Tallahassee, Florida — A federal appeals court has blocked a key part of Florida’s Stop WOKE Act, ruling that the state cannot impose an official viewpoint on public college classrooms.
The 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld a lower-court injunction against the law’s higher education provisions. The 2022 law, backed by Gov. Ron DeSantis, restricted how public colleges and universities could teach certain concepts involving race, gender, privilege, and historical responsibility.
Judge Britt Grant wrote that viewpoint-based restrictions are especially dangerous in classrooms and said the First Amendment does not allow the government to “puppeteer” every university professor in the state. The Guardian reported that the decision was a 2-1 ruling and applies to public colleges and universities, not all parts of the law.
Reason framed the ruling as a rejection of government censorship, arguing that Florida tried to fight one ideological orthodoxy by creating another. The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, which challenged the law, praised the ruling as a victory for academic freedom.
The appeals court previously blocked the law’s workplace training restrictions in 2024, finding that those provisions also violated the First Amendment.
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