A federal appeals court on Tuesday upheld a lower court order blocking Florida from enforcing key higher education provisions of its “Stop WOKE Act,” ruling that the law violates the First Amendment rights of public university professors and students.
The 2-1 decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit rejected the state’s argument that classroom instruction by public university faculty amounts to government speech that Florida may control. Judge Britt C. Grant, writing for the majority, said the state cannot require professors to follow an official viewpoint in college classrooms.
“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.
The 2022 law, formally known as the Individual Freedom Act, restricted how certain concepts related to race, sex, color and national origin could be discussed in public universities. The challenged provisions barred professors from promoting or endorsing ideas including that people are inherently biased based on race or sex, that privilege or oppression is determined by race or sex, or that concepts such as merit, objectivity and colorblindness are racist.
The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE) filed the lawsuit in 2022 on behalf of University of South Florida professor Adriana Novoa, former student Sam Rechek and the First Amendment Forum student organization. The case was heard alongside a related challenge brought by the ACLU, ACLU of Florida and NAACP Legal Defense Fund.
The ruling leaves in place a November 2022 injunction that halted enforcement of the higher education provisions. The district court had described the law as “positively dystopian.”
FIRE called the decision a victory for academic freedom and free inquiry on public campuses. The ruling applies within the Eleventh Circuit, which includes Florida, Georgia and Alabama.
