On March 26, the Florida Board of Governors removed Introduction to Sociology from the general education catalog. The topic and subsequent move were not on the public agenda and were brought up by Republican Chancellor Ray Rodrigues. Passing with a 15-2 vote, the course was struck from general education listings at Florida’s 12 public universities. As a UCF student, I decided to dive deep into the subject to understand why this change happened.
The Miami Herald reported that Rodrigues’ rationale for raising the subject was faculty resistance to the newly required state-approved sociology textbook and curriculum released in late 2025. This new textbook “omitted sections on race, gender, and sexuality,” which many professors and Florida school administrators spoke out against, calling the required curriculum an “affront to academic freedom,” as per the Miami Herald. It was this backlash that Rodrigues cited as lowering his confidence in keeping the course a part of general education, and said that the discipline has become “ideologically captured.”
Similar trends in education
It’s hard to ignore the alignment, in mindset and action, that this removal shares with other national policies. It is because of this that I would argue that this conflict began not with faculty reaction to the new textbook or the removal of sociology from the core curriculum in 2024, but with the creation of Project 2025 by The Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank.
Project 2025, which President Donald Trump originally denied support for, has had many of its proposals become reality under his administration. Notably, Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) policies were targeted by a series of executive orders issued by Trump in his first week in office.
Additionally, another proposal within Project 2025 is the dismantling of the Department of Education (ED). Although the ED has not been fully dismantled, executive orders have significantly shrunk the department.
Part of Project 2025’s reasoning for the removal of the ED was the desire to give more power back to the states and end federal jurisdiction over education. Giving further power to states has resulted in red states being overwhelmed with book bans and other similar policies. With this in mind, it becomes clearer that the proposals and ideology of Project 2025 may have contributed to the removal of sociology as a general education course in Florida.
How this impacts UCF Students
Since the removal of sociology as a general education option, GEP sheets have struck SYG2000, Introduction to Sociology, from their listings. At this time, it is unclear if students who previously took this class to satisfy the social foundation requirement will have to take an additional class, or if this only applies to new students. This could affect students with Bright Futures or Florida Prepaid scholarships, as they might have to go beyond their 120-credit limit established by these two financial aid systems in order to graduate on time.
As a political science student with fewer options for courses than my mother had under the same major, I’m terrified. Growing up, I read books such as George Orwell’s 1984 or Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury, and I learned how education being taken away or books being censored can hurt a society. It scares me to see some of these books’ concepts in action and affecting my education.