Posted on 08/27/2022 5:23:32 AM PDT by MtnClimber
Let us hope Governor Ron DeSantis and Florida’s legislature continue to expand laws to protect their citizens from compulsory woke indoctrination.
In a recent ruling, The Hon. Mark Walker, chief U.S. district judge for the northern district of Florida, Tallahassee division, granted an injunction against the state of Florida’s “Stop WOKE Act,” which endeavors to protect employees from left-wing critical race theory (CRT) indoctrination intrinsic to the “diversity, inclusion, and equity” (a.k.a., DIE—acronym is based on the chronological order in which the Left created these concepts) training sessions mandated by employers and (usually conducted by) their DIE consultants. The decision is the first step in granting employers—and likely the federal government—the power to indoctrinate workers with the Left’s woke ideology.
The court’s injunction of this duly enacted statute of the state of Florida has rendered Florida’s citizens without recourse from employers’ mandatory DIE training sessions and the scurrilous accusations and compulsory activities it thrusts upon them. In sum, if the federal district court’s injunction leads, as expected, to the striking down of the Florida statute, other judicial activists throughout the country will then cite the precedent and act accordingly. Employers and their DIE consultants—and likely state and federal governments—will believe themselves constitutionally justified in ascribing thought crimes to their employees, and subjecting them to partisan political indoctrination.
While the state of Florida sought first and foremost to protect employees’ freedom of conscience and liberty, the court focused on affirming and cementing the power of employers and consultants to engage in “free speech” by requiring you to listen to what they have to say. In so doing, the court dismissed the reality that the “free speech” of the employers and consultants was not really at issue. The heart of the matter is the rights of the employees—specifically, to not be compelled to listen as their employer and its DIE consultants ascribe to them socially despised thoughts; compel their agreement; and coerce them into actions affirming and atoning for these alleged “thought crimes” which are based upon their race alone. In sum, then, the court seems to believe that in the instance of DIE training sessions, the powerful employer and its DIE consultants have a special right to free speech that can force others to listen, agree, and act—even regardless of the dictates of the compelled listener’s conscience.
So, too, for cases involving governmental powers to conduct and/or require other entities to hold CRT/DIE training, the court evidently considers corporate and government speech the most highly protected political speech, not the lesser protected commercial speech. Thus, the issue arises whether a federal or a state governmental entity has the power to compel the propagation and indoctrination of political speech, or use taxpayer funds to perform it, especially if it is partisan political speech.
As one Floridian correspondent remarked to me upon the issuance of the court’s injunction, such woke employee training sessions are “Maoist struggle sessions reminiscent of the Cultural Revolution that the Chinese Communist Party made famous in the 1960s, when they subjugated their population through ideological ‘purity tests,’ ruining countless lives and setting the nation back decades.”
The totalitarian tactic of suggesting one “knows” the thoughts of someone else would be risible, were it not so demonstrably destructive. The power of an employer and its DIE consultants—let alone the federal government—to ascribe unacceptable thoughts to an employee without a shred of evidence, and then to demand that employee conduct himself in a mandated manner to atone for the ascribed thought, mirrors the way totalitarian regimes persecute people for “thought crimes.”
In many states, companies can terminate employees “at will”. I can see thought crime being used against conservatives.
Good point. Florida is an at will state.
WHEN oh when will DeSantis push constitutional carry over the finish line for all Floridians? Sure he has a lot on his plate but if we are to stay on top of the crime wave sent to us by cali, NY, new Jersey and all of the other “blue state crime dens”, we need the ability to protect ourselves, our family and friends and our neighbors. Please Mr. DeSantis....make constitutional carry one of the top legislative objectives. NOW! And thanks for all you do.
I’m curious. Where, exactly, does this ‘power’ to issue such injunction come from?
Well, feel free to read Judge Walker's order for yourself:
https://s3.documentcloud.org/documents/22140127/preliminary-injunction-order-honeyfund-v-desantis.pdf
But, basically, the Florida legislature passes a law that certain employers, who want to be able to engage in this "woke" indoctrination, consider to be an unconstitutional content-based infringement on their right to free speech. So they bring a federal court action on that basis. At the same time, they also move the court to enjoin DeSantis and other Florida officials from enforcing what the plaintiff employers allege to be an unconstitutional law pending the outcome of the litigation (which could, of course, take many months).
The federal district court judge in this case concludes, on the basis of the motion and responses filed in conjunction with the plaintiffs' request for a preliminary injunction, that the plaintiffs have met the standards that would warrant the granting of such an injunction. As the judge wrote:
"A district court may grant a preliminary injunction if the movant shows: '(1) it has a substantial likelihood of success on the merits;' (2) it will suffer irreparable injury 'unless the injunction issues; (3) the threatened injury to the movant outweighs whatever damage the proposed injunction may cause the opposing party; and (4) if issued, the injunction would not be adverse to the public interest. Siegel v. LePore, 234 F.3d 1163, 1176 (11th Cir. 2000) (en banc)."
This is pretty much paint-by-numbers. Most importantly, the judge determined that the plaintiffs were likely to prevail on their claim that the new Florida law in question was unconstitutional.
For what it's worth, I agree with the judge. This legislation on the part of the Florida legislature was in the nature of counter-woke posturing. It's rather obviously unconstitutional. I imagine that most of the Florida legislators who voted for the law were wholly indifferent to that reality. They just wanted to make a political point. That's pretty much how these things work nowadays, in this Clown World society in which we are now living.
So the judge gets his authority from another judge?
Poor ruling and will get overturned. An employee has to sit and listen to job related things without limit. But you do not have to listen to assaholic lectures berating them for their race, telling them they are inherently evil, and forcing them to atone for it.
Imagine what would happen if a black employee had to sit and listen to an employer who called them lazy, entitled and spoiled and asked them to atone. What if an oriental was told they were too pushy and rude?
That world would come unfreaking glued.
We seem to be heading for a Maoist Cultural Revolution.
...and we all know how well THAT will turn out.
That Judge is an ultra, ultra leftist, appointed by Obama and has ruled against people’s will over and over.
Just look at some of his past decisions:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_E._Walker
I disagree on all four points for granting the injunction. Especially 2,3,4.
As for 1, that it might be overturned eventually, possibly on the basis that a private company gets to decide its own policies is laughable on its face.
How many laws are currently in the books telling a company what they can and cannot do?
This decision was strictly political, done by an ultra leftist, Obama appointed, activist judge.
Take a look at some of his past rulings...
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_E._Walker
From the column:
<>The heart of the matter is the rights of the employees—specifically, to not be compelled to listen as their employer and its DIE consultants ascribe to them socially despised thoughts; compel their agreement; and coerce them into actions affirming and atoning for these alleged “thought crimes” which are based upon their race alone. In sum, then, the court seems to believe that in the instance of DIE training sessions, the powerful employer and its DIE consultants have a special right to free speech that can force others to listen, agree, and act—even regardless of the dictates of the compelled listener’s conscience.<>
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