{"id":337923,"date":"2026-07-12T21:56:10","date_gmt":"2026-07-12T21:56:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/337923\/"},"modified":"2026-07-12T21:56:10","modified_gmt":"2026-07-12T21:56:10","slug":"after-court-blocked-woke-ban-professors-cautiously-optimistic-nbc-6-south-florida","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/337923\/","title":{"rendered":"After court blocked \u2018Woke\u2019 ban, professors \u2018cautiously optimistic\u2019 \u2013 NBC 6 South Florida"},"content":{"rendered":"

Professors across the state are breathing a small sigh of relief after a federal appeals court upheld a preliminary injunction against part of the \u201cStop WOKE Act.\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s quite welcome,\u201d said Zachary Leverson, an associate professor of global and sociocultural studies at Florida International University. \u201cBut also, it\u2019s perfectly in line with what I would expect. State government, in particular partisan state government, should not meddle or dictate the content of classroom materials.\u201d<\/p>\n

In a 2-1 ruling issued Tuesday, the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals blocked Florida from enforcing part of the \u201cStop Wrongs to Our Kids and Employees (WOKE) Act,\u201d passed by the Legislature and signed by Gov. Ron DeSantis in 2022.<\/p>\n

DeSantis pushed for the law to prevent \u201cindoctrination\u201d in university classrooms, as it bars professors from endorsing precepts of critical race theory. It also bans instruction causing students to \u201cfeel guilt, anguish or other forms of psychological distress because of actions, in which the person played no part, committed in the past by other members of the same race, color, national origin or sex.\u201d<\/p>\n

But professors like Leverson say the law instead made Florida\u2019s university students look like \u201cthey\u2019re incapable of original thought.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThey think these people are passive material who are forced into our classrooms and then professors sort of project ideas into their heads. That\u2019s not what instruction is at all. None of us are telling students what to think or even really how to think,\u201d Leverson said.<\/p>\n

In a post on social media, DeSantis disagreed with the appeals court\u2019s decision and said he\u2019s seen \u201cso many institutions get corrupted by ideology,\u201d calling critical race theory and diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) efforts “discriminatory.”<\/p>\n

\u201cState universities are funded by taxpayers and directed by elected officials and their appointees.\u00a0 The state has both a right and a responsibility to ensure instruction at these universities is consistent with the underlying mission and to exclude indoctrination and ideological agenda,\u201d he wrote on X.<\/p>\n

The ruling, written by Judge Britt Grant, an appointee of President Donald Trump, was critical of the state\u2019s argument, calling it \u201ca breathtaking assertion of power.\u201d<\/p>\n

\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 Grant wrote.<\/p>\n

Robert Cassanello, president of the United Faculty of Florida (UFF) and a history professor at the University of Central Florida, believes the ruling does more than just block the \u201cStop WOKE Act.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat the 11th appellate court has done has confirmed that we as instructors in the classrooms are the content experts, and not the lawmakers, and certainly not the governor of Florida,\u201d Cassanello said.<\/p>\n

Florida State University professor and UFF-FSU union president Robin Goodman said \u201cStop Woke\u201d has had a chilling effect in the classroom for the past four years.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s the fear factor,\u201d she told the News Service of Florida. \u201cWhen you\u2019re in the classroom, you\u2019re trying to do the best you can for your students and for your discipline, and now you have to worry if someone in your class takes something differently than the way you meant it and you could be fired.\u201d<\/p>\n

The ruling, however, brought \u201ccautious optimism\u201d to Florida\u2019s faculty community, and she\u2019s received several emails from professors who are \u201creally happy\u201d about the outcome, even though there are still other avenues the state could take to enforce restrictions on instruction in other ways.<\/p>\n

\u201cPeople aren\u2019t used to good news anymore,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Professors across the state are breathing a small sigh of relief after a federal appeals court upheld a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":337924,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[28,30,29],"class_list":["post-337923","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\/337923","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=337923"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/337923\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/337924"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=337923"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=337923"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=337923"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}