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A federal appeals court dealt a major blow to one of Gov. Ron DeSantis’ signature culture war laws on Tuesday, ruling that Florida cannot control what public university professors say in the classroom about race, sex and other forms of bias.
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In a 2 1 decision, the Atlanta based 11th Circuit Court of Appeals upheld a lower court’s injunction blocking the state from enforcing the higher education provisions of the Stop WOKE Act, calling the law a “breathtaking assertion of power” that unconstitutionally censors classroom speech.
What the Law Did
The 2022 law, formally known as the Individual Freedom Act and branded by supporters as the “Stop the Wrongs to Our Kids and Employees (WOKE) Act,” is a hallmark of the DeSantis administration. It restricted what educators could say about discrimination, sexism and bias, and imposed penalties including fines and termination on faculty who gave their own opinions or strayed from approved course curriculum.
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The law also barred private companies from providing diversity, equity and inclusion trainings, though that section was already struck down as unconstitutional in a separate March 2024 ruling from the same appeals court.
Passed the same year as the “Don’t Say Gay” law, the Stop WOKE Act applied not just to K-12 schools but also to Florida’s public colleges and universities, an area where the state has traditionally taken a lighter touch and where faculty have historically enjoyed broader academic freedom.
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The Ruling
Writing for the majority, Judge Britt Grant, a President Trump appointee, said Florida’s law “bars Florida’s educators from promoting or endorsing” disfavored ideas about race, color, sex and national origin while allowing criticism of those same ideas, a distinction she found violates the First Amendment and established Supreme Court precedent.
“Florida seeks to strip public university professors, and by extension their students, of the ability to fully engage with ideas that are, for better or for worse, very popular in some academic circles,” Grant wrote. “The State asks us to consider its rules a means of targeting discrimination. But hearing an idea you disagree with is not discrimination; it is an opportunity to come up with a better idea, or maybe even change your mind.”
The court flatly rejected the state’s argument that because taxpayers fund professors’ salaries, the government has total control over their classroom speech. Grant called that theory a “breathtaking assertion of power to ban unpopular ideas from public discourse in the very places the State’s own statutes recognize as centers of inquiry.”
Judge Charles Wilson, a Bill Clinton appointee, joined Grant in the majority. Judge Barbara Lagoa, another Trump appointee who previously sat on the Florida Supreme Court as a DeSantis pick before her elevation to the 11th Circuit, dissented, writing that “our precedent is clear that states retain authority to restrict a professor’s viewpoint in a public classroom, even if the professor’s viewpoint represents his professional opinion.”
Real World Impact on Florida Campuses
The law’s chilling effect on Florida classrooms was immediate and well documented. University of Central Florida sociology professor Jonathan Cox canceled two courses exploring race and media rather than risk sanctions for violating the law, according to a 2023 report cited in the case record.
The case, Pernell v. Lamb, was led by Florida A&M University College of Law professor LeRoy Pernell. In a statement following the ruling, Pernell said the decision “will stop the erasure of topics that have real implications for our students, allowing them to learn, discuss and develop tools for combatting the complex issue of racism in our country without being gagged by those who would dictate that only state approved thought may be promoted.”
The American Civil Liberties Union, which filed suit on behalf of several state university professors in 2022, praised the outcome. “This ruling sets a strong precedent that higher education cannot be limited to the whims of politicians,” said Leah Watson, senior staff attorney with the ACLU’s racial justice program. “All students and educators deserve to have a free and open exchange about ideas without government control. Students can’t fight racial discrimination that they don’t see; training and instruction is key to empowering future leaders to pursue racial justice.”
The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, which brought a parallel challenge on behalf of University of South Florida history professor Adriana Novoa and others, called the ruling a crucial victory for academic freedom. “Though the government has plenty of ways to promote its own viewpoint, puppeteering every university professor in the state is not one of them,” Grant wrote in the portion of the opinion FIRE highlighted.
National Context
Florida was not alone in passing this type of restriction. Since the Stop WOKE Act took effect, more than 30 states have passed similar limits on classroom speech in higher education, according to the ACLU. Similar laws have already been struck down by federal courts in New Hampshire and Oklahoma.
What makes Tuesday’s ruling significant is that it marks the first time an appellate court, rather than a district court, has found this kind of broad academic censorship law unconstitutional. The 11th Circuit covers Florida, Alabama and Georgia, and no other appellate court to consider the question has reached a different conclusion.
What Happens Next
The state has two options to try to reverse the outcome, though both are considered long shots. Florida can ask for reconsideration from the full 11th Circuit Court of Appeals sitting en banc, or it can appeal directly to the U.S. Supreme Court. The governor’s office did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
For now, the district court’s original injunction remains in place, meaning Florida’s public colleges and universities cannot enforce the law’s restrictions on classroom instruction while the legal fight continues.
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