In a 2-1 decision, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit blocked a portion of Florida’s 2022 law that targeted woke ideology in schools.
Trump-appointed Britt Grant wrote in the ruling, “If the First Amendment offers any boundary of protection at all for public university classrooms, this statute crosses it.” Grant explained that the “speech ban Florida’s political leaders seek to impose here is different in both nature and degree from these ordinary concerns. The rule Florida developed for this case does not withstand scrutiny.”
Florida Governor Ron DeSantis (R) condemned the ruling, writing on X, “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 agendas.”
“Florida was correct to bar CRT and DEI. We also have a right to do so,” he explained. “We’ve seen so many institutions get corrupted by ideology, and universities have been perhaps the most common. The Constitution does not block us from fighting back against these ideological fads and from ensuring that our institutions stand on a solid intellectual foundation.”
“This is a clear and unfortunate example of judicial overreach.”
Upon introducing the bill in 2021, DeSantis said that no taxpayer dollars “should be used to teach our kids to hate our country or hate each other.”
Criticizing far-left woke ideology, he added, “They want to tear at the fabric of our society and our culture. They want to de-legitimize the founding of the country and the Constitution.”
