What Can Educators Do about Restrictions on Their Work?
For this blog, I interviewed Dilys Schoorman, an educator in higher education in Florida. She has been navigating restrictions on what educators can and can’t say in the classroom, for several years. I find her insights and helpful strategies very useful, especially in this current moment of attacks on DEI and CRT.
CHRISTINE: As a context, Dilys, can you tell me a little bit about the kinds of restrictions you've been dealing with for several years, that parallel what much of the rest of the country is dealing with now?
DILYS: I think Florida has many parallels to what is happening at the national level. In many ways, the state has served as a prototype or ‘canary in the educational coal mine’ for what is happening at the national level. We see parallels in the strategies and the targets of the laws. The first is the sheer number of laws. I think it's really important for people to understand that it’s not just one law in isolation, but that the attack is likely aimed at paralyzing the multiple sectors that would form the coalition against authoritarianism.
Florida began with an attack on civic engagement restricting the rights of protestors. We presume this was targeted against BLM Movement activists, where the law allowed motorists to run over protestors if there were more than three protestors in the street. There were also significant restrictions of accessibility to voting in a state where elections had proceeded smoothly and anti-trans laws targeting female athletes in the legislative session of 2021.
As far as education is concerned, the attacks in Florida began with the Department of Education banning the teaching of “CRT” in K-12 education in June 2021. Educators were mostly puzzled by that because many did not know what Critical Race Theory was, so they presumed they did not teach it. But Spring 2022 brought a tsunami of laws, like we are seeing at the national level today, and it seemed overwhelming to keep track of and respond to them. In order to keep track, my colleagues and I classified them into four broad “target” areas: K-12 education; Higher Education; Human Rights (including anti-female, anti trans laws); and Civic Rights (including Voting Rights). What we also recognized was not only the multidimensional nature of these laws but the fact that a single person could be victimized by multiple laws.
CHRISTINE: Can you elaborate on the kinds of restrictions you have had?
DILYS: There has been a concerted attack on what the legislators are calling “DEI” activities; the governor used the word “Woke” to capture what he was targeting, and that has come in a variety of different contexts.
With regard specifically to the curriculum laws, we categorized them as 1) divisive concepts laws (laws that mimicked Trump’s 2020 Executive Order 13950), 2) anti-”CRT” laws, 3) Anti-LGBTQ/Trans Laws, 4) Defund DEI laws, and 5) censorship and book banning laws.
In terms of the parallels, all of those show up in some form in the current avalanche of laws or executive orders that you're seeing today. You will also see some common tropes or themes in them. For instance, that DEI is discrimination as opposed to DEI being our response to discrimination historically, flipping the entire argument about how to address discrimination on its head. Florida passed its own defund DEI bill in SB 266 (2023), which came after a data trawl from all universities about their DEI expenses and activities. Ironically, prohibited “DEI” activities include the “differential” or “preferential” treatment of a group, even as those committed to diversity, equity and inclusion are also advocating against the historical practices of preferential treatment of some and they call for the inclusive treatment of all in access and representation.
There’s the trope of parental choice, or individual choice over the public good, with no consideration of which parents and whose choices are accorded preferential treatment. This also applied to the governor’s position on mask mandates during the pandemic, the “Don’t Say Gay” law, and HB 1467 that opened the floodgates for citizens to protest books and that requires onerous processes for materials approvals that effectively cleared classroom and library bookshelves. But individual choice did not matter when it came to the rights of transgender students and their parents, bathroom or pronoun use or the state’s stance on abortion. The latest ban of fluoride in Florida’s water also follows the same (il)logic of a few people’s individual freedom over public health.
Another parallel is the notion of sex being equal to gender and anything else being “gender ideology indoctrination.” This is an assumption grounded in ignorance, contrary to science, scholarship and lived experience. It is also an example of targeted cruelty in the legislation. What is the problem being solved by these laws? Why pick on transgender people who comprise under 1% of the US population?
CHRISTINE: What problems do these laws purport to address? What are they trying to fix, at least according to the rhetoric?
DILYS: In Florida, legislation was supposedly targeting “woke indoctrination”, which I view as an oxymoron; you couldn't possibly be woke and indoctrinated at the same time. It was also a myth. There is no evidence of a problem that's necessarily being solved in any of these laws. The language of “merit-based” keeps appearing as well, as if everything that educators have been doing up to now has lacked merit.
We're also seeing climate justice being attacked and a surge of anti-science policies that are dangerous and irresponsible. Voting restrictions that impede ease of access to the ballot are prevalent. All of which you've seen here in Florida, now showing up in the President’s executive orders. And all of this legislation and policy making emerges from no fact-finding, debate, consideration of alternatives or input from professionals on the ground, in classrooms or schools.
CHRISTINE: Okay. Now, you've been grappling with this stuff for what, about 6 years in Florida?
DILYS: Since 2021.
CHRISTINE: Okay, 4 years. Many people around the country are just now getting hit with this tsunami. You've developed some strategies for navigating and pushing back. Can you share with us some strategies that you've been working with that would be helpful for others to know about?
DILYS: Sure. There is an assumption that beleaguered teachers and educators are not going to read the law. So, one of the first things that we did was to go straight to the law, instead of relying on media reports or the governor’s rhetoric about the law and read it for ourselves. We found that there was language in the law that we could use to justify the work that educators were doing. So, for instance, in the divisive concepts laws, we found ways of actually reframing them as unifying concepts. For instance, one of the divisive concepts banned from teaching was that “Members of one race, color, sex, or national origin are morally superior.” We said, yes, we agree that no race, gender, etc, is superior, which means we must assume and therefore teach the unifying concept that we are equals across our diversity. A second divisive concept banned from teaching is that an individual, by virtue of their race, color, sex or national origin, is inherently racist, sexist, or oppressive, whether consciously or unconsciously. We agree. No one is born inherently racist or sexist. So we propose the unifying concept that since bigotry is learned, let’s make sure we don’t teach it and let’s commit to teaching open-mindedness and humanity. So, when we dove into the laws, we found that there were many instances where we could actually take the language of the law and use it to do good work.
CHRISTINE: What a smart and creative way of approaching the law. What kind of reaction did you get from people?
DILYS: Our assertions were surprising to many because there was so much rhetoric that accompanied the law that was designed to teach people how to interpret the law in a particular way. So, for instance, many were surprised to learn that what was called the “Stop Woke” Act actually has a section on required instruction which lists the teaching of African American history, history of the Holocaust, contributions of Hispanics and women. This includes “an understanding of the ramifications of prejudice, racism and stereotyping” and “encouraging tolerance of diversity in a pluralistic society” for “nurturing and protecting democratic values and institutions.”
So, people on the outside are thinking, this is the Stop Woke Act, you're not supposed to teach Black history. But no, there's an entire section there that tells us you will teach it, and you will teach about the ramifications of racism, and the same with holocaust education. These things are actually allowed. They're embedded in the bill.
CHRISTINE: That’s surprising, not what you’d expect just by listening to how people talk about the law.
DILYS: It is. Similarly, the rhetoric out of the governor’s office was that the “Stop Woke” Act of 2022 codified the anti-CRT policy that came out of the Department of Education in 2021. But the language of the bill did not mention CRT. One would assume that if you're banning CRT, you ought to mention it in the law. But it's not mentioned. If you're banning woke ideology, it ought to be mentioned in the law. But there is no mention or definition of woke in the law. So when you see the actual language of the law, you realize that there is quite the mismatch between the rhetoric which is intended to shape what people do, and the actual law, which, once written down, is probably going to be subject to lawsuits.
CHRISTINE: Okay, this is very helpful. So, what else have you learned?
DILYS: I had my first “Aha” moment when I understood the “why” of the politicians behind these laws. Most of us, when we encounter policies, think they are designed to fix something that’s broken. But what we realized was that there is no bona fide education problem that is being solved by these laws. In fact, at the time it appeared that these laws created more problems than they solved and now we realize that they were meant to undermine public education, not to support it.
CHRISTINE: How do you know what the politicians were thinking?
DILYS: For one thing, we studied the video recordings of the house and senate debates on HB 7 (Florida’s divisive concepts laws ). There were many questions posed by those opposed to this bill: What is the problem we are trying to solve? How do we address this? How do we address the confusion that teachers are going to have in the classroom when they don't understand what is allowed and what is not allowed? A number of hypothetical history topics were identified and questions asked about whether they would not be illegal to teach. All of these questions were evidence that the problem of confusion was anticipated. The only answer given at the time was that a teacher could not go out of their way to blame a student for history. (There was no evidence that this had ever occurred.) When somebody asked, “Why are we even doing this?” the response referred to complaints received from parents during the pandemic, when they had overheard online instruction. And somebody asked, “Did you have any complaints from Black parents?” And the answer was No, they didn't. So, in other words, it's plain and simple right there in those recordings that these laws were not meant to address any widespread problems in education. In fact, they seemed to deliberately create more.
So, once you realize that this is a blatant attack on education, on education that is seen as a democratizing force, then your position on what you do about it also gets solidified.
What I also recognized in studying these laws are the tactics being used. In addition to the tsunami effect, the laws are deliberately vague, so people are confused. I learned from a human rights lawyer overseas who told me that vagueness in the law is actually a human rights violation. I thought that was an interesting point. But here, the vagueness has meant that educators interpret the laws based on the rhetoric that accompanies them which seems much clearer, including the threats — de-funding, loss of licenses, vicious complaints or doxxing of educators, or job loss. The intention in many ways is to have educators fearful and engage in self-censorship.
CHRISTINE: Did realizing the intention behind passage of the law change your reaction to it?
DILYS: Yes, understanding that the intention was to scare us, confuse us, and cause us to self-censor, my position evolved into a commitment not to be scared, not to be confused, and not to self-censor in anticipation. To avoid the anticipatory compliance that Tim Snyder warns us about.
Another alarming insight for many of us going through this process was that there was an underlying cruelty in the laws and the manner in which they were being carried out. The received wisdom is that laws are supposed to protect, and as a society we need to use the laws to enhance legal protection for a widening circle of people. Instead, we have seen the opposite. This, coupled with the absence of fact finding in policy making, has further exposed how the law itself is unjust and cruel.
What we have also learned, going through this process, is how the same folks who championed DEI just a few years before, following the death of George Floyd, lost their moral compass two years later. Among them was the Board of Governors of the Florida University System who declared in June 2020,
As a powerful and influential voice in Florida, it is time for the State University System, including students, faculty staff and alumni to actively engage in finding solutions to peacefully eliminate racism and discrimination. This will be the critical mission of our twelve state universities, as it is our duty as societal leaders to help end prejudice and to promote social justice for all.
In 2023, this same group supported anti-DEI laws and threatened funding cuts for universities who engaged in DEI-related activities that they had called for in 2020.
Many leaders who had championed DEI efforts also proved to be quite flat-footed in responding to this attack. I learned that there were lots of well-intended people who did not have enough education on the history of the struggle for Civil Rights and equal opportunity in this nation, to really know how to make sense of this legislation. There were many lawyers and institutional leaders, for instance, whose suggestions for how to deal with the law revealed that they were completely unaware of the broader historical contextualization of these laws. They did not realize that this is part of a long history of attacks on underserved marginalized populations. A history that is currently being banned from being taught.
On the other hand, our study in this area has exposed us to several historical and legal analyses of the Florida laws. For instance, Russell-Brown’s analysis linked the current legislation to anti-literacy laws of the ante-Bellum South, the National Education Policy Center conducted a historical analysis of the ban on “CRT”, Henry Giroux provided a detailed historical analysis of the attacks on academic freedom in higher education in an article alerting us to the role of the Powell Memo of 1971 that comprised the blueprint for the backlash against the gains of the Civil Rights Movement, and Stacy Braukman details the ugly machinations of the Johns Committee in Florida in the 1950s whose McCarthy-era ‘investigations” combined a vicious attack on multiple groups and causes deemed ‘socialist’ and or ‘communist’: racial integration and its supporters, as well as educators deemed gay and /or liberal.
This historical contextualization was eye-opening to so many of our leaders. Of course, it then changed how they viewed their role, and what needed to get done, or how they viewed us, and how we were seeing our positions. In many ways, this gap in their awareness and its impact on their skillful leadership proves why everyone needs the kind of education that is now being banned.
But that realization was really important. I have said for a long time we do a good job as educators educating our students, but we haven't done as good a job of educating our colleagues, our leaders, our community members, our parents, our lawyers. So, it really became important for me not just to share whatever my insights were with fellow educators, but also with a broader group of people to start talking to a wide range of folks so that they could understand what was going on. We need to embrace our role as community-engaged public intellectuals.
CHRISTINE: Okay, that's very helpful.
DILYS: I also want to say we need to recognize that part of what happened in Florida was to undermine trust in education which had really increased during the pandemic. So many people said, My goodness, I have so much respect for teachers now that I have had to deal with my 6-year-old at home for all these days. There was a genuine respect growing for teachers, and somehow I think there was an attempt to push that back rather than build on it.
CHRISTINE: What advice do you have for people who are threatened with losing their jobs if they don't do what their administrative superior tells them to do, even if they've gone through this process of taking the law apart, identifying vagueness. And if they're simply told, you will not teach this stuff. You will take this stuff out of your syllabus.
DILYS: I have been talking to many teachers and pre-service teachers about this. Central to effective teaching and learning is the teacher-student relationship. When we think about our favorite teachers, that is what we remember: the relationship we had. No one can dictate the relationship between the teacher and the student.
So, pay attention to the kind of relationship that you build with your students, especially the students who are being rendered vulnerable by these laws. Given the still legal commitment to practice non-discrimination, you ought to be able to quite legally and unambiguously convey to that student that they are safe, that you are a knowledgeable and trustworthy professional, that your class is a community in which all are welcome. How you manage and run your class from an affective perspective, could at this point of time be lifesaving for some children who just need that safe space from the cruelty and bigotry that they are witnessing around them.
Our history as a profession has many examples of effective and caring teachers working under challenging conditions. We use the term fugitive pedagogy to refer to the long term strategy used by African Americans since slavery to educate children in contexts that banned them from learning. This tradition of fugitivity was maintained through reconstruction and segregation.
Even in these difficult times, try to hone your craft as a pedagogue. Even if you are restricted in what you teach, you should not give up your opportunity to become a better teacher each year. Be intentional about your pedagogy. There are many examples and models of excellent pedagogy, known by a wide range of terms that share a commitment to engaged, joyful, critical and justice-oriented pedagogy that supports students’ academic achievement through intellectually challenging and meaningful curriculum. The laws undermine teacher professionalism and de-skill educators, so seize every opportunity to grow as a professional. Imagine what it will take for a student to say, “I can’t wait for Mx. Y’s class next week!”
CHRISTINE: Good advice! Relationships are central to culturally responsive pedagogy, to any good pedagogy, actually.
DILYS: The other thing is, don't see the parents as adversaries. Work in partnership with parents, particularly those whose voices are not heard as loudly at school board meetings but who often represent a large group of caregivers . You don't necessarily have to confine yourself just to your school role and the regular parent-teacher meetings that are scheduled. Get out into the community, begin to educate people and make connections through local libraries, through local cultural events that might go on, places of worship. These are time-tested strategies for building home-school partnerships. You've got to build the trust, because right now, part of the intent of the law, in my view, is to undermine the public trust in education and in educators. It shouldn't be difficult for us to regain that trust by having these kinds of relationships with families, parents, teachers and students. And while you're doing that, then be consciously connecting those little micro actions to the macro level of issues that are going on right now. So, every one of your little actions of inclusivity or kindness is going to contribute to the overall aura of hospitality for students.
CHRISTINE: Super important. Building relationships with parents and community members not only helps to build trust, but it also provides teachers with helpful insights about their students’ lives that they can build on in the classroom.
DILYS: In this context of legislative cruelty, we have talked a lot about kindness. Most educators tell me they want to be kind to their students. Kindness could be multi-layered. We think of the kind teacher as someone who smiles and is welcoming; or is able to comfort a child who has hurt themselves or is sad. But having done all of that, if one turns around and engages in a curriculum that represents curricular violence towards that student, that's an unkind act. If the curriculum tells students they don’t belong or won’t add up to much, serves to strip students of their culture, erase their family’s existence or cultural values, miseducates or under-educates them, or teaches students to hate, demean or exploit students who look like them, rather than affirming and empowering students and facilitating their critical consciousness, you are being unkind.
Being kind at this deeper level is going to require specific knowledge and skills.
So go ahead and get the professional development that you're unlikely to get in schools anymore. There are lots of professional organizations doing excellent, free, accessible professional development, such as the Zinn Education Project and the webinar series of the National Association for Multicultural Education. Form informal professional networks across schools, districts or states to learn from one another. Learn about the kinds of curriculum that is supportive of all students and how to teach in such a way that your curriculum conveys your deep-seated kindness towards the well-being of your students and towards the development of future leaders who will be kind, not cruel, to all.
CHRISTINE: How does this translate into teacher educators who are trying to prepare predominantly white groups of teachers for the diverse students that we have and feel like they're being hamstrung and can't talk about racism. Can't talk about social justice issues. Can't talk about any of this stuff.
DILYS: Well, the thing that we address here is, first, teachers all want to be successful with their students. That's genuine. They want to do right by their students and are eager to learn what practices have worked for whom and to avoid what is known to be problematic and unfair. Many of our pre-service and in-service teachers are very upset that much of what is being dictated to them is by politicians, who, in their words, have never set foot in a classroom.
They want to hear from people who have been in the classroom and who love being educators and are successful as professionals. And that's an important piece. They are confronting the contradiction of knowing from the research, their field experiences and the analysis of their own professional experiences what actually works, and finding that this is what is being banned by politicians.
Our obligation as their teachers is to help our graduates be successful in whatever context that they end up teaching. They need to have the knowledge, skills and dispositions for professional success should they choose to teach in elite private schools or in Title 1 funded public schools; in demographically diverse or homogeneous environments. I want our graduates to feel comfortable and efficacious and not dependent on an externally imposed script or manual to do well each day as an educator.
CHRISTINE: What about prohibitions against talking about race and racism, or at least what teacher educators believe are prohibitions?
DILYS: On the matter about not being able to talk about race, here again, we need to trace where this suggestion is coming from. I fear that this could be a misinterpretation of the law by local administrators, perhaps based on the rhetoric. It would help to go to the language of the law, because despite all of the “anti-DEI” rhetoric, I have only read that we cannot give one race preferential treatment, or say that one race is superior. Most laws insist that discrimination on the basis of race is unacceptable. Which means, to me, that we are compelled to talk about multiple races, not give preference to just one. Consequently, curriculum and instruction representing many different races should be permissible.
Here in Florida, there are two 1994 mandates to teach about African American history, and the history of the Holocaust, and each school district must provide evidence that these requirements are being met. We also have required curriculum on Latino and Asian American and Pacific Islander contributions. How do you fulfill these mandates without talking about race? And there are standards that teachers have to address with regard to Native American history in the state, as well. You have to talk about those things. So one of the things I point out is all of the Florida statutes that actually require the discussion of race. I am sure there are similar mandates and statutes in each of the states in the nation. We need to read through the state standards and mandates to see what they actually support and require.
CHRISTINE: So I think what you're doing is giving not only advice for teacher educators in their classrooms, but also advice to educate their administrators who are saying, you’ve got to take these words out of your syllabus. You can't use these words. You can't teach—I've heard of people whose syllabi have been cut down to the point where there's no class left to teach. I think I hear you emphasizing that we need to educate the people who are above us, telling us what we should and should not do.
DILYS: That's correct. We need clarity on what is allowed and what is not. This is especially so when the administrators themselves are not familiar with the law and - in some cases, the subject matter - and are coming up with various words or topics that should not be mentioned based on what they think the law is and because they feel a sense of responsibility to protect their institutions or districts from further funding cuts. But we also need to recognize that sometimes it is people above our own administrators who have issued the lists of banned words. We have seen it in higher education with regard to courses that have been flagged because of a word like “global” or even “biodiversity” in a title or description, the term inclusion banned from Special Education, or courses in sociology deleted from the core curriculum. Although the Florida laws have been premised on countering “indoctrination” (i.e. accepting ideas uncritically), curriculum censorship where alternate perspectives are disallowed will lay the groundwork for state indoctrination.
But beyond words and courses that are allowed and disallowed, this raises the need for a much deeper conversation about the purpose of education in a democracy vs. an autocracy, and the role of partisan politicians vs. highly educated professionals who make these decisions.
Part of educating those above us, is not just sharing with them what is in the law that they might not have realized, but also to ensure clarity in what is being implemented. Don’t just accept that you cannot mention a word, ask for clarification for how you address racial name calling in class, if you cannot talk about race. How do you teach mandated history? Ask questions and get clarification about what is allowed and not. For instance, it was instructive to learn in the legal settlement on Florida’s “Don’t say Gay” bill that references to LGBTQ identity did not violate the law and teachers could discuss sexual orientation of characters in a story or if students raised the topic in their writing or class discussions, and that the law did not suggest that heterosexuality was superior.
But this settlement also reminds us that as teacher educators, we need to prepare our students for all sorts of futures, including opportunities where we can talk about topics that are currently banned. This means knowing what the banned content is. So, for instance, although you're not supposed to be talking about DEI in schools, do you know what the letters D, E, and I stand for in the grand scheme of education? Why did we at one time support these ideas but now are opposed to them? Those conversations need to happen, because the racial tensions that these laws are causing could blow up in the schools, and I don't know whether that's intentional or whether that is an unintentional consequence that nobody talked about. But we are seeing tension. Racial tensions rise in schools because students can't talk to us about race, or there is the perception that we can't talk about it. And that's a problem. Our schools used to be places where some of these necessary conversations used to take place. The gag orders are taking us backwards.
CHRISTINE: This has all been so very helpful. Thank you, Dilys!