11th Circuit strikes down part of Florida's 'Stop WOKE Act' as unconstitutional

ATLANTA (CN) — Part of a Florida law limiting discussions on race, gender and diversity unconstitutionally restricts the speech of college professors, a divided 11th Circuit panel ruled Tuesday.

“If the First Amendment offers any boundary of protection at all for public university classrooms, this statute crosses it,” U.S. Circuit Judge Britt Grant wrote on behalf of the majority.

In a 2-1 decision, the Atlanta-based appeals court rejected a request by Florida officials to toss out a federal judge’s ruling preventing the Sunshine State from enforcing a provision of Florida’s Individual Freedom Act, also known as the Stop Wrongs Against Our Kids and Employees Act (Stop WOKE Act).

The law would have restricted state university professors from endorsing certain views on eight concepts related to race, color, national origin or sex during classroom discussions.

The Individual Freedom Act amended the Florida Education Equality Act by creating new speech restrictions barring any “training or instruction that espouses, promotes, advances, inculcates, or compels” students at public state universities to believe any of eight concepts: a “blacklist of ideas,” an attorney for the plaintiffs said.

The concepts include ideas suggesting that members of one race, color, sex or national origin are morally superior to others, that a person is “inherently racist, sexist or oppressive” by virtue of his race or sex, or that people should feel guilty about the actions of their ancestors.

Students, professors and a student organization at six of Florida’s public universities sued the Florida Board of Governors to prevent officials from enforcing the provision.

“Viewpoint-based restrictions designed to compel or ban a set of beliefs are dangerous in any setting, and they are especially pernicious in the classroom context,” Grant, an appointee of Donald Trump, wrote on Tuesday. “That goes double for broadly worded yet imprecise regulations like these, which are sure to leave both professors and their students guessing about what kind of speech might violate the rules.”

Grant was joined in the majority by Senior U.S. Circuit Judge Charles Wilson, a Bill Clinton appointee.

A representative for the Florida Department of Education did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The majority rejected the state’s “astonishing” argument that if the government pays a professor’s salary, all speech by the professor in the classroom is government speech unprotected by the First Amendment.

“Florida’s salary-for-speech rule is 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 — classrooms where students are trusted to puzzle through ideas that are good and bad, easy and hard, ideally getting ever closer to the truth,” Grant wrote.

In a 33-page dissenting opinion, Trump-appointed U.S. Circuit Judge Barbara Lagoa argued the state’s authority is “at its zenith” in public classrooms.

“We need not agree or disagree with Florida that the viewpoints at issue here constitute racial discrimination; we need only acknowledge that the state is allowed to decide what is endorsed by its professors in its own classrooms,” Lagoa wrote.

The majority balked at the state’s arguments that it is trying to restrict discriminatory conduct and protect its own “cherished” ideals. The state has incorrectly assumed that exposure to the “wrong” viewpoints is a serious harm, the majority ruled.

“A professor who espouses a particular idea does not stand in the same shoes as one who ridicules a student, threatens a student, or targets a student,” Grant wrote.

Florida A&M University College of Law professor LeRoy Pernell celebrated the decision in a statement Tuesday.

“We are thrilled the court has stopped 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,” said Pernell, one of the named plaintiffs.

Spokespeople for the American Civil Liberties Union and the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, which represented plaintiffs in the case, also applauded the ruling.

“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.

Jin Hee Lee, director of strategic initiatives at the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, said the decision makes clear “Florida cannot actively erase their history of discrimination or their lived experiences without running afoul of our Constitution.”

The 11th Circuit previously struck down another portion of the Individual Freedom Act as unconstitutional.

The appeals court in 2024 found a provision in the law banning employers from forcing employees to attend workplace training events on topics including race and inequality violated the First Amendment.

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