Courts deal DeSantis' Stop WOKE Act another blow

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A three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit released a ruling Thursday that a lower court’s injunction stopping the law’s enforcement in public higher education will remain in effect while appeals of the injunction continue.

The decision essentials halts Governor Ron DeSantis’ Stop WOKE Act for the time being. The Stop the Wrongs to Our Kids and Employees (WOKE) Act limits how instructors can discuss race and gender in public universities and K-12 schools, although only its application to higher education.  

DeSantis signed the act into law last year.

The appeals court panel’s order doesn’t say why the judges refused to lift the injunction at this point.

The lower court was clear, saying “This act strikes at the heart of ‘open-mindedness and critical inquiry,’ the State of Florida has taken over the ‘marketplace of ideas’ to suppress disfavored viewpoints and limit where professors may shine their light on eight specific ideas,” wrote Chief U.S. District Court Judge Mark E. Walker in his opinion. “And defendants’ argument permits zero restraint on the State of Florida’s power to expand its limitation on viewpoints to any idea it chooses. One thing is crystal clear—both robust intellectual inquiry and democracy require light to thrive.

“Our professors are critical to a healthy democracy, and the State of Florida’s decision to choose which viewpoints are worthy of illumination and which must remain in the shadows has implications for us all. If our ‘priests of democracy’ are not allowed to shed light on challenging ideas, then democracy will die in darkness. But the First Amendment does not permit the State of Florida to muzzle its university professors, impose its own orthodoxy of viewpoints, and cast us all into the dark.”

The Florida Board of Governors of the State University System and the University of South Florida Board of Trustees have been defending the act in court. Spokespeople for both said Thursday that they don’t comment on pending litigation.