Federal courts spike piece of DeSantis ‘Stop Woke’ law

TALLAHASSEE, Florida — A federal judge permanently shut down a significant piece of Florida’s so-called Stop Woke Act on Friday, delivering a devastating blow to a signature law pushed by Gov. Ron DeSantis to restrict workplace trainings about race.

Passed by the GOP-dominated Legislature in 2022, it expanded state anti-discrimination laws to target lessons over subjects like “white privilege” by creating new protections for workers. But Florida has never been able to enforce the "anti-woke" law for businesses, since it was quickly sued and ultimately determined by two courts to violate free speech rights protected by the Constitution.

“Today’s decision serves as a powerful reminder that the First Amendment cannot be warped to serve the interests of elected officials,” Shalini Goel Agarwal, special counsel for Protect Democracy, which represented businesses that sued Florida, said in a statement.

Florida’s "anti-woke" policies targeted schools and companies, saying that lessons or trainings that would make a person “feel guilt, anguish, or any other form of psychological distress” due to their race, color, sex or national origin were illegal under the law, FL HB7 (22R) .

In response, a group of businesses — honeymoon registry technology company Honeyfund.com and a Florida-based Ben & Jerry’s franchisee Primo Tampa, along with workplace diversity consultancy Collective Concepts and its co-founder Chevara Orrin — challenged the law, claiming it forced them to censor themselves “on important societal matters” and “from engaging employees in robust discussion of ideas essential for improving their workplaces.”

Attorneys for the DeSantis administration, representing Attorney General Ashley Moody and the Florida Commission on Human Relations, however, have contended that the “anti-woke” law restricts no speech and only regulates that employers can’t force employees to listen to “certain speech against their will” at the risk of losing their jobs.

The law was initially blocked temporarily in August 2022 by Chief U.S. District Judge Mark Walker, who criticized its policies as “bordering on unintelligible.” That ruling was upheld by the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in March as a three-judge panel slammed the "anti-woke" law for penalizing “certain viewpoints — the greatest First Amendment sin.”

The DeSantis administration hinted at a possible appeal to the Supreme Court and disagreed with the rulings for determining that “companies have a right to indoctrinate their employees with racist and discriminatory ideologies.”

Attorneys for the state, though, did not oppose a motion by the group of businesses seeking a permanent injunction against the “Stop-WOKE” act, which Walker granted on Friday .

DeSantis officials did not immediately respond to a request for comment about the order.

A separate challenge surrounding the how the policies apply to colleges and universities is currently awaiting a ruling in appeals court.