From POLITICO:
‘Breathtaking assertion of power’: Appeals court slams door on Florida ‘Stop Woke’ law championed by DeSantis
The decision from a divided 2-1 panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit is a devastating, possibly final blow to the so-called Stop WOKE act touted by the DeSantis administration.
07/07/2026 02:25 PM EDT|Updated: 07/07/2026 05:35 PM EDT
TALLAHASSEE, Florida — Florida’s anti-woke law restricting how lessons on race and gender can be taught in colleges and universities — policies championed by Gov. Ron DeSantis — violates the free speech rights of professors, a panel of appeals court judges ruled Tuesday.
The decision from a divided 2-1 panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit is a devastating, possibly final blow to the so-called Stop WOKE Act touted by the DeSantisadministration. The judges affirmed a 2022 decision that labeled Florida’s rules as “positively dystopian,” doubling down by arguing the law is “a breathtaking assertion of power to ban unpopular ideas from public discourse” in the very classroom space where students are supposed to “puzzle through ideas that are good and bad, easy and hard, ideally getting ever closer to the truth.”
If the First Amendment offers any boundary of protection at all for public university classrooms, this statute crosses it,” Judge Britt C. Grant, an appointee of President Donald Trump, wrote in the opinion.
Grant was joined by Judge Charles R. Wilson, a Bill Clinton appointee, in the ruling. But another Trump-appointed judge, Barbara Lagoa — a former Florida Supreme Court judge picked by DeSantis — wrote a striking dissent of the decision, contending the First Amendment “does not compel all viewpoints to be worthy of state-sponsored endorsement.”
“This panel is not free to rewrite precedent simply because we dislike where it leads,” Lagoa wrote.
Florida’s Republican-led Legislature approved the “anti-woke” legislation, H.B. 7, or the Individual Freedom Act, in 2022. The state, though, has been blocked from enforcing the policies as it has been fighting in court ever since.
Directly inspired by DeSantis, the law expanded Florida’s anti-discrimination laws to prohibit schools and companies from leveling guilt or blame to students and employees based on race or sex. As such, it targets lessons over issues like “white privilege” by creating new protections for students and workers, including that a person should not be instructed to “feel guilt, anguish, or any other form of psychological distress” due to their race, color, sex or national origin.
The other portion of Florida’s law restricting what DeSantis called “woke” workplace trainings faced a similar fate after also being rejected by an 11th Circuit panel. And, notably, it was Grant who wrote that opinion, decrying the DeSantis-backed policies as “the greatest First Amendment sin” for penalizing certain viewpoints on the job.
Tuesday’s higher education ruling was triggered by two lawsuits that have been fighting the Stop WOKE law for years. One of the lawsuits was filed by Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, a nonprofit free speech group, on behalf of a University of South Florida professor, student, and student group, while the other was brought by the ACLU, ACLU of Florida and Legal Defense Fund on behalf of students and educators.
Both challenges alleged that the legislation pushed by DeSantis violates their freedom of speech, evidenced by how it could restrict lessons on critical topics, claiming it’s a discriminatory classroom censorship law that severely restricts how race and gender can be taught and talked about in schools.
“This ruling sets a strong precedent that higher education cannot be limited to the whims of politicians,” Leah Watson, senior staff attorney with the ACLU’s Racial Justice Program, said in a statement Tuesday.
FIRE, meanwhile, also celebrated the decision and its implications for higher education:
“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 Greg H. Greubel, FIRE senior attorney.
The DeSantis administration did not immediately respond to a request for comment about the ruling. State Attorney General James Uthmeier, though, did throw praise at Lagoa.
“Barbara Lagoa may be the best jurist in our country,” Uthmeier said on social media. “She should be on SCOTUS.”
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