17: Countering False Narratives in U.S. Higher Education: Pragmatist Pedagogies of Resistance in Post‑Truth Florida

In recent years, Florida has been a main U.S. education battleground and a barometer for educational policies sweeping the nation at large. The rationale given for neoconservative policies adopted in Florida has been to “take back” education from “liberals” and “radical leftists,” alternately described as Marxist, Maoist, Communist. A 2024 American Association of University Professors report titled “Manufacturing Backlash: Right-Wing Think Tanks and Legislative Attacks on Higher Education, 2021–2023” documents multipronged attacks, some claiming that “…American children are being ‘poison[ed]’ and ‘indoctrinated’ by ‘anti‑American, anti-reality counter-factual ideas’ in schools and universities” (Kamola, 2024). For a time, the attacks took the form of educational gag orders to ban books, units, and class content that was allegedly anti‑American, consolidated into easy-to-deploy acronyms of “CRT” (critical race theory), “SEL” (social and emotional learning), and DEI (diversity, equity, inclusion), resulting in policies such as Florida rejecting AP African-American History classes.¹