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Florida Board Of Chiropractic Medicine

A proposed chiropractic school at Florida State University (FSU) has pitted state legislators against school faculty in a battle that is equal parts science and politics.

In January, FSU considered a proposal to build the first public chiropractic school in the country. Florida Governor Jeb Bush and the state legislature have already set aside $9 million of annual funding for the proposed school. (Governor Bush has been quoted as saying that the deal was more about making peace between warring politicians than any particular interest in chiropractic medicine.) The proposal was voted down by the University Board of Governors.

Several Florida politicians voiced support for the chiropractic school; they contend that it would have attracted students and development dollars, as well as boosting the reputation of the chiropractic community. However, many FSU faculty members opposed it. They argued that chiropractic medicine is a pseudoscience and that such a school would hurt FSU's academic reputation. They also protested the way in which the deal was arranged, with little to no input from faculty members. Several part-time faculty members had threatened to quit if the school was approved.

One of the professors created a parody map of the campus, which designates a building for Chiropractic Medicine alongside other paranormal departments such as the Yeti Foundation, the School of Channeling and Remote Sensing, and a Crop Circle Simulation Laboratory.

This is not the first time that a partnership 2between a major university and a chiropractic organization has been attempted: in 1995, York University in Toronto considered a plan to affiliate themselves with the Canadian Memorial Chiropractic College. (There are several parallels: the proposal was not made public until 1998, and advocates promised that the deal would bring in millions of dollars and many new students while faculty opposed the deal on academic and scientific grounds.) After a protracted fight, York rejected the proposal in 2001.

John Gaeddert is Assistant Director of Public Relations for CSICOP.

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