Posted on 07/12/2026 7:09:52 AM PDT by MtnClimber
A federal appeals court struck down the higher education restrictions of Florida’s “Stop WOKE Act” that restricts critical race theory (CRT) indoctrination in the state’s public colleges and universities.
Breitbart News reports that the ruling pertains to the Stop Wrongs Against Our Kids and Employees Act (Stop WOKE Act), which Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) signed in 2022.
CRT is a Marxist ideology which “claims that all of our institutions — our government, our economy, our culture — are based on racial hierarchy, with whites on top and blacks at the bottom. Even things that look race-neutral are, on closer inspection, racist.”
The 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled 2-1 that the law’s salary-for-speech provision violates the First Amendment, according to the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU).
The decision came in response to two lawsuits brought by professors, students, and a student group who claim the law is unconstitutional censorship and applies specifically to Florida’s public colleges and universities.
Judge Britt Grant, a Trump appointee, wrote on behalf of the majority:
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 — classrooms where students are trusted to puzzle through ideas that are good and bad, easy and hard, ideally getting ever closer to the truth.
Judge Barbara Lagoa, a Trump appointee, dissented, contending that Florida has interest in regulating state-sponsored instruction.
Lagoa wrote:
To be clear, the First Amendment protects all viewpoints in the public square, whether they are conventional or uncontroversial. But it does not compel all viewpoints to be worthy of state-sponsored endorsement.
Republican Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, in a post on X, argued that the ruling was a “clear and unfortunate” example of judicial overreach, stating, “Florida was correct to bar CRT and DEI. We have a right to do so.”
The split ruling leaves open the opportunity for Florida to pursue a rehearing or appeal to the Supreme Court.
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There’s a difference between telling teachers what to think or say privately and placing guidelines and restrictions on what they teach in the classroom as state employees.
The STOP WOKE Act is so obviously unconstitutional, I’m surprised it took this long to get into court.
stop funding the public colleges then
That would be overturned by a judge so quick you wouldn’t even know what hit you.
Florida would outlaw KKK ideas being taught too.
The goal of educating our Florida young does NOT include wigged out hate group or ideas from any nutcase group.
Kids in our school systems were taught ‘genders and pronouns’ and graduated without being able to write a coherent paragraph. Those days are over. DeSantis put an end to that crap. ‘Grievance studies’ etc etc can be taught by indoctrination centers like Ivy colleges - along with their remedial reading classes for a thousand bucks an hour, but no longer in Florida schools...
There is a Vietnamese restaurant in Louisville that we like to shop at and it is called:
https://www.yelp.com/biz/viet-hoa-food-market-louisville
Sorry, not restaurant but a market
“classrooms where students are trusted to puzzle through ideas that are good and bad, easy and hard”
This judge is quite optimistic expecting that students are allowed to even challenge the commie professors’ indoctrination. Would this judge support professors indoctrinating students to “tear down American starting by destroying the judicial system and sending the judges to the gulag?”
EXACTLY. There is no part of the Constitution that protects the right of the state to perform marxist indoctrination.
Judge Barbara Lagoa: To be clear, the First Amendment protects all viewpoints in the public square, whether they are conventional or uncontroversial. But it does not compel all viewpoints to be worthy of state-sponsored endorsement.
Respectfully to the judge, nope to her understanding of the scope of the 1st Amendment (1A). (Yes, I do check to see where judges got their law degree.)
She's got what can be regarded as the FDR era, and probably earlier, politically correct interpretation of 1A free speech imo.
The drafters of the Bill of Rights (BoR) had decided that the states did not have to respect the rights expressly protected by it. The states originally obligated only the federal government to respect those protections.
The states later also obligated themselves to respect BoR rights when they ratified the 14th Amendment.
But it remains that the judge's comment doesn't reflect the intentions of 1A's drafters imo.
On the other hand, instead of prohibiting CRT propaganda, why didn't Gov. DeSantis require equal time and reasonable references, as examples, concerning viewpoints in the classrooms?
Britt Grant is an absolutist on the First Amendment. Barbara Lagoa who wrote the dissent has the correct interpretation.
These public University DEI employees are doing this as state employees, not as private citizens. They receive funding from the state legislature and their ultimate boss is the Governor of the state. Is Judge Grant saying that any manor of insubordination by state employees has to be tolerated on 1A grounds?
So, the teachers have the right to spread lies and hate, and the state who pays them can do nothing about it?
If you look at Judge Grant’s rulings, she almost exclusively falls on the side of free speech in all situations. I agree with Judge Lagoa, there are limits, especially for an employer mandate. Judges had no problem enforcing employer mandates against free speech during COVID.
Shouting “FIRE” in a crowded theater is not protected. Destroying the country by setting it on fire by marxist indoctrination should not be protected either, especially when done by state employees.
Why did the court insist that public schools and
colleges have a right to teach blatant falsehood?
Now the legislature must take effective counter-counter measures to oppose judicial support of toxic indoctrination.
Brings to mind what I remember General Norman Schwarzkopf saying about advancing against the Iraqi enemy. Said he: we will go around them, over them, under them, and through them.
I hope the Florida legislature will do the same.
Maybe the AG can arrest them for subverting the law.
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