'Dismay and anxiety' on college campuses as DeSantis ramps up anti-CRT campaign [View all]

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.

“Some of us are becoming a little more cautious about how we say things and much more aware of how we title our courses,” Pineda said.

Even as the implementation of a new law that Gov. Ron DeSantis said is intended to combat the “far-left woke agenda” stalls in court, university faculty members like Pineda have renamed their courses or shied away from hot-button topics like race and sexuality.

DeSantis signed the law, dubbed “Stop WOKE,” last summer banning the teaching of a once-esoteric academic concept called critical race theory in state universities, colleges, and K-12 schools. A federal court has temporarily blocked the law, which prohibits teaching students that people are “privileged or oppressed” based on their race, color, nationality or sex, with a judge describing it as a “positively dystopian” violation of professors’ First Amendment rights.

https://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/education/os-ne-universities-stop-woke-anti-crt-20230113-jrxsjkg7xzfglddff22om3v6s4-story.html