Court Strikes Down Florida's Stop WOKE Act
Was this act a defense of students against indoctrination or an unconstitutional assault on academic freedom?
Above: Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis speaks in Hialeah Gardens, Florida, on April 22, 2022. Image credit: Daniel A. Varela/Miami Herald/Tribune News Service/Getty Images
The Spin
Democratic narrative
The 11th Circuit's ruling against the Stop WOKE Act is a landmark win for academic freedom. Public universities exist as centers of free inquiry, and no legislature gets to dictate which ideas students are allowed to encounter. The First Amendment trusts students to evaluate ideas themselves.
Republican narrative
The Stop WOKE Act was a reasonable pushback against ideological indoctrination. Elite bureaucracies in universities have been pushing racialist ideology onto students, and Florida was right to draw a line. One dissenting judge made clear the majority rewrote precedent to reach a political outcome, not a legally sound one.
