The Orlando Sentinel reports:
Yovanna Pineda, hired more than a decade ago to teach Latin American history at the University of Central Florida, rebranded one of her signature courses last fall. Striking references to “dictatorships” and “human rights” from the title, she decided to simply call her class “History of South America.”
Pineda said many of her colleagues are making similar changes, either because they fear blowback from state leaders who say they are trying to eliminate “indoctrination” from university campuses or because they don’t want the hassle of additional scrutiny.
DeSantis continued his campaign last week, appointing far-right activist Christopher Rufo to the Board of Trustees at New College of Florida. Rufo is best known for launching a national campaign against critical race theory. Rufo told The New York Times he and his new colleagues seek to transform New College into a public version of Michigan’s Hillsdale College, a conservative Christian school.
Read the full article. That’s Rufo standing appropriately on the far-right in the screenshot above.
UCF professors are renaming courses and removing phrases like “human rights”, “social justice”, “equity” and “equal” to avoid being targeted or tracked by the state.
This is happening in 2023 in the United States under the new McCarthyism of Ron DeSantis.https://t.co/Z7Xrzx8WNp
— Carlos Guillermo Smith (@CarlosGSmith) January 14, 2023
“And faculty members say they’ve seen other signs that the governor has gained a foothold on their campuses, including the removal of the words “social justice” from the name of an office at UCF, which has been rebranded as the Office of Civil Discourse.“https://t.co/Z7Xrzx8oXR pic.twitter.com/VI4WkSlCWu
— Carlos Guillermo Smith (@CarlosGSmith) January 14, 2023
UCF faculty members are even CANCELLING race-related courses out of fear of losing their jobs.
This is not a hypothetical.
It’s what’s happening right now at my alma mater under threats from Ron DeSantis and it’s being called “freedom”.https://t.co/Z7Xrzx8oXR pic.twitter.com/JBVKt22gdK
— Carlos Guillermo Smith (@CarlosGSmith) January 14, 2023