{"id":174432,"date":"2026-03-02T00:34:11","date_gmt":"2026-03-02T00:34:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/174432\/"},"modified":"2026-03-02T00:34:11","modified_gmt":"2026-03-02T00:34:11","slug":"faculty-raises-concerns-over-floridas-censored-sociology-textbook-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/174432\/","title":{"rendered":"Faculty raises concerns over Florida\u2019s censored sociology textbook | News"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"UCF<\/p>\n

Howard Phillips Hall houses the anthropology department and Native American History courses at UCF.<\/p>\n

Benjamin Huber<\/p>\n

The Florida Board of Governors created and distributed a sanitized version of a sociology textbook<\/a> for state-university usage in general education courses in January and February, which may affect sociology at UCF.<\/p>\n

A common textbook, \u201cIntroduction to Sociology 3e,\u201d\u00a0was cut from 669 pages to 267 pages to comply with Senate Bill<\/a> 266, which\u00a0was signed into law in May 2023. The bill limits general education courses from the discussion of topics that may \u201csuppress or distort significant historical events\u201d or include curriculum based on theories that systemic racism, sexism, oppression\u00a0or privilege are inherent in U.S. institutions.<\/p>\n

Currently, UCF is not adopting this textbook, leaving faculty with a lack of clarity.<\/p>\n

According to an article by\u00a0Insider Higher Ed<\/a>, the\u00a0textbook removes chapters on race, gender, sexuality, social stratification, media\u00a0and technology. The word \u201cracism\u201d was written in the book 115 times, but now only appears six\u00a0times and the usage of the word \u201ctransgender\u201d dropped from 68 to one.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe textbook they are recommending has removed an entire chapter on gender, race, and removed two chapters, one on inequality in the United States and one on global inequality, and removed significant sections elsewhere in the book,\u201d Michael\u00a0Armato, associate lecturer of sociology, said.<\/p>\n

In a sociology webinar hosted by the United Faculty of Florida, the discussion on this topic\u00a0went more in-depth about\u00a0the textbook. The revised version not only removes certain topics but also reframes established sociological theories to make the content easier for students at the introductory level, professors said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey have shifted the language from conflict theory to other conflict perspectives to weaken its academic merit,\u201d said Evan Lauteria, assistant instructional professor in sociology at the University of Florida.<\/p>\n

\"UCF<\/p>\n

The revised version of the “Introduction to Sociology 3e” textbook raised concerns across the state and in the UCF sociology department. The Florida Board of Governors removed content early this year, addressing race, gender, sexuality, social stratification, media and technology to comply with Senate Bill 266<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Courtesy of the Sociology Department<\/p>\n

The sociology department at UCF has received no written guidance from its\u00a0administrators and has been told only verbally about not being required to use these materials, which Armato said is alarming.<\/p>\n

“Allowing the Board of Governors to work on a censored textbook is giving up far too much ground when it comes to academic freedom,” said Robert Cassanello, president of the United Faculty of Florida and history professor at UCF.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere was not a lot of transparency in this process,\u201d Cassanello added. \u201cI don\u2019t even know how they arrived at the idea of creating an edited textbook in the first place.\u201d<\/p>\n

The topics being removed put students at Florida universities at risk of not gaining full knowledge of the basis of sociology, which could affect their education and careers in the future, Armato said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThey are asking us not to teach things that are, frankly, bread-and-butter topics in the field. Basic sociology concepts that are part of our discipline,\u201d Armato said. \u201cThat is troubling because faculty are supposed to have academic freedom to teach in areas of expertise that we have Ph.D.s in.\u201d<\/p>\n

While UCF is not currently requiring faculty to use this revised textbook, the lack of written guidance has left professors uncertain and cautious.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is not ideology. This knowledge is produced through decades of research, peer review, and the scientific method,” Armato said. “Restricting that produces ignorance about how the world works.”\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Howard Phillips Hall houses the anthropology department and Native American History courses at UCF. Benjamin Huber The Florida…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":174433,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[4401,1167,115,139,141,140],"class_list":["post-174432","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-orlando","tag-academics","tag-administration","tag-news","tag-orlando","tag-orlando-headlines","tag-orlando-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/174432","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=174432"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/174432\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/174433"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=174432"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=174432"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=174432"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}