On October 30, 2025, Anastasios Kamoutsas, Florida’s education commissioner, unilaterally removed Phillip Wiseley, a sociology professor at Florida SouthWestern State College (FSW), from a statewide sociology working group.
In October 2025, Florida’s Board of Governors, which controls the state university and college systems, convened a working group to create a new introduction to sociology textbook that would adhere to state-imposed restrictions on curriculum. Wiseley was one of four sociologists selected to serve on the working group, along with four staff members of Florida’s Board of Governors.
On October 30, not long after the working group was launched, Kamoutsas wrote to Wiseley that he had received reports—unspecified in Kamoutsas’s letter—that Wiseley included material promoting “gender ideology” in his courses. Kamoutsas noted that Florida law prohibits the teaching of “unproven, speculative or exploratory” content in general education courses. The law does not further define what qualifies as such content, but Kamoutsas asserted in his letter to Wiseley that gender ideology is “both unproven and speculative.” Kamoutsas informed Wiseley of his immediate removal from the statewide working group, and stated that he would also recommend that FSW president Jeffery Allbritten take further disciplinary action against Wiseley. At the time of writing, no publicly available information indicated that Allbritten had done so.
Scholars at Risk is concerned by the sanctioning of a professor for alleged professional expression on a matter within his expertise. The summary removal of a professor from a statewide academic working group without due process and on the basis of his teaching within his discipline violates academic freedom, as does the recommendation for further disciplinary action. While state authorities may have general oversight over higher education systems, they have an obligation to refrain from ideological interference in academic decision-making and curriculum development. Such interference, particularly when based on vague, undefined, or overbroad terms such as “unproven, speculative or exploratory”, violates academic freedom and institutional autonomy, and threatens democratic society generally.
Sources:
https://www.gulfcoastnewsnow.com/article/gender-sociology-professor-college-fsw-florida/69207053
https://wng.org/sift/professor-yanked-from-florida-workgroup-for-gender-ideology-1761936489
https://www.winknews.com/news/lee/fsw-professor-facing-disciplinary-action-for-violating-statute-on-gender-ideology/article_8a88b296-4ad4-4750-bdf5-fe04f2d6e634.html
https://www.insidehighered.com/news/faculty-issues/academic-freedom/2026/01/29/florida-introduces-sanitized-sociology-textbook
https://www.wlrn.org/light/government-politics/2026-01-22/florida-sociology-racism-new-curriculum-textbook-desantis https://x.com/StasiKamoutsas/status/1983943425453076615