A liberal Florida college has reinstated a course on “wokeness,” which describes the movement as “a kind of cult,” despite backlash from lefty students — defending it as “never more relevant than today.”
The Sarasota-based New College of Florida had included the class in its course catalog — issued last Saturday — shortly before it disappeared, then reappeared in subsequent versions, fourth-year student Sara Engels told The Guardian.
The catalog’s description claimed the offering was an intro to what’s “best understood as a kind of cult” whose members are “generally decent people with good intentions, but their methods are essentially illiberal.” British media provocateur Andrew Doyle was originally listed as the course’s instructor.
Its inclusion in the curriculum — which was first reported by the Tampa Bay Times — shows the ongoing impact of new hires at the once-liberal college, which has taken a sharp turn to the right after Florida’s governor, Ron DeSantis, installed conservatives on its college board.
In a Thursday email, a school spokesperson defended the course’s inclusion by saying it had particular relevance to the era.
“At a time when conversations around what it means to be ‘woke’ and what it means to be ‘unwoke’ permeate public discourse, Dr. Doyle’s [course] offers students a unique opportunity to analyze these concepts from multiple perspectives,” school spokesperson Nate March said.
“The project explores the origins, aims, and societal impact of the ‘woke’ movement, especially as it intersects with free speech — a topic at the forefront of cultural and political discussions and probably never more relevant than today,” he continued.
Engels, the student, told the Guardian that other students aren’t happy about what she described as a “very slanted” course.
“We were told that the new administration wanted to balance perspectives,” she said. “But there hasn’t been balance.”
She also noted how many students and staff have left the college because they don’t feel comfortable with the new administration’s actions.
“I think that’s by design,” she said. “It’s not a healthy learning environment.”
On Tuesday, the class listing had disappeared — and remained so Wednesday until about midday, when it mysteriously popped back up.
There was one change, however — Doyle’s name had vanished from the course description.
The university’s ping-pong actions followed media coverage about the course, its contents and its anticipated teacher.
March said that the confusion stemmed from the provost’s office sharing an “outdated” version of the course listing, as well as some “backend issues in our HR system.”
Doyle, a controversial figure who rose in prominence after running a satirical social media account that skewered social justice activists, has become known as an “anti-woke” commentator who also has a show on the UK’s right-wing GB News.
Although he claims to sit on the left side of the political spectrum, he has also courted right-wingers with his parody account on X and columns in a far-right magazine, called Spiked.
He has also appeared more often in right-wing media, such as Jordan Peterson’s podcast in 2023 and on Tucker Carlson’s Fox News show in 2022.