A federal district court judge permanently blocked the portion of Florida’s “Stop WOKE Act” that restricted how companies discuss inclusion and diversity, holding that this portion of the law was unconstitutional.
We’ve gathered articles on the news from SHRM Online and other outlets.
In 2022, the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Florida suspended a portion of Florida’s Stop the Wrongs to Our Kids and Employees (WOKE) Act, a controversial law backed by Gov. Ron DeSantis that restricts what he called “woke” workplace trainings about race. The judge temporarily blocked the employer portion of the law, saying it violated free speech.
(SHRM Online and Politico)
In now permanently blocking the law’s workplace training provision, the court said on July 26 that the law “violates free speech rights under the First and Fourteenth Amendments to the U.S. Constitution.” The decision followed a federal appeals court in March upholding the temporary injunction, agreeing that the employer portion of the law infringed on employers’ free speech rights.
(CNN)
That appellate court decision said, “By limiting its restrictions to a list of ideas designated as offensive, the act targets speech based on its content.” The ruling added that “by barring only speech that endorses any of those ideas, it penalizes certain viewpoints—the greatest First Amendment sin.”
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