Court rules Florida restrictions on race, gender education at colleges violate free speech rights

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An appeals court on Tuesday ruled that part of Florida’s law restricting how race and gender are taught in classrooms, specifically provisions restricting how those topics are taught in colleges, violates free speech rights.

In a 2-1 decision, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit determined part of the Stop Wrongs Against Our Kids and Employees Act, or Stop WOKE Act, signed by Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) in 2022 is unlawful.

The law was designed to restrict public universities, K-12 schools and private workplaces from promoting certain concepts related to racism, gender and systemic privilege. This week’s ruling only dealt with how the law affects the state’s public colleges and universities.

“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,” Judge Britt Grant, a Trump appointee, wrote on behalf of the majority.

“This new rule also runs headlong into the Supreme Court’s repeated, if imprecise, endorsements of academic freedom. If the First Amendment offers any boundary of protection at all for public university classrooms, this statute crosses it,” Grant added.

Judge Charles R. Wilson, a Clinton appointee, sided with the majority ruling, while Judge Barbara Lagoa, a Trump appointee, was the lone dissenter.

“The majority’s rule, meant to avoid what it believes is the State’s improper viewpoint discrimination, nonetheless endorses its own form of viewpoint discrimination,” Lagoa wrote in her dissent.

“Of course, some amount of viewpoint discrimination is necessary to ensure the effective operation of any academic institution,” Lagoa added, arguing that the state and the governing administration have the authority to set the limits on curriculum and speech inside the classroom.

Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier (R) praised Lagoa after the opinions were released, writing that she “may be the best jurist in our country” in a post on the social platform X.

Meanwhile, the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE) lauded the appeals court ruling as a crucial victory for academic freedom following its 2022 lawsuit that sparked a legal challenge to the Stop WOKE Act.

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), ACLU of Florida and Legal Defense Fund were also involved in the legal challenges leading to Tuesday’s ruling.

“Today’s important decision means that college remains a place where professors and students are allowed to debate controversial topics — even if politicians disagree with them,” FIRE senior attorney Greg H. Greubel said in a statement.

“Today’s ruling makes clear something we’ve known for a long time: Governments cannot censor their way to freedom,” he added.

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