A federal appeals court struck down the higher education restrictions of Florida’s “Stop WOKE Act” that restricts critical race theory (CRT) indoctrination in the state’s public colleges and universities.
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Breitbart News reports that the pertains to the Stop Wrongs Against Our Kids and Employees Act (Stop WOKE Act), which Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) signed in 2022.
CRT is a Marxist ideology which “claims that all of our institutions — our government, our economy, our culture — are based on racial hierarchy, with whites on top and blacks at the bottom. Even things that look race-neutral are, on closer inspection, racist.”
The 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled 2-1 that the law’s salary-for-speech provision violates the First Amendment, according to the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU).
The decision came in response to two lawsuits brought by professors, students, and a student group who claim the law is unconstitutional censorship and applies specifically to Florida’s public colleges and universities.
Judge Britt Grant, a Trump appointee, wrote on behalf of the majority:
Florida’s salary-for-speech rule is a breathtaking assertion of power to ban unpopular ideas from public discourse in the very places the State’s own statutes recognize as centers of inquiry — classrooms where students are trusted to puzzle through ideas that are good and bad, easy and hard, ideally getting ever closer to the truth.
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Judge Barbara Lagoa, a Trump appointee, dissented, contending that Florida has interest in regulating state-sponsored instruction.
Lagoa wrote:
To be clear, the First Amendment protects all viewpoints in the public square, whether they are conventional or uncontroversial. But it does not compel all viewpoints to be worthy of state-sponsored endorsement.
Republican Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, in a post on X, argued that the ruling was a “clear and unfortunate” example of judicial overreach, stating, “Florida was correct to bar CRT and DEI. We have a right to do so.”
State universities are funded by taxpayers and directed by elected officials and their appointees. 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… https://t.co/RMQMxo6QAu
— Ron DeSantis (@RonDeSantis) July 8, 2026
The split ruling leaves open the opportunity for Florida to pursue a rehearing or appeal to the Supreme Court.
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