A University of North Florida professor has taken legal action against the university, alleging that administrators violated state law when directing professors to remove DEI language from their course materials this summer. 

The professor, John White, filed the grievance on Aug. 28 through the United Faculty of Florida at UNF (UFF-UNF). White has taught at UNF since 2008 and served on the UNF Board of Trustees as its faculty representative from 2020 through 2022. He was also part of the UNF presidential transition team when Moez Limayerm first took office. Currently, he is a senior faculty fellow in the Teaching, Learning & Curriculum department.

The grievance claims administrators in the Silverfield College of Education and Human Services and the Office of the Provost violated the union’s protections for academic freedom by requiring faculty, including White, to remove language related to diversity, equity, and inclusion from course materials without going through procedural review processes.

While state law overrides university policy, White is claiming that none of the state regulations cited by UNF administrators provide enough detail to justify breaking university course review policies. White said he’s asked for a written state rule or law that mandates the specific changes that were made, but he has not been provided one.

According to White’s grievance and internal university emails, COEHS Dean Steve Dittmore was in charge of facilitating the course changes over the summer. Email chains regarding the course changes between the provost’s office, institutional research office, and COEHS administration date back to May.

Dittmore disputed the claims made about him in the grievance. A university spokesperson also provided a statement in response to the claims.

“UNF disputes the allegations and has no additional comment on the pending grievance,” a university spokesperson said in an email Tuesday. 

What happened?

On May 2, a memo from the commissioner of education directed UNF administrators to review their teacher preparation programs and submit all course descriptions, syllabi, and learning objectives to the Florida Department of Education by June 6. The directive stems from a 2024 Florida law aimed at preventing university teacher preparation programs from basing coursework on “identity politics.”

An email chain between Dittmore, academic affairs administrator Karen Cousins, and institutional research staff shows that after they submitted the required information, state officials requested UNF to revise additional course materials and resubmit them.

Documentation of the changes administrators made to one of White’s courses shows the removal of words like “diverse” and “culture.” In an email chain between university administrators over the summer, Cousins explained that the university did not have time for the Academic Program Committee (APC), UNF’s course review team, to review the changes. She said the need for haste was required by state law. Dittmore reiterated this in an email to White on Sept. 8.

“The DOE & BOG required changes before the start of the Fall 2025 semester. Faculty were off-contract and there were no APC committee meetings being held between July 28, 2025 and the start of the Fall 2025 semester. We revised the course description and learning objectives and resubmitted them. The Department of Education approved these changes via email on August 6, 2025,” Dittmore said in the email. 

In the same email, Dittmore also requested that White update the syllabi he’s using in his classes to match what was submitted to the Board of Governors.

What this means

White and other faculty within the college have said that in an attempt to appease state lawmakers, UNF administrators have “overstepped” and broken their own policies. UNF administrators disagree and say they’re following state law.

“We’re being censored beyond what the law says,” White told Spinnaker in August before he filed the grievance. 

UFF-UNF President Madalina Tanase said this incident reflects how pressure from Florida lawmakers has intensified a chilling effect on university faculty and administrators.

“We are moving in a very dangerous direction with censorship and academic freedom,” Tanase said. “The worst part of it is the self-censorship.”

White was asked multiple times to make the required changes to his course materials, but has refused. In one of his emails to college administrators on the matter, White wrote the following:

“I fear that in its haste to appease state lawmakers, the university has both exceeded its authority and has demanded the exclusion of specific ideas beyond the mandates of the law itself. These actions amount to a censoring of historical fact and valid academic theories. And while it may account for very little in our current political contexts, I believe that the changes demanded by Academic Affairs—and filtered down to us in the college—are harmful to our students, to the K–12 students they will be serving, and to the institution as a whole. We must at some point stand up against injustice; that is what I am trying to do.”

According to an internal email, Dittmore has given White until Friday, Sept. 12 to update his syllabus to reflect the changes.

This is a developing story. Stay with Spinnaker as we continue to bring you updates.

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