Mori hosseini desantis11/9/2023 ![]() The University of Florida has produced a slideshow warning that if instructors offend against state edicts, UF could suffer “large financial penalties”-perhaps tens of millions of dollars cut from its annual appropriation. Nervous administrators issue memos trying to reassure faculty, even as they promise our government masters that we’ll play nice. As The Atlantic and ProPublica reported, Jonathan Cox, an assistant sociology professor at the University of Central Florida, canceled two popular courses examining race, ethnicity, and “the myth of a color-blind society,” because he worried he could lose his job.ĭaniel Golden: ‘It’s making us more ignorant’ ![]() Academics in less protected positions sometimes feel pressured to censor themselves. The syllabus for a fall 2022 University of Florida seminar on how Black artists use the Gothic to explore racial oppression states, “No lesson is intended to espouse, promote, advance, inculcate, or compel a particular feeling, perception, or belief.” I remind students that I do not judge them on their opinions, only on how they support those opinions with facts and evidence. Professors now add careful, lawyerly language to our course descriptions. Whatever happens in the courts, academic liberty in the state that DeSantis calls the “ freest” in America has already been damaged. A federal judge has temporarily halted the law’s implementation, but the state has a good chance of winning on appeal to the Eleventh Circuit, which is dominated by Donald Trump appointees. DeSantis doesn’t want Florida schools to explore how the legacy of slavery still casts a structural shadow on our democracy to examine white privilege or, as the “Stop WOKE Act” he pushed through our supine legislature puts it, to instruct students in topics that might cause “guilt, anguish, or other forms of psychological distress” on account of their race. To that end, Florida has banned the teaching of what DeSantis declares erroneous doctrine, especially critical race theory and “The 1619 Project.” Both challenge our happier myths: that the Founding Fathers hated slavery even though they owned slaves, or that rugged individualism enables anyone to succeed if they just work hard enough. He likes to say he puts on “ the full armor of God” to fight “ wokeism” and create a “ patriotic” education system. Governor Ron DeSantis sees Florida’s colleges and universities as hotbeds of trendy theories, where professors delight in propagating Marxism, pushing anti-racism, and undermining traditional gender identity. I start writing dates on the board-1619, 1830, 1863-and I wonder if somebody will accuse me of breaking Florida law. ![]() Here at Florida State University, in the capital city of the third state to join the Confederacy, I ask them to consider the ways our troubled past haunts our precarious present. I ask my students to think about the stories Faulkner tells: the dispossession of the Chickasaw people, the enslaved woman who drowns herself in despair, and the white family struggling to accept that the admired patriarch who built their Mississippi cotton kingdom also raped his own daughter. That goes right to the heart of what a public, land-grant, flagship institution like UF should be doing and what the state of Florida has entrusted us with.In my senior Southern Literature class, I’m about to teach Go Down, Moses, William Faulkner’s great novel about how racism has warped America. “We are committed to providing an elite education that is radically practical. “The University of Florida has done incredible things, and we’re not slowing down,” Sasse said. UF president Ben Sasse, who has often called himself “a moderate about rankings,” said in the release that the new Journal ranking was “a huge honor.” “I’ve always believed that giving our students an amazing education and sending them out into the world with the tools they need to succeed is our No. ![]() “The University of Florida dared to be audacious, and we’ve succeeded - for our students and for our state,” Mori Hosseini, UF’s board of trustees chairperson, said in a news release. Ten percent of the score was based on diversity as well as students’ responses when asked if they had opportunities to interact with people from different backgrounds. The Journal gave 20% weight to the learning environment, including facilities, career preparation opportunities and student recommendations. ![]() Seventy percent of the ranking formula was based on student outcomes including graduation rates, the time it took to pay off the net price of a degree and salaries after graduation compared to similar schools. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply.AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |