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MONDAY, MARCH 2, 2026

VOLUME 120 - ISSUE 23 Not officially associated with the University of Florida

Published by Campus Communications, Inc. of Gainesville, Florida

Gainesville Police Department hasn’t signed 287(g) agreement with ICE

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CITY DEPARTMENT DIFFERS FROM ALACHUA COUNTY SHERIFF’S OFFICE AND UNIVERSITY POLICE DEPARTMENT

By Angelique Rodriguez Alligator Staff Writer

Gainesville is the second-largest city in Florida whose police department has not signed an agreement with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. A 287(g) agreement is an ICE program that allows state and local law enforcement officers to act as deputized federal immigration agents. Under the program, trained officers can serve warrants for immigration violations, question individuals about their immigration status and detain people for potential deportation proceedings. The Alachua County Sheriff’s Office and the University Police Department have both signed the agreement, as have police departments in large cities like Miami and Tampa. Gov. Ron DeSantis directed state law enforcement — including the Florida State Guard and Florida Highway Patrol — to enter into agreements with ICE in early 2025. All of Florida’s 67 counties have now signed agreements, and their law enforcement officers are able to act as ICE agents. The law, however, did not specify whether cities have to sign agreements, leading to disputes between the state government and cities that have resisted signing. In a town hall meeting in October 2025, Gainesville Chief of Police Nelson Moya said he wouldn’t sign one yet. “It does make me nervous, because everybody around GPD and the city has, for reasons that I can appreciate, signed that agreement,” Moya said. “Because I don’t have a clearer picture, I’ve been foregoing a signature.” However, he said he felt pressure to sign into agreements was building, and he thought it was a “matter of time before that

SEE 287G, PAGE 4

Caroline Walsh // Alligator Staff

The Florida men’s basketball team poses with the SEC Championship sign after defeating Arkansas 111-77 in an NCAA basketball game Saturday, Feb. 28, 2026, in Gainesville, Fla. Read more in Sports on pg. 12.

UF adds Western canon-focused courses to general education

20 Hamilton School classes were added after hundreds of social sciences courses got cut last year By Cameron Countryman Alligator Staff Writer

One year after purging its general education curriculum of hundreds of humanities and social sciences courses, UF is slowly rebuilding its offerings by adding courses from the Hamilton School for Classical and Civic Education. Last year, faculty across Florida reviewed general education catalogs to ensure courses fell in line with a new law targeting perceived left-wing bias in higher education. The law required general education courses not distort historical events or teach “identity politics.” Additionally, humanities courses must include selections from the Western canon. The review resulted in over 900 courses

SPORTS/SPECIAL/CUTOUT Enterprise

Story description finish with comma, Florida bill proposes 5% enrollment cap pg# for out-of-state and international students at top universities. Read more on pg. 2.

being cut from UF’s general education offerings by the time the final list came before the Florida Board of Governors for final approval in Spring 2025. This was part of an annual general education review, in which the state board must approve general education catalogs across all universities before the start of each academic year. This year’s review was less dramatic, with just five UF courses removed and 26 added. The changes were approved at the board meeting Jan. 29. Of the 26 general education courses added, 20 came from the Hamilton School — the university’s state-mandated civic center, founded in 2022, which teaches students “how to think, not what to think,” according to its website.

Jason Mastrogiovanni, the school’s interim associate provost for student success, said the majority of the Hamilton School’s courses are Quest courses, which are required undergraduate courses that “engage students in interdisciplinary inquiry, civic responsibility, critical thinking, and real-world engagement.” Angela Lindner, the interim vice provost for undergraduate affairs, approached the Hamilton School while she was guiding the Quest program, Mastrogiovanni said. Lindner asked the school when it started if it wanted to provide Quest courses, many of which already satisfy humanities general education requirements. “They were meant to be small seminars taught by faculty,” Mastrogiovanni said. “We were in the process of trying to

Politics

SwampCon cancels drag show after state crackdown on DEI-related spending, pg. 3

The Avenue: Food

World Famous Eggroll truck makes a stop in Gainesville, pg. 6

obviously be established and start teaching courses. And when they came to us asking, it was really a good fit right away, so we went all in on it.” Every faculty member at the Hamilton School is encouraged to write and submit his or her own Quest course, Mastrogiovanni said. There are around 45 faculty members, and at some point in their course load, each must teach a Quest course, which he said is why the school has many new general education courses this year. Mastrogiovanni said the requirement for Western canon in general education humanities aligns with what the Hamilton School teaches. Victoria Backherms, a 19-year-old UF American government, history, literature and law sophomore, is taking the Hamilton School’s Classics of American Thought I: English Settlement to the Civil War course.

SEE GEN ED, PAGE 4

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