Legislative Foundation

In 2023, the Florida Legislature passed ยง 1004.6499, Fla. Stat. (2023), which established the Florida Institute for Governance and Civics (IGC) at Florida State University. The statute tasks the IGC with the following responsibilities:

Key Responsibilities

  1. Provide students with access to an interdisciplinary hub that will develop academically rigorous scholarship and coursework on the origins of the American system of government, its foundational documents, its subsequent political traditions and evolutions, and its impact on comparative political systems.
  2. Encourage civic literacy in Florida through the development of educational tools and resources for K-12 and postsecondary students, fostering an understanding of how individual rights, constitutionalism, separation of powers, and federalism function within the American system.
  3. Model civic discourse that recognizes the importance of viewpoint diversity, intellectual rigor, and an evidence-based approach to history.
  4. Plan and host forums to allow students and guests to hear from exceptional individuals who have excelled in a wide range of sectors of American life, highlighting the possibilities created by individual achievement and entrepreneurial vision.
  5. Become a national and state resource on using polling instruments and other assessments to measure civic literacy and make recommendations for improving civic education.
  6. Provide fellowships and internship opportunities to students in government.
  7. Create through scholarship, original research, publications, symposia, testimonials, and other means a body of resources that can be accessed by students, scholars, and government officials to understand innovations in public policy in Florida over a rolling 30-year period.