In the three years since Ron DeSantis set out to rid Florida’s universities of woke ideology, my campus changed significantly. Professors suddenly worried about what they could say and teach. Some started avoiding terms like “racism.” One student recently told me that when someone used “intersectional” in class, the instructor told her not to use that word.
Soon this could be the case in schools across the country. We’ve all heard stories of elite institutions cowering before President Trump’s assault on higher education. Take it from someone who knows: It could get worse — far worse.
Mr. Trump has been watching what’s transpired in Florida. The architect of Project 2025’s education policies has said that Florida is “leading the way” on university overhauls. Already, Mr. Trump has threatened to pull funding from colleges that don’t purge language he considers woke. He’s demanded new oversight of certain regional studies departments. Next he could try to ban, as Florida has, “political or social activism.” He could weaken the protections provided by tenure and faculty unions. I saw this happen on my campus, and I know the toll it took. If the Trump administration has its way, my experience could offer a preview of what’s coming for other universities.
Before Mr. DeSantis began targeting higher education, Florida faculty members could be confident that the administrators supported our professional judgments about how to teach our students. We had open, complex discussions without fearing for our careers. In a conversation in one of my classes, female students expressed the fear that catcalling provoked, and their male peers responded thoughtfully, reflecting on their own behavior — a learning experience for everyone. Today that conversation would, I fear, violate a Florida law that prohibits teaching male students that they must feel guilt for the actions of other men.
Since Mr. DeSantis’s crackdown, I’ve seen my colleagues harassed and investigated for addressing topical issues, even outside the classroom. The climate of fear gives the government precisely the result it wants. Administrators and faculty members alike practice anticipatory obedience to avoid even the appearance of wokeness, stifling the sort of open and civil discussions that lead students to develop their own views.
One colleague told me that he stopped assigning an article about lynching and white evangelicalism for fear that those terms could raise red flags. Another said she was censoring her language not just in class and on campus but also on personal social media.
Several professors have been subjected to efforts at entrapment. Last year a man posing as a student tried to encourage Muslim faculty members to criticize Mr. DeSantis and Israel. A similar incident happened to me. In October 2024 my department chair called me into his office to tell me that someone claiming to be a student in my Religion and Science class had complained that I spent 20 minutes talking about specific candidates, including who I was voting for and why. I was stunned. That never happened in that class or any other; it is antithetical to the way I teach. Fortunately, the dean’s office assured me that a single, unsubstantiated accusation was not grounds for disciplinary action.
Far worse than the fear of investigation was the way the accusation shook the trust I thought I had with my students. Did one of them hate me so much that one would lie to get me in trouble? In the end, I am convinced that the person making the complaint was not a student in my class but a provocateur. (It was probably not a coincidence that the allegation was lodged shortly after my name appeared in a Politico article about changes to our campus.)
That incident shattered my conviction that if I did my job well and followed the rules, I would be safe. In over 30 years at the University of Florida, I have taught thousands of students, written hundreds of recommendation letters and advised countless research projects. I have published a dozen books and scores of articles, won research and teaching awards and served on numerous college and university committees. But the state doesn’t trust me to do my job.
How can I challenge my students to ask hard questions, to follow the research wherever it goes, when I am worried about what might happen to me if I do that? And how can I follow the rules when even university administrators are not always sure of how to interpret them?
Teaching is, above all, the creation of a community in the classroom, a web of trust and curiosity that binds students and instructors in a shared intellectual project. Mistrust, fear and self-censorship make that project impossible.
With Mr. Trump’s recent actions, the campus atmosphere has grown more tense. His orders threaten not only the humanities and social sciences but also research funding for STEM. And as immigration agents detain and deport international students, noncitizen students on campus (and even some students who are naturalized citizens) are keeping their heads down even more.
Like Mr. DeSantis and Richard Nixon before him, Mr. Trump and Vice President JD Vance believe that the professors are the enemy. They want ordinary Americans to mistrust college instructors, to think of us as intolerant militants driven only by political ideology.
Teaching college students has been the greatest gift of my professional life. I love my university and my students, and I do good work. I have no desire to indoctrinate anyone. The same is true of my colleagues.
For those who think that professors are the enemy, I invite you to spend some time in our classrooms. You might discover that we are, in the end, all on the same side.
Anna Peterson is a professor in the Department of Religion at the University of Florida. Her books include “With God on Our Side: Religion, Social Movements, and Social Change” and “Works Righteousness: Material Practice in Ethical Theory.”
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