Florida Bill Proposes Ban on College Teaching of Theoretical Content

Gov. Ron DeSantis has proposed a bill to overhaul Florida universities. The bill would shift power at state schools into the hands of the Republican leader’s political appointees and ban gender studies as a field of study. It would also require that general education courses at state colleges and universities "promote the values necessary to preserve the constitutional republic" and cannot define American history "as contrary to the creation of a new nation based on universal principles stated in the Declaration of Independence." Additionally, the bill would prohibit general courses "with a curriculum based on unproven, theoretical or exploratory content." According to DeSantis, such programs create an “ideological filter,” and his office described them as “discriminatory.” It would also put all hiring decisions in the hands of each universities’ board of trustees, a body selected entirely by the governor and his appointees, with input from the school’s president. Furthermore, presidents of Florida’s two-year community colleges have committed to not teach critical race theory in a vacuum and to “not fund or support any institutional practice, policy, or academic requirement that compels belief in critical race theory or related concepts.” The move has been characterized as a rejection of “‘woke’ diversity, equity and inclusion [and] critical race theory ideologies.”