ATLANTA — Following a First Amendment lawsuit filed by the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, a federal appeals court ruled July 7 that Florida’s “Stop WOKE Act” — a broad ban on what faculty at public universities may discuss in the classroom — violates the First Amendment rights of Florida university faculty and students. The ruling, reported by FIRE, affirms a previous court decision that blocked the legislation from taking effect.
“Though the government has plenty of ways to promote its own viewpoint, puppeteering every university professor in the state is not one of them,” wrote Judge Britt C. Grant of the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in the decision. “Forcing an official government line—in a college classroom of all places—is exactly the ‘pall of orthodoxy’ that the First Amendment will not tolerate.”
In September 2022, the FIRE filed a lawsuit challenging Florida’s “Individual Freedom” law (dubbed the “Stop WOKE Act” by its proponents). FIRE’s lawsuit — on behalf of a professor, student, and a student group — argued that the higher educationprovisions of the act unconstitutionally chill free expression and mandate faculty censorship on the state’s college campuses. In today’s ruling, a majority of the 11th Circuit panel agreed.
“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,” said FIRE senior attorney Greg H. Greubel. “Today’s ruling makes clear something we’ve known for a long time: Governments cannot censor their way to freedom.”
FIRE said the ruling by the 11th Circuit (which covers Florida, Alabama, and Georgia) was a crucial victory for academic freedom and free inquiry on public campuses. The court joins the 2nd, 4th, 5th, 6th, 7th, and 9th Circuits in holding that the First Amendment protects public university faculty’s academic freedom when they engage in teaching and scholarship. No appellate court has come to a different conclusion.
“As a professor, I shouldn’t have to choose between teaching to the best of my ability or facing punishment,” said Professor Adriana Novoa, who teaches Latin American history at the University of South Florida. “This decision is such a relief to professors who care about their students and want them to become well-rounded and informed. It will allow me and countless other professors to teach our classes without government interference.”
The appeals court held that Florida’s “Stop WOKE Act” violates the First Amendment because it “bars Florida’s educators from promoting or endorsing” disfavored ideas about “race, color, sex, and national origin” while allowing criticism of those same ideas. As the court explained, the law targets eight concepts, including whether a person is inherently biased based on race or sex, whether privilege or oppression is determined by race or sex, and whether virtues such as “merit, excellence, hard work, fairness, neutrality, objectivity, and racial colorblindness” are racist.
The court emphasized that “the First Amendment trusts students to figure it out for themselves” and rejected Florida’s claim that it may control professors’ speech because it pays their salaries. “Florida’s restrictions are, as the State admits, an attempt to force uniformity of thought on students by curtailing the free exchange of ideas in universities—the very environments traditionally regarded as laboratories for expression and truth seeking,” wrote Judge Grant.
The 11th Circuit’s ruling means that the district court’s November 2022 injunction halting enforcement of key parts of the act in Florida’s public universities remains in place. In its injunction, the district court called the act “positively dystopian.”
FIRE represents Professor Novoa, former student Sam Rechek, and the First Amendment Forum student organization in the suit, with Florida attorney and FIRE Legal Network member Gary Edinger serving as local counsel.
FIRE’s challenge to the Stop WOKE Act was heard alongside a related challenge filed by the ACLU, ACLU of Florida, and NAACP Legal Defense Fund.
This edited article appears here with the permission of the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression.
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