6 March 30 - april 5, 2023 miaminewtimes.com | browardpalmbeach.com New Times | music | cafe | culture | Night+Day | news | letters | coNteNts | 6 Month XX–Month XX, 2008 miaminewtimes.com MIAMI NEW TIMES | MUSIC | CAFE | FILM | ART | STAGE | NIGHT+DAY | METRO | RIPTIDE | LETTERS | CONTENTS | PUT TO SLEEP How DeSantis’ Stop WOKE Act ground to a halt. BY ALEX DELUCA A s with other contentious pieces of legislation championed by Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis, the Stop WOKE Act has had trouble passing muster in Tallahassee federal court. The legislation, proposed in late 2021 and signed into law last April, restricts Florida public schools from teaching about systemic racism and the idea that people are “privi- leged or oppressed” solely because of their race, national origin, or sex. It also prohibits employers in the state from requiring em- ployees to go through workplace training that promotes the con- cept that ingrained racial bias is wide- spread. One of several pieces of legislation introduced as part of DeSantis’ broader war on “woke ideol- ogy,” the law has been decried by crit- ics as an unconstitu- tional attempt to whitewash history. The governor has maintained that it’s a tool to tamp down on what he sees as leftist ideological teach- ings in the classroom. Key challenges to the Stop WOKE Act were pursued in the courtroom of Tallahas- see-based Chief U.S. District Judge Mark Walker, who has handed down a series of col- orful rulings against the law, at one point comparing DeSantis and the legislature’s in- terpretation of the First Amendment to the “upside down” world of the popular Netflix series Stranger Things. Last August, Walker blocked the work- place provision of the law. Then in November, he issued an injunction halting the state’s en- forcement of key portions of the education side of the law. (The cases are now on appeal.) Having trouble keeping up with the law and its pathway through the courts? Here’s a rundown of the legislation since its inception. December 2021 DeSantis proposed the Stop the Wrongs to Our Kids and Employees (W.O.K.E.) Act, which his office claimed would give “busi- nesses, employees, children and families tools to fight back against woke indoctrination.” “We won’t allow Florida tax dollars to be spent teaching kids to hate our country or to hate each other. We also have a responsibility to ensure that parents have the means to vin- dicate their rights when it comes to enforcing state standards,” DeSantis said. The legislation, later dubbed the Individ- ual Freedom Act, vowed to take on both “cor- porate wokeness” and the teaching of Critical Race Theory in public schools. It provided a pathway for students or their parents to sue for alleged violations of the act. January 2022 The legislation was introduced in the Florida House of Representatives by Hialeah-based Rep. Bryan Avila. Avila filed the bill, Florida HB 7, on January 11, 2022. April 2022 After it was passed by the Republican-domi- nated state legislature, DeSantis signed the bill into law at a press conference in Hialeah Gardens on April 22. Minutes later, a group of Florida educators and the parent of a girl entering kindergarten filed a federal lawsuit styled Falls v. Corcoran, alleging that the law violated their First and Fourteenth Amendment rights. The plain- tiffs’ attorneys said that it prohibits Florida’s educators and employees from “espousing, endorsing or advancing important issues about race in America.” June 2022 Several Florida businesses, including Florida honeymoon-registry company Honeyfund. com and a franchisee of Ben & Jerry’s, filed a motion on June 30 asking Judge Walker to is- sue a preliminary injunction against the law. July 2022 Amid several ongoing legal challenges, the legislation officially went into effect on July 1. August 2022 Judge Walker, a Barack Obama appointee, is- sued a ruling in the Honeyfund.com case, de- claring parts of the law unconstitutional and blocking enforcement of the section that re- stricts workplace diversity training. In the ruling, Walker said that Florida leg- islators had turned the “First Amendment upside down” by trying to regulate how pri- vate employers train employees on racial in- clusion and gender equity. “Normally, the First Amendment bars the state from burdening speech, while private actors may burden speech freely. But in Flor- ida, the First Amendment apparently bars private actors from burdening speech, while the state may burden speech freely,” Walker wrote, comparing the state to a parallel di- mension in the TV series Stranger Things. The same day, the American Civil Liber- ties Union (ACLU), ACLU of Florida, and the Legal Defense Fund, among others, filed a lawsuit challenging the legislation on behalf of a group of Florida educators and students. The lawsuit — Pernell v. Florida Board of Governors — argued that the law imposed “vague and discriminatory” viewpoint-based restrictions on teachers and students in higher education. “This law plainly violates instructors’ and students’ First Amendment rights to free speech and access to information and offends the well-established constitutional principle of academic freedom,” the plaintiffs argued. November 2022 On November 17, Walker issued a preliminary injunction in the Pernell case, blocking provi- sions of the Stop WOKE Act that restrict schools’ teaching of racial oppression. In a 139-page ruling, Walker blasted the law and ruled that it violates the First and Fourteenth Amendments by barring Florida’s educators from expressing certain viewpoints in university classrooms, while permitting “unfettered expression of the opposite view- points” favored by the State of Florida. “This is positively dystopian,” Walker wrote. “It should go without saying that if lib- erty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear.” Bryan Griffin, a spokesperson for the gov- ernor’s office, released a statement saying the governor “will continue to fight to prevent Florida’s students and employees from being subjected to discriminatory classroom in- struction or mandated discriminatory work- place training.” DeSantis has insinuated that decisions on politically sensitive topics in the Tallahassee federal court are a foregone conclusion and that he’ll prevail on appeal. March 2023 On March 16, a three-judge panel for the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals denied a motion in which the state sought to suspend Walker’s ruling in the Pernell case while it is on appeal. The decision meant that Florida colleges and universities could continue to freely teach about prejudice and racial oppression — with- out the specter of being penalized or sued for alleged violations of the Stop WOKE Act. [email protected] Gov. Ron DeSantis’ Stop WOKE Act hasn’t been able to prevail in the courts. Photo by Gage Skidmore | METRO | “IN FLORIDA, THE FIRST AMENDMENT APPARENTLY BARS PRIVATE ACTORS FROM BURDENING SPEECH, WHILE THE STATE MAY BURDEN SPEECH FREELY.”
