Judge blocks DeSantis’s ‘Stop WOKE Act,’ says Florida feels like a ‘First Amendment upside down’
A federal judge on Thursday blocked portions of a Florida law restricting how workplaces and schools can discuss race during required training or instruction championed by Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R).
U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Florida Chief Judge Mark Walker issued a preliminary injunction blocking the private employer provisions in the law, known as the “Stop WOKE Act,” saying it violates free speech protections under the First Amendment and that it violates the Fourteenth Amendment’s Due Process Clause for being impermissibly vague.
“Recently, Florida has seemed like a First Amendment upside down,” Walker wrote in the ruling, comparing the law to the fictional “upside down” in the Netflix series “Stranger Things.”
“Normally, the First Amendment bars the state from burdening speech, while private actors may burden speech freely,” the Obama-appointed judge continued. “But in Florida, the First Amendment apparently bars private actors from burdening speech, while the state may burden speech freely.”
DeSantis’s office said it will appeal the decision.
“Judge Walker has effectively ruled that companies have a First Amendment right to instruct their employees in white supremacy,” said Taryn Feske, DeSantis’s communications director. “We disagree and will be appealing his decision.”
The law prevents workplaces from requiring employees to attend any activity that violates any of eight concepts, like instilling that someone bears “personal responsibility” for historic wrongdoings because of their race, color, sex or national origin.
DeSantis and other Republicans promoted the new legislation as fighting back against liberals seeking to make white people feel guilty in diversity and inclusion efforts.
“In Florida, we will not let the far-left woke agenda take over our schools and workplaces,” DeSantis said during a signing ceremony in April. “There is no place for indoctrination or discrimination in Florida.”
In the ruling, Walker argued the law implemented viewpoint-based regulation on speech, noting that a nonprofit could not hold a required meeting in which it endorses the concept of white privilege while another nonprofit was free to hold required meetings criticizing the concept.
“If Florida truly believes we live in a post-racial society, then let it make its case,” Walker ruled. “But it cannot win the argument by muzzling its opponents.”
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Judge blocks DeSantis’s "Stop WOKE Act," says Florida feels like a "First Amendment upside down" https://t.co/P58WvizU9S pic.twitter.com/t38gBJFf5f
— The Hill (@thehill) August 19, 2022
The reason why I call the Stop WOKE Act a "speech code" is that it uses the *exact* justification that many college administrators attempted to use to justify their own speech restrictions, i.e. that they're just complying with the CRA or trying to avoid violations of the CRA. /6
— David French (@DavidAFrench) August 19, 2022
Yet that's what DeSantis is doing, and that's why defenders of the First Amendment are taking him to court. It's not because they're "woke." It's because they support free speech, "the great moral renovator of society and government" (to quote Frederick Douglass) /end
— David French (@DavidAFrench) August 19, 2022
The DeSantis attack on the First Amendment illustrates how the word "conservative" lost meaning.
For 20+ years conservatives attacked campus speech codes, upholding free speech as a core value.
Now DeSantis passes his own speech codes, and it's "conservative" to support them?
— David French (@DavidAFrench) August 19, 2022
I love this post more than ice cream. https://t.co/OEMBSW6sAD pic.twitter.com/e1k0bNJ6cm
— Patterico (@Patterico) August 19, 2022
No matter how carefully he tries to dance around it, the fact is @RonDeSantisFL is actively campaigning to help get election deniers around the country elected. That means DeSantis is an election denier. Period.
— Joe Walsh (@WalshFreedom) August 19, 2022
Mastriano is wearing his former Army rank on his lapel. How…on brand. https://t.co/o1aAGY7LiP
— Fred Wellman (@FPWellman) August 19, 2022
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