Gov. Ron DeSantis and Attorney General Ashley Moody are appealing a federal judge’s ruling that blocked part of a new state law that placed restrictions on how race-related issues can be addressed in workplace training, a law DeSantis dubbed the “Stop WOKE Act.”

Lawyers for DeSantis and Moody filed a notice Friday that is a first step in asking the Atlanta-based U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit to take up the issue.

Chief U.S. District Judge Mark Walker last month issued a preliminary injunction, agreeing with three businesses and a consultant that the workplace-training restrictions violate the First Amendment.

At least three other pending federal lawsuits challenge part of the law placing restrictions on how race-related issues can be addressed in public schools and higher education. Walker’s preliminary injunction did not address the education issues.

As is common, Friday’s notice of appeal did not detail arguments that the state will make at the appeals court. In addition to DeSantis and Moody, defendants in the case included members of the Florida Commission on Human Relations.

The law (HB 7), which DeSantis signed April 22, spurred fierce debates before passing during this year’s legislative session. DeSantis called it the “Stop Wrongs To Our Kids and Employees Act,” or Stop WOKE Act.

The employment-related part of the law lists eight race-related concepts and says that a required training program or other activity that “espouses, promotes, advances,...

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