices.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey want to create this false narrative by whitewashing and erasing real American history. They attack sociology because they know that it has evidenced, documented and illuminated these existing inequality inequalities and show that they are increasing rather than dissipating,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Florida\u2019s higher education board \u201ccensored\u201d a general education sociology textbook, the state\u2019s faculty union says, cutting more than…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":163732,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[113,114,266,115,139,141,140,109],"class_list":["post-163731","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-orlando","tag-education","tag-latest-headlines","tag-local-news","tag-news","tag-orlando","tag-orlando-headlines","tag-orlando-news","tag-social"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/163731","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=163731"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/163731\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/163732"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=163731"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=163731"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=163731"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}