Portion of Florida’s ‘Stop WOKE Act’ Permanently Blocked

A federal district court judge permanently blocked the portion of Florida’s “Stop WOKE Act” that restricted how companies discuss inclusion and diversity, holding that this portion of the law was unconstitutional.

We’ve gathered articles on the news from SHRM Online and other outlets.

Law Suspended in 2022

In 2022, the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Florida suspended a portion of Florida’s Stop the Wrongs to Our Kids and Employees (WOKE) Act, a controversial law backed by Gov. Ron DeSantis that restricts what he called “woke” workplace trainings about race. The judge temporarily blocked the employer portion of the law, saying it violated free speech.

(SHRM Online and Politico)

Permanent Block on Law

In now permanently blocking the law’s workplace training provision, the court said on July 26 that the law “violates free speech rights under the First and Fourteenth Amendments to the U.S. Constitution.” The decision followed a federal appeals court in March upholding the temporary injunction, agreeing that the employer portion of the law infringed on employers’ free speech rights.

(CNN)

Appeals Court Decision

That appellate court decision said, “By limiting its restrictions to a list of ideas designated as offensive, the act targets speech based on its content.” The ruling added that “by barring only speech that endorses any of those ideas, it penalizes certain viewpoints—the greatest First Amendment sin.”

(SHRM Online)

Act’s Workplace Provisions

The workplace-training part of the law listed eight race-related concepts and said that a required training program or other activity that “espouses, promotes, advances, inculcates, or compels such individual (an employee) to believe any of the following concepts constitutes discrimination based on race, color, sex, or national origin.”

(Tallahassee Democrat)

Targeted Concepts

The concepts targeted by the Stop WOKE Act included that “members of one race, color, national origin, or sex are morally superior to members of another race, color, national origin, or sex,” and that “a person, by virtue of his or her race, color, national origin, or sex is inherently racist, sexist, or oppressive, whether consciously or unconsciously,” according to the law’s text.

Critics of the act have said it’s an attempt to stop meaningful discussion of the ongoing effects of longstanding systemic discrimination.

(Law & Crime)