Disputing that restrictions on race-related workplace training violate the First Amendment, the state is asking a federal judge to toss out a challenge by businesses to a law that Gov. Ron DeSantis dubbed the “Stop WOKE Act.”
Attorneys for the state last week filed motions to dismiss the lawsuit and to prevent a preliminary injunction. The law, which took effect July 1, targets how race-related concepts are addressed in workplace training and school classrooms, with DeSantis touting it as preventing “indoctrination.”
The state’s motions contended that the law does not violate the First Amendment because it only bars businesses from requiring employees to take part in training programs that use the targeted concepts.
“They [the law’s restrictions] leave employers free to engage in, promote and pay for any speech they wish, including the invidiously biased speech targeted by the act, and they leave willing employees free to hear and to join in it,” the state’s lawyers wrote. “All they prevent is the use of the employer’s coercive economic leverage over its employees to make them an offer they can’t refuse: Listen to the company’s speech or clear out your desk.”
Businesses filed the lawsuit June 22 and subsequently requested a preliminary injunction against the law, which they said violates their ability to discuss issues such as racism and implicit bias with employees.
“The act silences speech aimed at combating racism and sexism — speech that is vital to the plaintiffs’...
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