The 11th Circuit Court of Appeals’ 2-1 decision Tuesday upholding a lower court decision against Florida’s so-called Stop WOKE Act is a necessary rebuke of state lawmakers and Gov. Ron DeSantis, who has sought to make Florida a prototype for a conservative higher education agenda. His explicit indoctrination program has already included the takeover (and profound mismanagement) of Florida’s New College, the deletion of sociology from state schools’ core curriculum and the subsequent censorship of its introductory sociology textbook.

The act outlawed teaching about ideas that are widely accepted across the social sciences and physical sciences, including the existence of structural racism. Professors were also threatened with termination for encouraging students to reflect on the legacy of slavery. DeSantis’ loss in this battle in his war on “woke” is therefore a win for students and faculty committed to discussing ideas free from state interference. In short, his loss is a victory for education.

DeSantis losing this battle in his war on “woke” is a win for students and faculty.

Lawmakers have neither the disciplinary expertise nor the pedagogical skill to know what should be taught in college classrooms or how, and the 11th Circuit’s ruling is exceptionally clear: Legislators attempting to control professors’ classroom speech violate the First Amendment and undermine the very point of a college education. Importantly, the ruling dismantled Florida’s arguments that students who are asked to learn potentially disturbing ideas about America’s racist past (and present) are being subjected to unlawful discrimination. It’s notable that Tuesday’s decision was written by a judge appointed by President Donald Trump, because the president has been especially aggressive in stacking the courts with people who share his MAGA ideology. But Judge Britt Grant, who was joined in the ruling by Judge Charles Wilson, a Clinton appointee, couldn’t rationalize state intrusion into classrooms. She concluded, “If the First Amendment offers any boundary of protection at all for public university classrooms, this statute crosses it.”

In her scathing ruling, Grant correctly pointed out that the law would truncate learning opportunities. “Hearing an idea you disagree with is not discrimination; it is an opportunity to come up with a better idea, or maybe even change your mind,” she wrote. Of course, changing minds about controversial issues such as racism is exactly what so many conservative legislators are trying to stop.

As a professor who teaches at a public university, I was especially encouraged to see the 11th Circuit reject the state’s lawyers, who argued that because public universities are funded by the state, professors’ speech counts as government speech and can therefore by quashed by the government. Grant called this claim a “breathtaking assertion of power” that aimed to ban ideas from college classrooms — the very place ideas, including controversial ones, should get a hearing.

The 11th Circuit’s decision should serve as a warning to Republican-controlled states that have followed Florida and attempted to curtail what subjects can be taught and what professors can say. “Divisive concept” laws have resulted in farcical outcomes. Ohio’s would makes it an offense to accurately teach the scientific consensus on climate change. Because of Texas’ new ban on teaching “race and gender ideology,” Texas A&M administrators told Professor Martin Peterson to cut Plato out of his introductory philosophy course. Tuesday’s ruling makes it even clearer that legislators who try to ban the discussion of ideas that make them uncomfortable aren’t just embarrassing themselves, they are also inviting lawsuits.

American colleges and universities became the envy of the world in part because the nation understood that legislators dictating course content, or banning entire subjects outright, is tyrannical. Authoritarians always attempt to capture the institutions that provide an independent check on state propaganda. Censorship has always been a way that autocrats and would-be autocrats consolidate power. Maintaining power requires the suppression of ideas — especially those that challenge hierarchies.

Although DeSantis and government officials like him have often claimed to be on the side of freedom, Tuesday’s ruling affirms that conservative attacks on higher education are profoundly un-American. The country’s bedrock principle of free speech — and the related idea of academic freedom —allows researchers to explore ideas unconstrained by the stifling orthodoxy that hampers authoritarian systems. Laws banning the teaching of “divisive concepts,” as well as Orwellian centers for “intellectual freedom” that impose mandatory classes and fire professors for speech that conservatives dislike, betray America’s foundational ideals. The 11th Circuit recognizes that censorship laws are anti-American. I’m not holding my breath, but we should all hope this decision pushes states that have followed Florida’s lead to take a lesson from the court and not from DeSantis.

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