Opinion | How alarming are Florida’s higher-ed reforms? Students weigh in.

Like nearly everyone I spoke to on the Gainesville campus, this undergraduate wanted not to run afoul of new speech-inhibiting, higher-education “reforms” put forward by Gov. Ron DeSantis — a presidential hopeful.

The faculty there were predictably up in arms at legislation that threatened their research, teaching and employment. But students were upset, too. When I asked how the new laws and proposed ones had affected their education, they had a lot to say.

Florida’s 2022 Stop WOKE Act (Stop the Wrongs to our Kids and Employees) made the teaching of anything that might engender “guilt, anguish, or other forms of psychological distress” about the past actions of someone’s sex or race an offense under state anti-discrimination law. And H.B. 999, now under discussion in the legislature, would, if passed, defund so-called diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives in schools; prohibit degree programs focused on race, gender or social justice (among other subjects); discourages courses with “exploratory content”; and allow for tenured faculty to be reviewed without cause by governor-appointed trustees.

These changes occur against a backdrop of sharp new curriculum restrictions in K-12 schools — DeSantis has prohibited instruction on sexuality and gender identity, blocked AP African American studies and banned certain textbooks under the guise of protecting students from what he has called “pernicious ideologies.”

When talking with me, some students responded to the changes with mockery, others with fear or sadness. But all felt that their education was being compromised and resented that the legislation would limit their choice of study.

“Education can and should expose us to diverse perspectives,” first-year student Megan Meese said. “Ignorance permits hate, discrimination and marginalization. And by limiting discussions and awareness of identity, the legislation in Florida is going to instill ignorance in our students, which will promote intolerance and inequity in our future.”

H.B. 999 and Stop WOKE don’t apply to private conversations, yet they are having a distinct chilling effect on them — purposefully so.

Several professors I spoke with asked to remain unnamed for fear of retaliation. Most asked to correspond via private email and phone. Paranoia was not unjustified, as professors involved in DEI initiatives have seen their emails and communications pulled under Florida’s broadly written “sunshine law.”

H.B. 999’s vagueness adds to its threat. The bill would prohibit the use of “curriculum that is based on or … methodology associated with Critical Theory” in general education core courses — even though, as one professor put it, “this is what academics do — we critique, we have debates, we discuss.” Even seasoned faculty now limit their conversations with students both in and out of the classroom.

Such fear leads to self-censorship and heightened caution — long before the laws take effect. The same professor noted with a sigh, “That’s how authoritarianism works.”

Stop WOKE and H.B. 999 are also hampering faculty recruitment and spurring professors to seek out survival strategies — switching departments or even looking for jobs at other schools.

Students worry that their formative experiences at the University of Florida — encountering new ideas, exploring their own identities, developing academic interests — will not be possible for those who come after them.

“The Stop WOKE act really limits our ability to learn to empathize with others, because it limits diversity of perspective,” student Emmaline Moye explained. “I came from a really small, conservative, predominantly White town, and being here has completely changed me. I think it’s made me a better person. Being exposed to people who I’ve never been exposed to before, people of different races and ethnicities and genders and sexualities and, as a queer student, hearing those things talked about makes me feel heard and seen. And that’s been this boost of confidence that, I mean, I couldn’t ask for better.”

Her voice broke as she continued. “But I’m so scared for people like me … they won’t get that feeling of liberation, of getting to be who you are and know you’re not alone.”

The magazine Inside Higher Ed reported that, in response to DeSantis’s policies, 1 in 8 graduating Florida high school students is not planning to attend a public college in the state, and 78 percent of those who still plan to worry that the new policies will have a negative impact on their education.

At the same time, current students who were attracted to the University of Florida’s top-five ranking worry that their degrees will no longer be taken seriously outside the state. “When I talk to HR folks in these companies outside of Florida where students have to get jobs,” said Paul Ortiz, a history professor who heads the faculty union, “there’ll be silence and a little bit of laughter. ‘Oh, Florida.’ ”

“The perception that we’re dumbing things down because we’re afraid of this rising authoritarianism … is that going to be detrimental to our students? Yes, it’s going to be very detrimental.” A few students, when pressed, offered tepid defenses of DeSantis’s policies. Maybe conservative students had sometimes felt put on the defensive. Perhaps some professors hadn’t always seemed objective when discussing sensitive topics. Yet their peers offered stronger evidence that new and proposed rules had worsened the campus environment, contra DeSantis’s claims that they would increase individual freedom.

One student described being harassed outside a course on women’s studies, a subject potentially on the chopping block if H.B. 999 passes. A group of male students demanded the professor’s name and course numbers, leading the professor to shift the class location. “The Stop WOKE Act,” the student said, is giving permission to use intimidation to “scare people out of talking about important topics.”

When asked why DeSantis seemed laser-focused on critical race theory, intersectionality and other so-called woke ideas, both faculty and students agreed: This is a political project, not an academic one, and it emerged along with the governor’s presidential ambitions. One student put it succinctly: “Our education is being used against us for political gain.” Culture-warring, they point out, is a distraction from Florida’s other crises — from insurers pulling out of its markets due to the increasing effects of climate change (DeSantis has derided discussions of global warming as merely a pretext for “left-wing stuff”) to its underperforming educational system.

The disciplines that DeSantis most wants to shut down are those that teach students to “critically assess what’s happening in society,” Ortiz said.

Critical race theory, consciousness of history — “these things change your worldview,” graduating senior Asia Barlow said. “The world is not as black and white or clear as they’d like you to believe.”

More than one student mentioned Florida’s ongoing shift to becoming a majority-minority state. Already, more than 1 in 5 Floridians are foreign-born, and nearly half of the population is Black, Latino, Asian American or of mixed race. I heard again and again that DeSantis’s attempts to control education are a gambit to control an emerging majority.

“They are trying to take away the tools of our liberation.” Barlow continued. “But they won’t win.”

Professors aren’t indoctrinating their students with “woke ideology.” The governor is radicalizing them all by himself.