When students come back to Florida International University in the fall, they will have 29 fewer courses to choose from in the core curriculum. Those classes will still be offered, but they won\u2019t count as bachelor\u2019s degree requirements.<\/p>\n
All 12 of Florida\u2019s state universities are in the same boat, all have had classes moved from the core to the list of electives by the state\u2019s Board of Governors; mostly sociology, anthropology, and history classes.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think it\u2019s an effort to appease to the current political climate, but I think it\u2019s important for students to take sociology courses,\u201d said FIU sophomore Zulinda Diaz, who said sociology classes help students understand and adapt to the world around them.<\/p>\n
Meeting on Thursday in Jacksonville, the board approved the curriculum changes to comply with a 2023 state law which was pushed hard by Gov. Ron DeSantis.<\/p>\n
\u201cOur institutions are gonna be graduating students with degrees that are gonna be meaningful, we don\u2019t want students to go through at taxpayer expense and graduate with a degree in zombie studies so this is gonna make a difference,\u201d DeSantis said when the law was passed.<\/p>\n
The chancellor of the state university system, Ray Rodrigues, told the Board of Governors that a Gallup poll showed only 36% of Americans approved of higher education in this country.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe number one reason was political agendas, a belief that higher education has turned into indoctrination,\u201d Rodrigues said.<\/p>\n
Her courses are not impacted by the changes, but she says the curriculum restrictions remind her of why she escaped communist Cuba.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn my experience, indoctrination never happens from the teacher to the students, indoctrination usually happens from the state to the people,\u201d Lopez said.<\/p>\n
To comply with the law, the Board reclassified course that have \u201cunproven, speculative, or exploratory\u201d content or any that are \u201cbased on theories that systematic racism, sexism, oppression and privilege are inherent in the institutions of the United States,\u201d broad categories which are open to interpretation.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe can confidently say that our general education courses that students have to take to graduate will not contain indoctrinating concepts, no other public system can say that,\u201d Rodrigues said.<\/p>\n
The changes to the core curriculum at Florida\u2019s state universities have sparked controversy, with some students and faculty members expressing concerns about the impact on academic freedom and the definition of indoctrination.<\/p>\n
Q: What changes were made to the core curriculum at Florida\u2019s state universities?
\nA: The Board of Governors reclassified 29 courses, mostly sociology, anthropology, and history classes, from the core curriculum to elective courses.<\/p>\n
Q: Why were these changes made?
\nA: The changes were made to comply with a 2023 state law that aimed to prevent the spread of what Governor DeSantis called \u201cindoctrination\u201d in higher education.<\/p>\n
Q: What does the law define as indoctrination?
\nA: The law defines indoctrination as the promotion of \u201cunproven, speculative, or exploratory\u201d content or theories that systematic racism, sexism, oppression and privilege are inherent in the institutions of the United States.<\/p>\n
Q: How will these changes affect students?
\nA: Students will still have access to the reclassified courses, but they will no longer be required to take them to graduate.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Florida Approves Curriculum Changes at State Universities to Comply with Stop WOKE Act Core Curriculum Changes When students come back to Florida International University in the fall, they will have 29 fewer courses to choose from in the core curriculum. Those classes will still be offered, but they won\u2019t count as bachelor\u2019s degree requirements. Elective […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":7119,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"rank_math_lock_modified_date":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-7118","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-news"},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i1.wp.com\/media.nbcmiami.com\/2025\/01\/Core-curriculum-changed-at-state-universities-to-comply-with-Stop-WOKE-Act.jpg?quality=85&strip=all&fit=1920,1080&w=1920&resize=1920,1080&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/citystuff.com\/miami\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7118"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/citystuff.com\/miami\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/citystuff.com\/miami\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citystuff.com\/miami\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citystuff.com\/miami\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7118"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/citystuff.com\/miami\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7118\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7120,"href":"https:\/\/citystuff.com\/miami\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7118\/revisions\/7120"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citystuff.com\/miami\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7119"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/citystuff.com\/miami\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7118"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citystuff.com\/miami\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7118"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citystuff.com\/miami\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7118"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}