A University of Florida professor is filing an academic freedom grievance after he says the College of Education would not approve any curriculum that had the words "critical" and "race" in the title, reports WCTV.
The issue arose after leadership asked Dr. Chris Busey, an associate professor in the School of Teaching and Learning, to change the name of his course "Critical Studies in Race, Ethnicity, and Culture." According to the grievance, university leaders rejected the title because they were worried anything pertaining to critical race theory would jeopardize the College of Education's relationship with the state whose governor Ron DeSantis is vocally against the academic discipline.
According to WCTV, Busey said he was threatened with discipline if he used “critical race” in his curriculum, leading the United Faculty of Florida to argue that the university is “discriminating against faculty on the basis of the content of the material.”
In response, the university released the following statement to WCTV: “Pursuant to state law, specifically F.S. 1012.91, any grievance matter would be confidential and therefore we are unable to publicly acknowledge whether a grievance has been filed. However, the information in the documents you provided contains a number of inaccuracies, and we will address them through the appropriate processes.”
This is the second time in the past five weeks that the university has faced accusations of limiting academic freedom. Early in November, three faculty members said their academic freedoms were impinged upon when the school barred them from testifying for plaintiffs in a lawsuit challenging the state's controversial voting-restrictions law.