Contributor: Robin R. Walter

The problem of legislative censorship in academia is an ongoing issue of national scope. Since January 2021, 44 states have introduced bills, passed legislation, or taken other steps locally that would restrict teaching critical theory or limit how (or if) faculty can discuss Black history, racism, sexism, privilege, oppression, and issues of systemic inequality in their courses (Schwartz, 2024).

In 2022, Florida enacted a law that prohibits Florida College System (FCS) institutions and state universities from being accredited by the same accrediting agency or association for consecutive accreditation cycles. The following year, Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL), filed a federal lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of higher education accreditation. A federal judge dismissed the lawsuit in October 2024, stating, “…by restricting people’s speech, the law was positively dystopian” (Allen, 2024). However, In September of this year, the U.S. House passed the End Woke Higher Education Act, a bill barring accrediting organizations from requiring colleges and universities to adopt diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) policies as a condition of accreditation. While the fate of this legislation is uncertain, it raises concerns about future challenges to accrediting bodies in nursing education, such as ACEN and CCNE. Currently, Florida statute mandates that all pre-licensure nursing education programs be professionally accredited within five years after the date of enrolling a program’s first students. This offers some protection for the preservation of DEI content and policies required by accreditors, but not all states have this legislation.

Because of these laws, nursing students risk never learning about intergenerational trauma, the political and social determinants of health, or how to think critically and proactively about addressing inequities through social and healthcare reform. Textbooks, learning activities, and discussions regarding the role of implicit bias, structural oppression, power, and privilege in healthcare face scrutiny, modification, or elimination. Faculty, including myself, have been cautioned to refrain from using the very words that embody the core values of nursing’s social contract. The threat is real. Failure to comply with the new state laws could result in job loss for faculty and a loss of funding or exorbitant fines for state colleges and universities. The question becomes, “How do nurse educators promote the ideals of social justice and emancipatory praxis at a time when the concepts and theories grounding them are being censored across the nation?” Emancipatory Nursing Praxis (ENP) framed within the context of Watson’s Caring Science (CS) and relational emancipatory pedagogy offers a conceptual guide for nurse educators seeking to move students toward actualizing their ability to transform structural inequities and unjust social relations (Hills et al., 2020; Walter, 2023).

ENP offers a transformational learning framework that explains how nurses come to know and engage in social justice. Four stages of learning (becoming, awakening, engaging, and transforming) are facilitated by two conditional contexts (reflexivity and relational). Taken together, the learning stages and contexts facilitate the acquisition of social justice competencies and nurses’ role development as social justice allies. This type of learning is best facilitated by a pedagogical framework that is liberating, emancipating, and empowering. The relational emancipatory pedagogy grounded in Caring Science addresses this need.

Foundational to relational emancipatory pedagogy in Caring Science is the belief that transformational learning occurs because of authentic caring relationships between educators and students. Four elements must be present for emancipatory learning to occur: creating a culture of caring, creating collaborative caring relationships, engaging in critical dialogue, and reflection-in-action (Hills et al., 2021). The underlying processes for these elements support and facilitate student progression through the ENP’s four stages of learning to become social justice allies. Understanding that our ideas, views, and opinions are not simply individual but the product of internalized social and cultural messages taught from birth is essential to the successful integration of ENP and Caring Science’s relational emancipatory pedagogy. Reflexivity, a core process in both theories, is key to understanding who we are and how we care based on how we have been socialized into the dominant and nursing cultures. This is especially relevant in this time of legislative censorship. The values and expectations of policymakers are at once incompatible and antagonistic to those of nursing.

Teaching about social justice, structural racism, unearned social privilege, diversity, and inequity is not for the faint of heart, but it is work we cannot ethically abandon. As nurse educators, we need to engage in not only the same reflective praxis we require of students but also in our intellectual, experiential, and emotional competencies to teach this content. Otherwise, we may not be prepared to respond effectively to students. Students in ENP’s Awakening stage, for example, may be initially reticent to engage with new information about how they benefit from social inequities related to the intersection of race, gender, able-bodiedness, ethnicity, sexual orientation, religion, and socioeconomic class in their lives. I have most often seen three emotional responses: guilt, anger, and denial. Students may focus on personal experiences of marginalization or oppression rather than exploring the unearned benefits of their privileged social identities. They may also engage in avoidant or disruptive behaviors when certain topics are covered (e.g., class absences, unexpected changes in the level of in-class participation, texting during class, or engaging in side conversations during the discussion). Some will be in denial that any form of oppression exists, or if they do acknowledge it on some level, they certainly do not see themselves in any way complicit. Exceptions to the rules may be cited to discredit the role of privilege in maintaining oppression (e.g. citing accomplished Black individuals- President Obama, Oprah Winfrey, Condoleezza Rice- to dismiss the advantages accorded to whites relative to people of color).

In Caring Science’s relational emancipatory pedagogy, learning occurs because of caring relationships that allow the co-creation of knowledge from a spirit of mutual respect and inquiry. It’s important to note that these relationships are not limited to the interpersonal but include relational processes with one’s own ideas and personal meaning, the subject matter, the power dynamics in the classroom, and inner subjective experiences (Hills et al., 2020, p. 153). This blog posits that one of the outcomes of a Caring Science curriculum grounded in relational emancipatory pedagogy is to prepare nurses to engage in social justice as allies. Integrating the two theoretical perspectives can guide nurse educators in creating spaces where learners—students and faculty—can engage in emancipatory praxis about the social and political issues impacting our profession, education, and those for whom we care.

In an era of legislative censorship, we must hold fast to our professional ethics and values, defend peer-review processes that foster excellence and accountability in nursing education, challenge policies that cripple our ability to address inequities, and embrace our responsibility as educators to “…create ambiguity, challenge taken-for-granted assumptions, create an environment where learners feel free to wrestle with ideas…and engage in critical dialogue about the issues at hand” (Hills et al., 2020, p. 154).

References

Hills, M., Watson, J., & Chantal, C. (2020). Creating a caring science curriculum: A relational emancipatory pedagogy for nursing (2nd ed.). Springer Publishing.

Walter, R. (2023). The value of Emancipatory Nursing Praxis and Caring Science in an era of legislative censorship. In S. Horton-Deutsch & G.D. Sherwood (Eds.), Reflective practice: Reimagining ourselves, reimagining nursing (3rd ed., pp. 268- 284). Sigma Theta Tau International.

About Robin R. Walter

Dr. Walter’s research developed the theory of Emancipatory Nursing Praxis, a mid-range learning theory explaining how nurses come to know and engage in social justice. She conducts state, national, and international policy analyses on issues adversely impacting vulnerable and marginalized populations. Her policy advocacy also includes nursing practice, education, and research issues. In this blog, she argues that in an era of legislative censorship in higher education, faculty can prepare nurses to be social justice allies using a relational emancipatory pedagogy from Watson’s Caring Science.