Trump-Appointed Judge Nixes Ron DeSantis’ Crackdown On ‘WOKE’ In Universities

A Trump-appointed judge ruled against part of Republican Florida Gov. Ron Desantis’s “Stop WOKE Act” on Tuesday holding that it violates the First Amendment.

In a 2-1 decision the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit blocked the higher education portion of the 2022 Sunshine State law that was meant to stop left-wing gender ideology and critical race theory (CRT) from being taught in schools, according to the ruling.

The 2022 law prohibited professors and workplace training from teaching about race or gender in a way that induces guilt or blame in the classroom, under threat of a fine or penalty.

Florida argued that the professor’s classroom speech belongs to the state because they are paid by the government.

Judge Britt Grant — who President Donald Trump appointed to the bench during his first term — ruled, “If the First Amendment offers any boundary of protection at all for public university classrooms, this statute crosses it.”

A spokesperson for DeSantis directed the Daily Caller News Foundation to the governor’s X post on the ruling.

“State universities are funded by taxpayers and directed by elected officials and their appointees. The state has both a right and a responsibility to ensure instruction at these universities is consistent with the underlying mission and to exclude indoctrination and ideological agendas,” DeSantis wrote in the Wednesday post. “Florida was correct to bar CRT and DEI [diversity, equity and inclusion]. We also have a right to do so.”

“We’ve seen so many institutions get corrupted by ideology, and universities have been perhaps the most common. The Constitution does not block us from fighting back against these ideological fads and from ensuring that our institutions stand on a solid intellectual foundation. This is a clear and unfortunate example of judicial overreach,” the governor’s post added.

The latest decision came from two lawsuits brought by professors, students and a student group who argued that the law caused unconstitutional classroom censorship, according to the ruling.

“Florida’s salary-for-speech rule is a breathtaking assertion of power to ban unpopular ideas from public discourse,” Grant’s ruling continued. “The provision at issue here disallows any ‘training or instruction that espouses, promotes, advances, inculcates, or compels’ students at Florida public colleges and universities to believe any of eight concepts relating to topics like race and sex.”

DeSantis’s office previously told the DCNF that the legislation, “protects the open exchange of ideas,” in classrooms.

“The Stop Woke Act protects the open exchange of ideas by prohibiting teachers or employers who hold agency over others from forcing discriminatory concepts on students as part of classroom instruction or on employees as a condition of maintaining employment,” DeSantis’s office said in a 2022 statement. “An ‘open-minded and critical’ environment necessitates that one is free from discrimination.”

DeSantis ran against Trump for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination during which he campaigned to the right of the president on several social issues. The Florida governor suspended his campaign and endorsed Trump after finishing in a distant second in the Iowa caucuses.