United States of America

Court Strikes Down Florida's Stop WOKE Act

Was this act a defense of students against indoctrination or an unconstitutional assault on academic freedom?

Published JUL 8

Court Strikes Down Florida's Stop WOKE Act

Story

Above: Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis speaks in Hialeah Gardens, Florida, on April 22, 2022. Image credit: Daniel A. Varela/Miami Herald/Tribune News Service/Getty Images

The Spin

Democratic narrative

The 11th Circuit's ruling against the Stop WOKE Act is a landmark win for academic freedom. Public universities exist as centers of free inquiry, and no legislature gets to dictate which ideas students are allowed to encounter. The First Amendment trusts students to evaluate ideas themselves.

Unknown on FIRE

Deborah Archer on ACLU

Republican narrative

The Stop WOKE Act was a reasonable pushback against ideological indoctrination. Elite bureaucracies in universities have been pushing racialist ideology onto students, and Florida was right to draw a line. One dissenting judge made clear the majority rewrote precedent to reach a political outcome, not a legally sound one.

James Uthmeier on X City Journal Newsmax