By Michael Gryboski, Editor
A federal appeals court panel has ruled against a Florida law aimed at curbing the discussion of concepts like critical race theory in public university classrooms.
A three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit issued a 2-1 ruling Tuesday against Florida’s “Stop WOKE Act,” siding with professors and students who challenged the law.
Circuit Judge Britt Grant, a Trump appointee, wrote the majority opinion, joined by Judge Charles Wilson, an appointee of former President Bill Clinton. Grant wrote that the law was “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.”
“If the First Amendment offers any boundary of protection at all for public university classrooms, this statute crosses it,” Grant continued. “The ideas Florida targets may well be noxious. Or maybe not. Either way, in this context the First Amendment trusts students to figure it out for themselves.”
“The proper role of universities in our society has long been a topic of fierce debate,” she wrote. “Universities and professors do not always get it right. Neither does the government.”
Circuit Judge Barbara Lagoa, another Trump appointee, dissented, arguing that the professors who sued to block the law “are state employees, and the speech at issue here occurs during their state-sponsored instruction in a course taken for credit by students enrolled in the state’s public universities.”
“We have repeatedly decided cases of this kind, and from those decisions emerges a consistent principle: the state’s authority is at its zenith in its public classrooms, including the classrooms in its public universities,” Lagoa wrote.
“To be clear, the First Amendment protects all viewpoints in the public square, whether they are conventional or controversial. But it does not compel all viewpoints to be worthy of state-sponsored endorsement.”
The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, a First Amendment law firm that represented plaintiffs in one of two consolidated lawsuits challenging the law, celebrated the ruling in a statement shared with CP on Tuesday.
“Today’s ruling makes clear something we’ve known for a long time: Governments cannot censor their way to freedom,” said FIRE senior attorney Greg H. Greubel. He added that the decision “means that college remains a place where professors and students are allowed to debate controversial topics — even if politicians disagree with them.”
Also called the Individual Freedom Act or House Bill 7, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis signed the law in April 2022, championing it as a way to prevent ideas like CRT from entering education and business.
“No one should be instructed to feel as if they are not equal or shamed because of their race,” said DeSantis in a statement released at the time. “In Florida, we will not let the far-left woke agenda take over our schools and workplaces. There is no place for indoctrination or discrimination in Florida.”
Florida House Speaker Chris Sprowls was also quoted in the 2022 statement as supporting the legislation, arguing that “Florida’s students and employees will be judged as individuals, by their words, character and actions, not simply by their race, sex or national origin.”
“Florida took an important step to ensure that our schools and workplaces are spaces where we can have healthy instruction and conversation without losing sight that we are first and foremost individuals,” Sprowls stated.
“Importantly, the bill provides assurance for parents that some of the most difficult lessons about our nation’s history and current events are taught accurately while treating everyone as individuals.”
The Act was the subject of multiple suits, including one by two companies, Honeyfund and Primo Tampa, challenging a provision banning mandatory diversity training sessions.
In March 2024, another three-judge panel of the 11th Circuit unanimously sided with the two companies, upholding a lower court decision that blocked that part of the state law.
Grant also authored the earlier panel opinion, writing in 2024 that “the government cannot favor some viewpoints over others without inviting First Amendment scrutiny.”
“Banning speech on a wide variety of political topics is bad; banning speech on a wide variety of political viewpoints is worse,” she continued. “Intellectual and cultural tumult do not last forever, and our Constitution is unique in its commitment to letting the people, rather than the government, find the right equilibrium.”