ORCID

0000-0001-6492-4358

Keywords

Race, Racism, Ideologies, Politics, Education

Abstract

Florida passed House Bill 7 in 2022 and Senate Bill 266 in 2023, both policies that restrict how race and racism are discussed and taught in the public higher education setting. Although scholars of race and racism contend that colorblind ideology drives the “new racism,” the U.S. is experiencing a resurgence in similar curriculum bans explicitly based on topics related to race and racism. With these trends has emerged a need to understand how explicitly racialized policies fit within the “new racism” framework. Using Victor Ray’s Theory of Racialized Organizations, this study analyzes how colorblind ideology and racialized threat are infused into organizational space through the implementation of race-related education policy. This study was conducted in 2 stages. In the first stage, a critical discourse analysis of Florida House Bill 7, Senate Bill 266, and their press releases analyzes how the state uses dominant framing techniques to set the lines of discussion around topics of race and racism in education. In the second stage, analysis of data from interviews with 14 students and faculty at a large public university in Florida was conducted, with the goal of understanding how the policies influence the daily lives of those who work and study in the setting of public higher education. Findings indicate that by using racialized framing techniques, the state justifies exclusionary curriculum bans by framing them as in alignment with traditional U.S. values that need protecting. Additionally, interview data exposes how university policies and procedures, such as limited support and communication, produce individual-level schemas of uncertainty and fear. These schemas are conceptualized as colorblind racialized emotions because they produce a “chilling effect” through what this study calls organizational racialized omission.

Completion Date

2026

Semester

Spring

Committee Chair

J. Scott Carter

Degree

Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.)

College

College of Sciences

Department

Sociology

Format

PDF

Document Type

Dissertation

Identifier

DP0053253

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