A bill would allow Florida’s statewide higher education oversight boards to amend gen ed requirements.
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The state boards governing Florida’s public colleges and universities showed this spring that they’re willing to change curricula statewide—and to publicly cite “ideology” as their motivation—when both ordered their institutions to remove sociology from the courses that could fulfill general education requirements.
State University System of Florida chancellor Ray Rodrigues said in March, when his Board of Governors axed the Introduction to Sociology offering for universities, that “sociology as a discipline is now social and political advocacy dressed in the regalia of the academy,” The Miami Herald reported. The Board of Education followed suit in April for state colleges, with board chair Ryan Petty saying in a news release that “general education courses must be grounded in rigorous scholarship and the accurate teaching of history. They cannot be mired in ideology or used as vehicles for indoctrination.”
Now, the Republican-controlled Florida Legislature has passed legislation to give these boards more power to shape gen ed requirements. The boards currently can approve or reject institutions’ gen ed course lists. House Bill 5601E would give them the power to amend those lists as well.
