A South Florida State College English professor who assigned Ottessa Moshfegh’s “Bettering Myself” sued after being abruptly fired over an assignment President Fred Hawkins described as “political.” In the lawsuit filed Wednesday in Florida district court, Vinita Prabhakar claims she was removed for teaching material outside the textbook despite a decade of prior use without incident. Court filings say a student reported discomfort, the assignment was escalated through administrators, and Hawkins told Prabhakar he would not want his college-aged daughter reading the story and that he “didn’t ever want to see this story again.” The complaint also alleges Hawkins referenced coordinating with “Tallhassee” and the Board of Trustees. The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression is representing Prabhakar, who says the firing violated constitutional and statutory rights. The dispute highlights how institutional leadership can directly shape classroom reading lists and raises the stakes for campus speech policy and due-process expectations in higher education.