An English professor is suing the president of a Florida college that she says fired her for assigning a story that he called “political,” according to a federal lawsuit filed Wednesday.
The story, Ottessa Moshfegh’s “Bettering Myself,” is an award-winning story narrated by a fictional teacher who drinks to excess, uses cocaine and discusses sex with her students.
The instructor, Vinita Prabhakar, said in an interview that she had taught the story in her classes for nearly a decade without incident. But in February, according to her lawsuit, the president of South Florida State College, Fred Hawkins, objected to the assignment after a student expressed “mild discomfort.” The president told Ms. Prabhakar that he would not want his college-age daughter to read the story, the lawsuit says.
In a move that is highly unusual for a college president, Mr. Hawkins immediately ordered that Ms. Prabhakar be suspended and her contract not renewed, the suit says. The suit asks that she be restored to her teaching position.
The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, a group that advocates free speech, is representing Ms. Prabhakar.
Some courts have ruled that universities can restrict certain speech of university professors in classrooms. But they have also ruled that the First Amendment offers greater protection if the speech is part of professors’ official duties, which can include teaching approved material, and is not disruptive.
Ms. Prabhakar’s attorneys also assert she is protected by a Florida law governing campus free speech. Public officials such as Mr. Hawkins “may not suppress speech because they dislike the ideas it conveys or fear a reaction to it,” according to the lawsuit.
The lawsuit is the latest legal battle over the boundaries of protected free speech in schools in Florida, where Republicans have for years sought to restrict teachings they believe are inappropriate or too left-leaning.
Mr. Hawkins and school officials did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The state’s Republican governor, Ron DeSantis, has championed efforts to quash what he has deemed liberal indoctrination in education. For instance, he pushed a parental freedom law that limited instruction on gender and sexuality in elementary and middle schools, prompting some districts to remove books featuring L.G.B.T.Q. characters.
In 2022, Mr. DeSantis also signed into law the Stop WOKE Act, which restricts concepts related to sexism and racism that can be taught in K-12 schools. The law sought to do the same in higher education, allowing the state to limit the teaching of ideas related to race, sexism and unconscious bias by tying it to teacher salaries.
A federal appeals court, however, struck down that portion of the law this month. The majority wrote that the provision was a “breathtaking assertion of power to ban unpopular ideas from public discourse” in classrooms where students are “trusted to puzzle through ideas that are good and bad, easy and hard.”
Ms. Prabhakar, who has worked full time at South Florida State College since 2023, said the point of assigning “Bettering Myself” was to challenge students in her introductory reading and writing course. As part of the assignment, students had to read first-person stories told by other unlikable narrators — like “Cathedral” by Raymond Carver — to contrast narrative voice, perspective, vocabulary and style, according to the lawsuit.
In colleges, such materials “take students out of their comfort zone, expose them to new ideas and provide opportunities for growth and intellectual maturation,” the suit said.
Ms. Prabhakar said in the interview that she had taught the assignment in previous years at South Florida State College with approval of supervisors.
The student who had emailed to say the story “made me a bit uncomfortable” ultimately completed the assignment and participated in class discussions without any incident, the suit said.
It is unclear who complained about the assignment to the school administration, according to the lawsuit. It accuses Mr. Hawkins of terminating Ms. Prabhakar without a formal complaint or attempt at lesser discipline.
Mr. Hawkins, a former state representative and a DeSantis ally, was named president of the public community college in 2023. The school’s main campus is in Avon Park, Fla., southeast of Tampa.
The selection process drew scrutiny because Mr. Hawkins held no advanced college degrees and became eligible only after the board of trustees lowered the position’s educational requirements. At the time, one trustee acknowledged to The Tampa Bay Times that the board was expected to appoint a Republican and that he had concerns about a potential left-leaning president’s adherence to “woke” ideology.
In the suit, Ms. Prabhakar said she had apologized to the president and agreed to teach only material that appeared in a textbook. But Mr. Hawkins told her he had “been in contact with Tallahassee” and the board of trustees. The suit also names the board of trustees.
Ms. Prabhakar, 51, said that she hoped her lawsuit would help protect fellow professors. “I’m also doing this for my students,” Ms. Prabhakar said. “They were robbed — they were excited to come to class.”
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