Update: Almost immediately after the Stop WOKE Act was signed into law on April 22, 2022, a lawsuit was filed on behalf of, among others, a group of teachers, a student and a diversity training director seeking to invalidate the law as a whole on constitutional grounds. Donald Falls, et. al. v. Ron DeSantis, et. al., Case No. 22-cv-00166-MW-MJF, is pending before Judge Mark Walker in the United States District Court for the Northern District of Florida. A hearing on the plaintiffs' motion for preliminary injunction is set for June 21, 2022. Duane Morris will keep you updated on further developments of this and any other legal challenges.
On April 22, 2022, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis signed House Bill 7, the so-called Stop WOKE Act, into law. The new law, which amends the Florida Civil Rights Act (FCRA), will go into effect July 1, 2022. Florida employers who conduct diversity-related training in the workplace should take note of this new law since it prohibits an employer from mandating training and instruction that promotes, advances, espouses or compels employees to believe certain specified topics as delineated in the law. However, there remain any number of approaches that may be utilized to provide meaningful and effective implicit bias training in Florida.
By way of background, the FCRA is one of Florida's anti-discrimination laws and, like Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, prohibits employment discrimination based on the usual protected characteristics,...
Early voting in the U.S. midterm elections is underway. Voters are deciding which party will control Congress, as well as numerous state legislatures and governors' offices. Snopes' fact-checker...