A federal appeals court has invalidated the educational component of Florida's Stop Woke Act, ruling that the law unconstitutionally restricts professors' free speech rights by controlling what they can teach about race and gender in college classrooms.
The 11th Circuit Court of Appeals issued a 2-1 decision Tuesday, with Judge Britt Grant writing that Florida had crossed a constitutional line by using its authority over state payroll to suppress unpopular ideas. Grant, a Trump appointee, characterized the state's approach as "puppeteering" educators into delivering only state-approved messages.
"Because the government pays the professors' salaries, Florida says, their speech is the state's speech," Grant wrote in the majority opinion. "Emphatically no."
The judge continued: "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."
Grant emphasized that students themselves should evaluate competing ideas rather than having the state filter classroom discussion. "The ideas Florida targets may well be noxious. Or maybe not," he wrote. "Either way, in this context the first amendment trusts students to figure it out for themselves."
The ruling removes a cornerstone of Governor Ron DeSantis's second-term agenda targeting what he views as left-leaning ideology in higher education. Formally called the Individual Freedom Act and passed in 2022, the Stop Woke Act restricted how race and gender could be discussed and taught across Florida's state colleges and universities as well as in workplace settings.
This is the second major legal defeat for the legislation. The same appeals court blocked the workplace provision in 2024, finding that Florida illegally attempted to ban protected speech by relabeling it as unprotected conduct. A district court also issued an injunction against the law's college provisions in November 2022, which the Tuesday ruling reinforces.
LeRoy Pernell, a law professor at Florida A&M University and the named plaintiff in the case, praised the decision. "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," he said.
Civil rights organizations that challenged the law celebrated the outcome. Jin Hee Lee, director of strategic initiatives at the Legal Defense Fund, called the Stop Woke Act an "egregious" attempt to force Florida's public universities to adopt state-approved viewpoints. "It is no coincidence that this state law aimed to censor the perspectives of Black people and LGBTQ+ people," Lee said.
Carrie McNamara, staff attorney at the American Civil Liberties Union of Florida, said the ruling ensures that higher education remains guided by free speech principles rather than government censorship. "Our classrooms are meant to be rooms of curiosity, creativity, and learning," she noted.
The DeSantis administration has not yet responded publicly to the decision. Florida's attorney general, James Uthmeier, a former chief of staff to the governor, did not immediately comment.
Author James Rodriguez: "The courts have now twice rejected DeSantis's attempt to weaponize state employment to control classroom speech, which should signal to other governors considering similar laws that the Constitution still stands in their way."
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