Judge Permanently Blocks Key Part of Florida’s ‘Stop Woke Act’ as Unconstitutional

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis attends the drivers meeting prior to the NASCAR Cup Series Daytona 500 at Daytona International Speedway in Daytona Beach, Fla., on Feb. 19, 2024. (Jared C. Tilton/Getty Images)

A federal judge has permanently blocked a key part of Florida’s Individual Freedom Act—also known as the “Stop Woke Act”—a law that barred private employers from requiring staff to undergo training inspired by Critical Race Theory (CRT) and likeminded ideologies, such as the notion that members of one ethnic group or sex are inherently racist, oppressive, or sexist.

Judge Mark Walker of the U.S. District Court in Tallahassee issued an order on July 26 that converts his previous preliminary injunction into a permanent, statewide halt to the enforcement of Florida statute § 760.10(8) on grounds that it violates the constitutional right to free speech.

The statute is a provision of Florida law introduced by the Stop Woke Act that prohibits employers from endorsing any of eight concepts during any mandatory employment activity. These include the notion that one group is morally superior to another based on race, or that individuals should be discriminated against to achieve the aims of diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI), or that individuals should feel guilt for past actions by others of the same race.

“This Court declares that Fla. Stat. § 760.10(8) (202) violates free speech rights under the First and Fourteenth Amendments to the U.S. Constitution,” the judge wrote in the July 26 order, blocking enforcement of the law throughout Florida.

Judge Walker’s order did not elaborate on the rationale for ruling this part of the Stop Woke Act unconstitutional, but he argued in his preliminary injunction—which was appealed and upheld by the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals—that this provision is a “naked viewpoint-based regulation on speech that does not pass strict scrutiny.”

The newly blocked provisions were adopted when Mr. DeSantis signed House Bill 7 into law in April 2022, declaring that the provisions of the Stop Woke Act were meant to prevent discriminatory instruction in public schools and in the workplace.

“In Florida, we will not let the far-left woke agenda take over our schools and workplaces,” Mr. DeSantis said in an April 22, 2022 statement. “There is no place for indoctrination or discrimination in Florida.”

The employment-related provisions of the Stop Woke Act were challenged in a lawsuit brought by a group of businesses, which stated in their complaint that they believe that DEI training is beneficial and enhances productivity, and that they want the right to engage their employees in discussions on concepts like “cultural competency, white privilege, implicit bias, systemic or institutionalized racism and sexism, and cisnormativity.” As such, the plaintiffs claimed that Stop Woke Act infringed on their constitutional right to free speech.

In counter-filings and in court, attorneys representing the Florida officials named as defendants in the lawsuit, including Mr. DeSantis, argued that the Stop Woke Act did not limit constitutionally protected speech in any way and so was not discriminatory. Rather, they claimed that the law protected workers from discrimination by being forced, against their will, to participate in mandatory DEI-related discussions or trainings as as part of their employment.

“Anything that a Florida employer could say (or could hire consultants to say) before the Act takes effect can still be said after, just as freely and in exactly the same manner,” reads Florida’s memorandum in opposition to the plaintiffs’ motion for a preliminary injunction. “What the Act does—all it does—is prevent employers from conscripting their employees, against their will, into the audience as a condition of their employment.”

Judge Walker sided with the plaintiffs, issuing a preliminary injunction in August 2022 that blocked the workplace-related provisions of the Stop Woke Act, with the judge criticizing the policies as “bordering on unintelligible.”

The defendants say the Stop Woke Act “does nothing more than ban race discrimination in employment,” the judge wrote. “But to compare the diversity trainings Plaintiffs wish to hold to true hostile work environments rings hollow.”

The 11th Circuit Court of Appeals upheld that ruling in March 2024, arguing in its opinion that the Stop Woke Act amounted to an “attempt to control speech by recharacterizing it as conduct.”

“Florida may be exactly right about the nature of the ideas it targets. Or it may not,” the appellate judges wrote. “Either way, the merits of these views will be decided in the clanging marketplace of ideas rather than a codebook or a courtroom.”

While the DeSantis administration disagreed with the ruling and hinted at a possible appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court, attorneys for the state did not oppose a motion by the business groups seeking conversion of the temporary injunction into a permanent one.

Mr. DeSantis’s office did not respond to a request for comment on the ruling.

Protect Democracy, which represented the business groups in the case, praised the judge’s order, calling it a “resounding defeat for imposing speech codes on business.”