{"id":334105,"date":"2026-07-09T08:06:19","date_gmt":"2026-07-09T08:06:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/334105\/"},"modified":"2026-07-09T08:06:19","modified_gmt":"2026-07-09T08:06:19","slug":"11th-circuit-floridas-stop-woke-act-violates-free-speech","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/334105\/","title":{"rendered":"11th Circuit: Florida\u2019s \u2018Stop WOKE\u2019 Act violates free speech"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Florida<\/p>\n

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis speaks during an event to commemorate and honor the \u201cVictims of Communism Day\u201d with the attendance of community leaders and students from different county schools, hosted by the college in the Freedom Tower at the Wolfson Campus, in Miami, on Friday November 07, 2025.<\/p>\n

Pedro Portal<\/p>\n

pportal@miamiherald.com<\/p>\n

A federal court on Tuesday blocked part of a controversial Florida law restricting how public university and college professors can teach students.<\/p>\n

A majority opinion<\/a> from a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit upheld a lower court ruling that blocked the law from restricting how professors and instructors can teach about certain topics.<\/p>\n

The law targeted promotion of eight concepts related to race, gender and identity. The concepts included the idea that one \u201crace, color, national origin, or sex\u201d is superior to another, the idea that someone \u201cbears responsibility, or should be treated worse\u201d because of past acts by people in their identity group, and that a person should be treated worse \u201cto achieve diversity, equity, or inclusion,\u201d among others.<\/p>\n

The opinion is limited to the application of the law as it relates to postsecondary institutions, though the law also applies more broadly to other educational institutions and businesses.<\/p>\n

The law was initially dubbed the \u201cStop WOKE Act,\u201d<\/a> adopting language often used to deride left-of-center ideas seen as too extreme or out of touch with the mainstream. It was later named the Individual Freedom Act.<\/p>\n

The state argued that it allowed discussion of the targeted concepts, but could restrict promotion of them because professors are paid by the state.<\/p>\n

Judge Britt Grant, joined by Judge Charles Wilson, wrote the law amounted to \u201cimproper viewpoint discrimination.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cFlorida seeks to strip public university professors\u2014and by extension their students\u2014of the ability to fully engage with ideas that are, for better or for worse, very popular in some academic circles. The State asks us to consider its rules a means of targeting discrimination. But 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,\u201d Grant wrote.<\/p>\n

Judge Barbara Lagoa, in her dissent, agreed with the state\u2019s argument.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe First Amendment protects all viewpoints in the public square, whether they are conventional or controversial. But it does not compel all viewpoints to be worthy of state-sponsored endorsement,\u201d Lagoa wrote.<\/p>\n

The judges were not cleanly divided along political lines. Grant and Lagoa were both appointed to the bench by President Donald Trump in his first term; Wilson was appointed by former Democratic President Bill Clinton.<\/p>\n

This story was originally published July 7, 2026 at 3:38 PM.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Florida Governor Ron DeSantis speaks during an event to commemorate and honor the \u201cVictims of Communism Day\u201d with…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":334106,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[123,125,124],"class_list":["post-334105","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-miami","tag-miami","tag-miami-headlines","tag-miami-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/334105","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=334105"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/334105\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/334106"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=334105"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=334105"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=334105"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}