A Clash Over Core Curriculum at New College of Florida
Josh Moody | 29 October 2024 | Inside Higher Ed
Amid statewide efforts to overhaul general education courses, New College of Florida is making sweeping changes to its core curriculum. Faculty members say those efforts, driven by conservative ideologues, will limit students’ access to knowledge and undermine NCF’s founding mission as Florida’s only public liberal arts college.
The changes follow recent legislation that has prompted universities across the state to drop numerous general education courses, mainly related to hot-button political and social issues. Despite outcry from faculty, public universities have dropped dozens of courses—such as Anthropology of Race and Ethnicity, Introduction to LGBTQ+ Studies, and Sociology of Gender—to comply with SB 266, which went into effect in mid-2023. It prohibits core courses that “distort significant historical events or include a curriculum that teaches identity politics,” as well as those “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…”