{"id":335323,"date":"2026-07-10T04:23:25","date_gmt":"2026-07-10T04:23:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/335323\/"},"modified":"2026-07-10T04:23:25","modified_gmt":"2026-07-10T04:23:25","slug":"floridas-so-called-stop-woke-act-gets-the-legal-rebuke-it-deserves","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/335323\/","title":{"rendered":"Florida’s so-called Stop WOKE Act gets the legal rebuke it deserves"},"content":{"rendered":"

The\u00a011th Circuit Court of Appeals\u2019 2-1 decision Tuesday<\/a> upholding a lower court decision against Florida\u2019s 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<\/a>. His explicit indoctrination program has already included the takeover (and profound mismanagement<\/a>) of Florida\u2019s New College, the deletion of sociology<\/a> from state schools\u2019 core curriculum and the subsequent censorship of its introductory sociology textbook<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The act outlawed teaching about ideas that are widely accepted across the social sciences and physical sciences, including the existence of structural racism<\/a>. Professors were also threatened with termination for encouraging students to reflect on the legacy of slavery<\/a>. DeSantis\u2019 loss in this battle in his war on \u201cwoke\u201d 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.<\/p>\n

DeSantis losing this battle in his war on \u201cwoke\u201d is a win for students and faculty.<\/p>\n

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\u2019s ruling is exceptionally clear: Legislators attempting to control professors\u2019 classroom speech violate the First Amendment and undermine the very point of a college education.\u00a0Importantly, the ruling dismantled Florida\u2019s arguments that students who are asked to learn potentially disturbing ideas about America\u2019s racist past (and present) are being subjected to unlawful discrimination. It\u2019s notable that Tuesday\u2019s 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\u2019t rationalize state intrusion into classrooms. She concluded, \u201cIf the First Amendment offers any boundary of protection at all for public university classrooms, this statute crosses it.\u201d<\/p>\n

In her scathing ruling, Grant correctly pointed out that the law would truncate learning opportunities. \u201cHearing 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 she wrote. Of course, changing minds about controversial issues such as racism is exactly what so many conservative legislators are trying to stop.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\"\"\t\t\t\t<\/a><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\tVictor Ray<\/a>\t\t<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t\t\t\tVictor Ray is an Associate Professor in the department of sociology and criminology at the University of Iowa, Vice President of the American Sociological Association, and an Alliance for Higher Education Fellow. His first book \u201cOn Critical Race Theory: Why it Matters & Why You Should Care,\u201d was published by Random House.\t\t<\/p>\n

\"MS<\/p>\n

\u00a9\u00a02026 Versant Media, LLC<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The\u00a011th Circuit Court of Appeals\u2019 2-1 decision Tuesday upholding a lower court decision against Florida\u2019s so-called Stop WOKE…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":335324,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[28,30,29],"class_list":["post-335323","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-florida","tag-florida","tag-florida-headlines","tag-florida-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/335323","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=335323"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/335323\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/335324"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=335323"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=335323"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=335323"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}