Florida Governor Ron DeSantis has supported a bill designed to limit discussion of racism and privilege in classrooms and the workplace.
Giorgio Viera/AFP via Getty Images
hide captions
switch captions
Giorgio Viera/AFP via Getty Images
Florida Governor Ron DeSantis has supported legislation designed to limit discussion of racism and privilege in classrooms and the workplace.
Giorgio Viera/AFP via Getty Images
A federal judge in Florida has partially blocked legislation backed by Governor Ron DeSantis that restricts discussion of racism and privilege in schools and workplace training.
In a 139-page order issued Thursday, US Tallahassee District Judge Mark Walker criticized the Republican-led bill and prevented it from taking effect in the state’s public universities.
“The State of Florida’s decision to choose which views are worthy of light and which should remain in the shadows has implications for all of us,” Walker wrote. “But the First Amendment does not allow the State of Florida to silence its college professors, impose its own orthodox views, and cast us all in the dark.”
The act, formerly known as the Stop WOKE Act – an acronym for “Wrong Against Our Children and Employees” – is now known as the Individual Freedoms Act. DeSantis signed the bill into law this spring; It originally went into effect in July.
The bill prohibits schools and workplaces from implementing any guidelines that suggest that any individual, based on race, color, sex or national origin, “responsible and must feel guilty, distressed, or other forms of psychological distress” due to historically racist practices. The bill also prohibits education or training stating that individuals are “privileged or oppressed” because of their race or gender.
Critics say the bill is designed to prevent schools and workplaces from discussing racism. In August, a group of eight Florida professors sued representatives of the state’s higher education system over the bill, calling the law “racially motivated censorship” aimed at stifling “their needs.” discuss, research, and address widespread systemic inequality.”
Racism theory is a decades-old academic framework that examines how racism has helped shape the institutions and traditions that exist today.
This idea was once confined to law school seminars. But over the past two years, the term has become shorthand for a variety of conservative errors: diversity training in the workplace, protesting against police brutality, and high school history lessons.
DeSantis begins to push bill last December. “In Florida, we are standing up against state-backed racism, which is the key racial theory,” he said in a press release announcing the proposal. “We will not allow Florida tax dollars to be used to teach children to hate our country or hate each other.”
The bill is one of the state legislature’s harshest entries in conservative culture wars against schools. Florida lawmakers passed it along with Parents’ Rights in the Education Act, called the “Don’t Say Gay” bill by criticsprohibits classroom instruction related to sexual orientation or gender identity from kindergarten through third grade.
At his behest, Judge Walker, an Obama appointee, opened by reading the first sentence of 1984George Orwell’s novel about life under a future totalitarian government.
“‘It was a cold day in April, and the clock struck thirteen,’ and the authorities responsible for Florida’s public university system have declared the State to have the sole discretion to silence the public. his professor in the name of ‘freedom’,” the judge wrote. “This is positively backward.”
Thursday’s ruling is the second legal hurdle to the legislation. An August ruling, also by Walker, blocked another part of the bill that targeted diversity practices in the workplace. The law is faced with another challenge by K-12 teachers.
DeSantis’ office is expected to appeal the decision.
