Workplace-Training Provision Of Stop WOKE Act Blocked By Judge

by Sharelle Burt

July 30, 2024

Take that DeSantis!

A federal judge has permanently blocked the workplace training portion of Florida’s controversial Stop WOKE Act as it violates the First Amendment rights about free speech. 

On July 26, Chief U.S. District Judge Mark Walker submitted a two-page order granting a permanent injunction against the workplace training part of the law. The specific portion lists eight race-related ideologies and would have banned diversity- and race-related training in private workplaces. The verbiage said, “training programs or other activity that espouses, promotes, advances, inculcates, or compels such individual (an employee) to believe any of the following concepts constitutes discrimination based on race, color, sex, or national origin.”

According to The New Republic, one concept states that members of a particular demographic are “morally superior” to members of another demographic. The 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the injunction issued by the Obama-appointed judge in 2022, just months after Governor and presidential failure Ron DeSantis signed it into law. 

As Walker once ruled the act unconstitutional, Florida’s GOP lawmakers touted the bill as a way to fight against “wokeness,” diversity efforts, and critical race theory, the idea that racism is systemic in U.S. institutions.

The provision of the Stop WOKE Act was first challenged by Honeyfund, a Florida-based franchisee of Ben & Jerry’s, Primo Tampa, workplace-diversity consultant firm Collective Concepts and a Clearwater-based technology company that hosts wedding registries. The plaintiffs claim they were forced to censor themselves “on important societal matters” and hindered “from engaging employees in robust discussion of ideas essential for improving their workplaces.” 

Attorneys representing the DeSantis Administration argued the act does not restrict speech but admitted to prohibiting businesses from forcing their employees to listen to “certain speech against their will” or risk losing their jobs. 

The federal judge has been harsh on the legislation from its inception, issuing a separate preliminary injunction against a portion that would restrict the way race-related concepts can be taught in universities. In May 2023, students were forced to receive new textbooks after the Black Lives Matter movement and imagery of George Floyd were removed. 

Even the mention of people kneeling during the national anthem was struck from an elementary school textbook.

An appeals court panel held a hearing in that case in June 2024.