Teachers could be subjected to 'entrapment' under Trump's plan for universities: opinion
A Religion professor is warning of President Donald Trump’s goal to rid college campuses of “woke ideology,” in a New York Times guest Essay.
Anna Peterson, who teaches at the University of Florida, compared the president's plan to the rules Florida Governor Ron DeSantis enacted three years ago.
“Mr. Trump has been watching what’s transpired in Florida,” she said.
“Already, Mr. Trump has threatened to pull funding from colleges that don’t purge language he considers woke. He’s demanded new oversight of certain regional studies departments. Next, he could try to ban, as Florida has, ‘political or social activism.’”
Peterson wrote how “several professors have been subjected to efforts at entrapment,” including herself.
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“In October 2024, my department chair called me into his office to tell me that someone claiming to be a student in my Religion and Science class had complained that I spent 20 minutes talking about specific candidates, including who I was voting for and why. I was stunned.”
The professor claims the incident “Never happened in that class or any other; it is antithetical to the way I teach.”
The dean's office at her school told her a single, unsubstantiated accusation was “not grounds for disciplinary action.”
However, what is worse than disciplinary action, “was the way the accusation shook the trust I thought I had with my students.”
Peterson pondered in the column, “Did one of [my students] hate me so much that one would lie to get me in trouble? In the end, I am convinced that the person making the complaint was not a student in my class but a provocateur.”
“That incident shattered my conviction that if I did my job well and followed the rules, I would be safe,” she said.
After more than 30 years at the University of Florida, she believes, “the state doesn’t trust me to do my job.”
Peterson believes, “teaching is, above all, the creation of a community in the classroom, a web of trust and curiosity that binds students and instructors in a shared intellectual project.”
“Mistrust, fear, and self-censorship make that project impossible,” Peterson opined. “With Mr. Trump’s recent actions, the campus atmosphere has grown more tense.”