A divided federal appeals court dealt a major setback Tuesday to one of Gov. Ron DeSantis’s signature culture-war initiatives, ruling that Florida’s restrictions on how public university professors may teach about race and gender violate the First Amendment.
In a 2-1 decision, a panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit affirmed a lower court’s injunction blocking the higher-education provisions of Florida’s 2022 Individual Freedom Act, widely known as the “Stop WOKE Act.” The law had barred professors from endorsing any of eight specified concepts tied to race, sex, national origin and privilege — among them the idea that a person is inherently biased, or should feel guilt, based on their race or sex.
Writing for the majority, Judge Britt C. Grant, a Trump appointee, rejected Florida’s argument that professors’ classroom speech effectively belongs to the state because the state pays their salaries. “If the First Amendment offers any boundary of protection at all for public university classrooms, this statute crosses it,” Grant wrote. She was joined by Judge Charles R. Wilson, an appointee of former President Bill Clinton.
Judge Barbara Lagoa, another Trump appointee whom DeSantis had earlier placed on the Florida Supreme Court, dissented, arguing the state acted within its authority to set limits on what professors may endorse in state-funded classrooms. Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier publicly praised her dissent afterward.
The ruling leaves intact a preliminary injunction that U.S. District Judge Mark Walker issued in November 2022, when he described the law as “positively dystopian.”
Tuesday’s decision resolved two consolidated lawsuits. One was brought by the American Civil Liberties Union, the ACLU of Florida, the NAACP Legal Defense Fund and the law firm Ballard Spahr on behalf of Florida A&M University law professor LeRoy Pernell and other faculty. The second was filed by the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression on behalf of University of South Florida professor Adriana Novoa, a former student and a campus free-speech organization.
Leah Watson, senior staff attorney with the ACLU’s Racial Justice Program, said the ruling “sets a strong precedent that higher education cannot be limited to the whims of politicians.” FIRE senior attorney Greg Greubel said the decision reaffirms that “governments cannot censor their way to freedom.” Novoa, the USF professor, said it means she can now “teach our classes without government interference.”
The case marks the first time a federal appeals court has ruled on the constitutionality of a wave of classroom-censorship laws that have spread to more than 30 states since Florida enacted its statute. Similar measures have already been struck down in New Hampshire and Oklahoma on separate constitutional grounds. With Tuesday’s opinion, the Eleventh Circuit joins six other federal appeals courts that have recognized First Amendment protection for public university faculty’s teaching and scholarship — a question the Supreme Court has not yet directly addressed.
Florida can ask the full Eleventh Circuit to rehear the case en banc or petition the U.S. Supreme Court for review. DeSantis’s office did not immediately comment on the ruling, which is likely to remain a flashpoint in the broader national fight over what public university professors may teach.
