{"id":43199,"date":"2026-01-30T09:06:16","date_gmt":"2026-01-30T09:06:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/?p=43199"},"modified":"2026-01-30T09:06:16","modified_gmt":"2026-01-30T09:06:16","slug":"florida-introduces-sanitized-sociology-textbook","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/?p=43199","title":{"rendered":"Florida Introduces \u201cSanitized\u201d Sociology Textbook"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Sociology faculty at Florida International University are outraged that their department is requiring them to use a state-approved textbook to teach an introductory course as part of the university\u2019s general education curriculum. <\/p>\n

They say the state\u2019s process for developing the textbook and new course framework was opaque, rushed and designed to pressure universities into adopting censored learning materials without a legal directive to do so. <\/p>\n

Furthermore, the textbook\u2014a heavily edited version of an open-source sociology textbook titled Introduction to Sociology 3e<\/em>\u2014now makes only cursory mentions of important sociological concepts regarding race, gender, sexuality and other topics that have drawn Republican ire. Faculty say it whitewashes the field\u2019s key principles, diminishes the quality of education for students and intensifies the state\u2019s attacks on academic freedom. <\/p>\n

\u201c\u200a[Students] will be getting a sociology text, a sociology course without a soul,\u201d Matthew Marr, an associate professor of sociology at FIU who has refused to teach the course this semester, said at an FIU Faculty Senate meeting last week. \u201cIt\u2019s been scraped out. It is a sanitized version of the course.\u201d<\/p>\n

Florida\u2019s War on Sociology<\/h2>\n

Inside Higher Ed<\/em> reviewed a copy of both the original textbook and the new one and found numerous substantive changes. <\/p>\n

Compared to the original 669-page textbook, the new version is just 267 pages. Unlike the original, the state-approved version doesn\u2019t include chapters on media and technology, global inequality, race and ethnicity, social stratification, or gender, sex and sexuality. It also scraps a section on the government-led genocide of Native Americans. And while the original uses the word \u201ctransgender\u201d 68 times and \u201cracism\u201d 115 times, the former term appears only once in the new textbook and the latter six times.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are no discussions of systemic or structural racism, a core concept in sociology,\u201d read a Jan.16 letter that 19 faculty members in FIU\u2019s Global and Sociocultural Studies Department sent to their Faculty Senate\u2019s academic freedom committee and the United Faculty of Florida\u2019s FIU chapter. \u201cNot only are these omissions an incorrect representation of the field, but they also fail to prepare students for majors and graduate education that require or recommend introduction to sociology.\u201d<\/p>\n

The state\u2019s creation of the new textbook is the latest battle in Florida\u2019s ongoing campaign to assert control over university curricula. State leaders have taken special pains to discredit the field of sociology, which the American Sociological Association defines as \u201cthe study of social life, social change, and the social causes and consequences of human behavior.\u201d<\/p>\n

In 2023, the Florida Legislature passed Senate Bill 266, prohibiting general education courses from including topics that \u201cdistort significant historical events,\u201d teach \u201cidentity politics\u201d or are \u201cbased 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.\u201d <\/p>\n

Later that year, Florida\u2019s then\u2013education commissioner, Manny D\u00edaz Jr.\u2014who is now president of the University of West Florida\u2014singled out sociology, posting on X that the field \u201chas been hijacked by left-wing activists and no longer serves its intended purpose as a general knowledge course for students.\u201d Florida governor Ron DeSantis has characterized the discipline as \u201cvery mushy,\u201d \u201chighly ideological\u201d and \u201cnot the type of academic rigor that we\u2019re looking for and that our Founding Fathers would have thought essential to be educating folks.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sociology has been hijacked by left-wing activists and no longer serves its intended purpose as a general knowledge course for students.<\/p>\n

Under @GovRonDeSantis<\/a>, Florida\u2019s higher education system will focus on preparing students for high-demand, high-wage jobs, not woke ideology.\u2026<\/p>\n

\u2014 Manny Diaz Jr. (@PresMannyDiazJr) December 8, 2023<\/a><\/p>\n

In January 2024, the Florida Board of Governors, which oversees all 12 public institutions in the State University System of Florida, voted to remove sociology from the state\u2019s approved core course requirements. One year later, the board removed hundreds of additional courses, including many focused on race and gender, from general education offerings at all state universities. <\/p>\n

Even so, individual universities could choose to keep sociology and other courses as part of their campus-level general education offerings, which some universities\u2014including FIU\u2014chose to do. (At FIU, that tier of courses is called the University Core Curriculum, or UCC.)<\/p>\n

Culture War Crossfire <\/h2>\n

At last week\u2019s Faculty Senate meeting, Jennifer L. Doherty-Restrepo, FIU\u2019s assistant vice president for academic planning and accountability, said the board approved all of FIU\u2019s UCC courses\u2014including the introductory sociology course, known as SYG2000\u2014last January. But in July, the board sent a memo to all State University System campuses asking to review the textbooks, syllabi and other course materials that would be used to teach Introductory Sociology during the fall 2025 semester. (Materials for some psychology courses were also flagged but have since been remedied and approved, according to Doherty-Restrepo.) <\/p>\n

The review found that none of the course materials aligned with state statutes, but the board provided the university only \u201cvague\u201d feedback on which parts were noncompliant, Doherty-Restrepo said. The university requested additional guidance on how to teach sociology in compliance and suggested the creation of a working group to provide recommendations, she added. <\/p>\n

Soon after, the state launched the sociology working group, composed of four faculty members and four Board of Governors administrators, including Dawn Carr, a sociology professor at Florida State University; Quing Lai, a sociology professor at FIU; Phillip Wiseley, a sociology professor at Florida SouthWestern State College; Jason Jewell, chief academic officer and vice chancellor of strategic initiatives for the Board of Governors; and Emily Sikes, vice chancellor for academic and student affairs for the board.<\/p>\n

(The full composition of the committee is not publicly available information. The Board of Governors did not respond to Inside Higher Ed<\/em>\u2019s numerous questions about the working group or the new textbook.)<\/p>\n

Within a month of convening, however, the working group was caught in the cross fire of Florida\u2019s culture wars. <\/p>\n

\u201cToday, I took immediate action against [Phillip Wiseley]\u00a0\u2026 by removing him from the statewide sociology course workgroup after reports confirmed that he was using instructional materials promoting gender ideology, a direct violation of state statute,\u201d Anastasios Kamoutsas, Florida\u2019s education commissioner, wrote in an Oct. 30 post on X. \u201cI am also recommending the college president take further disciplinary action to ensure this never happens again.\u201d<\/p>\n

Today, I took immediate action against a professor at Florida SouthWestern State College by removing him from the statewide sociology course workgroup after reports confirmed that he was using instructional materials promoting gender ideology, a direct violation of state statute.\u2026 pic.twitter.com\/i9EbBN96sB<\/a><\/p>\n

\u2014 Anastasios Kamoutsas (@StasiKamoutsas) October 30, 2025<\/a><\/p>\n

(Inside Higher Ed <\/em>attempted to contact Wiseley for comment, but a message sent to his college email address bounced back as undeliverable.)<\/p>\n

In their letter to the faculty union and Faculty Senate, FIU sociology faculty pointed to Wiseley\u2019s dismissal as evidence that the working group \u201cwas not valid\u201d and that the \u201cfour sociologists who were in the workgroup participated under the clear threat of discipline.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2018Merely a Resource\u2019<\/h2>\n

The working group nevertheless moved forward. While creating a new textbook wasn\u2019t the group\u2019s original charge, Carr, the Florida State sociologist, told Inside Higher Ed<\/em> that it emerged as the best immediate solution for keeping the sociology course as part of the institution-level general education curriculum. <\/p>\n

\u201cTo ensure that faculty had materials to teach the course, we wanted to provide a basic set of course materials that complied with general education requirements,\u201d she wrote in an email. \u201cThe idea was to provide our colleagues with a stop-gap solution to avoiding losing the course from the general education curriculum. Our concern was that it is much more challenging to reinstate a course after being cut as a general education course at the state level than to improve and elevate course materials over time.\u201d<\/p>\n

By Dec. 3, the working group had completed the draft sociology framework ensuring compliance with state law and would soon provide a \u201cresource\u201d\u2014the textbook\u2014to support it, according to an email from state administrator Sikes.<\/p>\n

Every provost has since seen a copy of the new textbook, though not all sociology departments have chosen to adopt it. <\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t know what other campuses have done with this, but the University of Florida accepted it as merely a resource and recommendation,\u201d Evan Lauteria, an assistant instructional professor of sociology at UF, told Inside Higher Ed<\/em>. \u201cAfter insight from the college and the department, [we] will not be using them.\u201d<\/p>\n

He decried the state for trying to pressure universities into using those specific materials.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s unclear if they have the legal foundations to stand on to require adoption of these materials, but they are hoping universities cave quickly,\u201d he said. \u201cThat would lay the groundwork for them to do it in other disciplines.\u201d<\/p>\n

Emails obtained by Inside Higher Ed<\/em> show that both FSU\u2019s and FIU\u2019s sociology departments are using the state-approved course materials this semester.<\/p>\n

FIU Faculty Blindsided<\/h2>\n

But FIU faculty didn\u2019t get word of the change until days before the spring semester started. <\/p>\n

Initially administrators thought the sociology course had until fall 2026 to comply with the state law, according to a Jan. 1 email to department faculty from Chair A. Douglas Kincaid. But then the Board of Governors moved up the compliance deadline to spring 2026, he wrote, and vowed to review all syllabi and readings. To that end, he said the provost and dean \u201crequested\u201d that the department use the state-approved course materials this semester. (State authorities have since followed through with their syllabus review.)<\/p>\n

The only way to avoid using the textbook moving forward, he added, would be to remove the course from the university\u2019s general education offerings. <\/p>\n

CHUYN\/iStock\/Getty Images<\/p>\n

The announcement blindsided the mostly adjunct faculty who had already prepared their courses for the semester, pinning them between \u201ca rock and a hard place,\u201d Zachary Levenson, an associate professor of sociology, told Inside Higher Ed<\/em>.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf we take Intro to Sociology out of the gen ed curriculum and teach it the way we want, then certain students won\u2019t be able to take it for credit and our enrollments are going to fall to point where [the state] can say we\u2019re not doing anything and abolish the department,\u201d he said. \u201cOr we could remove it and risk low enrollment to make a statement.\u201d<\/p>\n

After some debate, \u201cthis semester, adjuncts teaching the class are having to comply,\u201d Levenson said. \u201cBut going forward, we\u2019re going to figure something out, like potentially shifting tenured faculty to teach the class and other classes that are subject to the Board of Governors\u2019 intervention.\u201d<\/p>\n

Unanswered Questions <\/h2>\n

Beyond FIU, faculty all over the state are raising questions about the contents of the new textbook, the committee that created it and what exactly they are\u2014and aren\u2019t\u2014allowed to teach.<\/p>\n

FSU sociology professor and textbook author Carr was scheduled to address some of their concerns Monday at a webinar hosted by the Board of Governors. Among the dozens of questions submitted in advance, faculty asked, Are the reasons why the other books were banned or considered in violation of the law written down somewhere? Can you provide a list? How should instructors respond if topics or perspectives that are not covered in the textbook are raised during class discussions? <\/p>\n

But the Board of Governors canceled the meeting without explanation hours before it was set to begin. <\/p>\n

\u201cThis is a completely opaque process,\u201d said Robert Cassanello, president of the United Faculty of Florida. \u201cThey know they have their pants down and if they put themselves under any kind of scrutiny the justification and rationale for all of this will collapse. They\u2019re doing their best to keep all of this out of the sunshine.\u201d <\/p>\n

Which is why, he added, it\u2019s \u201cincumbent on [faculty] not to participate in assisting the Board of Governors in attacking our academic freedom and curbing our curricular decisions.\u201d <\/p>\n

And based on what he knows, Florida\u2019s attempts to control university course content probably won\u2019t stop with sociology. <\/p>\n

\u201cI have it on good authority that next year they\u2019re going to look at the psychology and American history textbooks,\u201d Cassanello said. \u201cIt\u2019s an assault on critical thinking.\u201d<\/p>\n