BY KATIE RAINWATER AND MARTHA SCHOOLMAN

University administrations in red states (including Texas and Florida) are increasingly using vague statutes and oral directives to pressure faculty to trade away their academic freedom. In Florida, departments in at least two universities—including Florida International University, where we both teach—recently adopted a censored Introduction to Sociology textbook and course outline in response to administrative oral directives.

Our newly formed Faculty Senate Ad Hoc Committee on Academic Freedom responded to this adoption with resolutions supporting uncensored sociology instruction, and, critically, guardrails against the dismantling of our professional academic standards via oral fiat.

How did the curriculum at the US’s largest Hispanic-Serving Institution become subject to a bumbling game of telephone? The simple answer is that the far-right transformation of higher education that our termed-out Governor Ron DeSantis is rushing to complete requires vague threats and voluntary self-censorship to succeed beyond what the law permits.

Governor DeSantis’s first effort to legislate our teaching was his so-called Stop WOKE Act (HB 7) in 2022, which aimed to prevent instruction on structural racism. The higher education portions of the act were enjoined by the Orwell-quoting circuit judge Mark Walker, who called the state’s arguments against academic freedom “positively dystopian.”

Walker’s injunction, still in force, held that the state could not restrict points of view but left the door open for legislating which topics are taught. That distinction resulted in a second, double-down bill in 2023, SB 266, which restricted general education curriculum in vague language but to devastating effect:

“General education core courses may not distort significant historical events or include a curriculum that teaches identity politics […] or is 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.”

We still do not know how these restrictions relate to our teaching. Under the leadership of Chief Academic Officer Jason Jewell, a right-wing activist and a promoter of so-called classical Christian  education, the Board of Governors has simply declared syllabi (including all Introduction to Sociology syllabi taught at FIU in fall 2025) “out of compliance” without further explanation.

When relayed to FIU, that judgment prompted our university administration to request the convening of a statewide working group that would develop a compliant Introduction to Sociology curriculum. The working group included sociologists from two Florida universities and two state colleges, as well as nonspecialist staffers from the Board of Governors, including Jewell. Shortly after the working group convened, Florida’s Commissioner of Education removed one of its members on suspicion of teaching “gender ideology.” The working group nonetheless soldiered on, producing a compliant course outline. After staffers determined that no published Introduction to Sociology textbook met their standards, the working group slapped together a censored textbook as well.

The flaws in this system should be self-evident, but our colleagues in sociology had difficulty finding the institutional traction to resist. Our academic freedom committee aims to provide this traction.

After department leadership received requests to jettison their already-completed syllabi and textbooks and replace them with the board-produced materials, one tenured member of the faculty objected and contacted our committee.

After discussions with the committee and faculty union leadership, the faculty member worked with his colleagues to compose a six-page letter to the academic freedom committee, which the department voted overwhelmingly to support (19-0, with one abstention).

The faculty member then presented the letter to the full senate. In response, the academic freedom committee composed two resolutions, which passed overwhelmingly. The first, on which we focus here, proposed a series of measures to create friction in the overly efficient process by which BOG staff directives translate into curricular changes and outline the kind of protections we continue to expect.

The Faculty Senate urges the university administration to recommit to our agreed-upon standards of academic freedom by adopting the following policies:

1. The university administration will not develop or solicit a uniform syllabus or reading list for any course for any reason.
2. The university administration will not suggest, initiate, or create any working group or committee designed to curtail faculty academic freedom (e.g., by selecting course materials for other faculty or restricting the contents of their classes).
3. The university administration will not suggest or recommend that faculty serve on any such committee.
4. The university administration will not act upon BOG or BOG staff–initiated curricular requests unless they are made in writing.
5. The university will not penalize faculty (whether full-time or adjunct) for teaching their expertise.
6. Departments will recognize and respect principles of academic freedom and the collectively bargained obligation to defend the exercise of academic freedom when making curricular decisions.

The resolution is no panacea. Faculty senates in Florida are only advisory. The passage of the resolution will not undo the damage done or counteract the tendency of some faculty to overcomply. What it does is set collective expectations for how the administration and faculty should conduct themselves. The impact of the resolution could be amplified by the engagement of the faculty union, the United Faculty of Florida, which could launch a political education campaign to steel the faculty’s resolve to ask for administrative directives in writing.

Ironically, Florida is famous for its “sunshine” laws, but these curricular abuses are thriving in the dark. It is our obligation to use all institutional means available to us, including our faculty senates, to insist that they be documented and held up to the light.

Katie Rainwater is an adjunct professor of sociology and Martha Schoolman is an associate professor of English at Florida International University.