A philosopher at a public university in Florida shares the email their Chair felt the need (no doubt correctly) to send out:
I wanted to give you a heads up about a recent law that has passed our legislature, SB 266, which goes into effect on July 1. For those of you who haven't followed the details, this law intervenes in higher education in a variety of ways that impact us, and I am happy to discuss any of this in more detail in person or over the phone/zoom. If anyone is interested, I can ask someone from the Counsel's office to attend our retreat to share their perspective on this with us.
Chairs met with some of the university lawyers earlier this week, and they pointed out some of the sections of the law that might be important for us.
While I would recommend that you familiarize yourself with the entire law, if you are teaching general education, you may want to attend to the section on general education that begins on line 528, with special attention to section c (line 556-561) and D2 (lines 567-571). I'm not sending this on because I anticipate problems, but simply for you to be aware of.
Section c: "(c) General education core courses may not distort significant historical events or include a curriculum that teaches identity politics, violates s. 1000.05, 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."
D2: " 2. Humanities courses must afford students the ability to think critically through the mastering of subjects concerned with human culture, especially literature, history, art, music, and philosophy, and must include selections from the Western canon."
Intro to Humanities and Intro to Philosophy are our two department courses in the "core" curriculum. However, some of the language in the bill suggests that much of what is now being required of "core" courses may eventually be required of all gen ed courses. The University is convening a new task force to deal with all this, and we will have more info on that hopefully soon.
You may also wish to attend to the section that begins at line 121, on the required review of programs; Lines 269-73 prohibiting statements of political loyalty; lines 274-84, which state that grievances cannot be appealed beyond the president, meaning no arbitration; and the section beginning at 301 that prohibits the use of state or federal funds for specific kinds of activities, some of which await definition by the BOG.
If you have any questions, please let me know... and I will help connect you with someone who can provide answers.
As state-mandated ideological indoctrination goes, this is remarkably brazen. I suspect worse is yet to come, at least until the courts intervene. The instructor who sent this to me sometimes teaches Marx in the general education courses. The legislation would have been clearer if it simply said that was forbidden. It would also have been even more clearly unconstitutional.
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