What is an “unproven concept?

Ray Rodrigues, chancellor of the state university system in Florida, believes he knows. He’s one of the many officials overseeing the censorship and government control of higher ed curricula in almost every state in the U.S. Florida was an early leader in this authoritarianism, so we can look at them in particular. In 2023, the state government issued undergraduate general-education requirements–in other words, the courses that people getting a bachelor’s degree in any Florida institute of higher eduction may be offered. According to the Chronicle of Higher Education, the state law “curtails ‘identity politics,’ distortions of major historical events, and ‘unproven, speculative, or exploratory content’ in the curriculum.”

As historians, we immediately see that second phrase, but all of these efforts are efforts to own history–to control what historical archives, artifacts, and other resources will be preserved and which will be gutted in order to be remade into authoritarian-friendly resources; which institutions offer degrees in history; and, of course, to control who writes history, what they write about, and how.

“Identity politics” is interestingly presented as obviously bad. There’s no need for them to explain why it’s harmful. The phrase has been rigorously bent by Republicans in this country to mean “ridiculous, untrue claims that there are many human identities (PS: there aren’t) that should be accepted as real and natural and not be discriminated against.” With this broad definition, authoritarian agents can go to war with almost any “claim” they like.

“Distortions” of historical events also requires, even begs for, clarifying detail. The horrid irony, of course, is that these authoritarian agents make their living distorting historical events.

Finally, “unproven content”… again, so broad as to be meaningless, unless it is to be wielded as an all-purpose weapon against anything that isn’t distorted to represent authoritarianism. But there’s little need for us to describe it when Ray Rodrigues is happy to do it for us:

“When a state like Florida can say we’ve eliminated these unproven concepts from general education,” thereby relegating them to electives and other courses that students opt to take, Rodrigues said, “that puts Florida in a position to say, ‘We are addressing the No. 1 concern the American public has expressed about higher education.’”

The “number one” concern he refers to in order to justify the entire censorship project is left completely undefined. Americans are “concerned” about “unproven concepts”. That’s it.

What are some of the harmful, specious “identity politics”, “unproven concepts”, and “distortions” that have been targeted in Florida? Here are examples an administrator at FIU shared with the Chronicle:

• A course called “Labor and Globalization” is “too focused on struggles/challenges of those in low-wage jobs” and should be revised. 
• “The Basic Ideas of Sociology” and “Global Women’s Writing: Gendered Experiences Across Societies and Cultures” — are “too focused on women” and should be removed from the general-education curriculum.
• “Theories of Black America” and “Global Gender Issues” deal with race and gender.
• “Disability and Society” (no reason stated in the article)
• “Sociology of Gender” and “Anthropology of Race and Ethnicity” – “our administration (provost and dean) has made clear that they do not think that either of these is a battle worth fighting”
• World Regional Geography
• The Basic Ideas of Sociology
• Basic Communication Skills (“no Western canon”)
• Introduction to Machine Learning (“confirm course meets the ‘natural-science criteria’ of the law”)
• Perspectives on the Short Story

It’s obvious why courses explicitly focused on unproven concepts like race, sex, and gender were removed/banned. What’s more insidious are the seeming outliers. Sociology is clearly considered to promote “liberal” ideas by authoritarians; studying human societies from anything other than a religious standpoint will open the door to “identity politics.” Ditto studying world geography, where students would inevitably learn about other races. America-first is the curricular mandate here. Banning a communications course because it doesn’t include “western canon” seems like deliberate provocation by ignorant people drunk on their own power.

The story of what happened to the course “Perspectives on the Short Story” tells us all we need to know: after it was removed, the English professor teaching it contacted the chair of the department, Andrew Epstein. the ideally named person teaching it, Robin Truth Goodman, reports that Epstein: “told her he thought he could make a case for the short-story course by changing its title from ‘Perspectives on’ to ‘Introduction to the Short Story,’ which to me just means they didn’t like the idea of difference in perspective.”

Yes, Dr. Goodman is correct. A course was banned without anyone looking at what it taught or how. A word they have banned was in the title, and that was all it took. If “Labor and Globalization” changed its name to “Capitalism and how it Benefits Society” the course would be reinstated.

Every battle we face today in the U.S. is about owning history. Real historians do what they can to expand that ownership, by teaching real history to the general public, wherever they may be. Researching real events and people in the past and faithfully recording what they did, then thoughtfully and objectively hypothesizing about why what they did is important, how it shaped events and people that followed them, and impact us to this day, is what doing history is. It is always speculative and exploratory as hypotheses are formed. Established hypotheses–canonical history–can and must always be challenged by real historians doing the above, and not by authoritarian lackies making (white, straight, male, Christian) things up as they go along and saying it’s history.

Do whatever you can wherever you are to stand up to fake history. Every small action helps.