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A Trump-Appointed Judge Struck Down Florida's 'Stop WOKE' Act as a 'Breathtaking Assertion of Power.'

Resist Now 3 min read

A federal appeals court struck down the college-classroom restrictions in Florida’s “Stop WOKE” Act, ruling that the state cannot dictate which ideas professors are allowed to teach. The 2-1 decision from the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals called the law a “breathtaking assertion of power to ban unpopular ideas” from the very places built for open inquiry.

The most telling part is who wrote it. The opinion came from Judge Britt Grant, an appointee of President Trump.

What the Law Did

The Stop WOKE Act, formally the Individual Freedom Act, was a signature law of Gov. Ron DeSantis. It barred public college instruction that “espouses, promotes, advances, inculcates, or compels” students to believe a list of concepts about race, sex, and privilege, including the idea that someone can be inherently racist or sexist because of their race or sex.

In practice, it put the state in charge of the classroom. A professor teaching the history of discrimination could not be sure which lesson crossed a line the government had drawn.

What the Court Said

Grant’s opinion, joined by Judge Charles Wilson, a Clinton appointee, drew the boundary plainly. “If the First Amendment offers any boundary of protection at all for public university classrooms,” she wrote, “this statute crosses it.”

The court’s reasoning is not about whether the banned ideas are right. It is that a government cannot decide, on penalty of law, which ideas may be discussed in a public university. That principle protects a conservative professor in a liberal state exactly as much as the reverse, which is why an appointee of the president who allied with DeSantis could write it.

Why It Matters Beyond Florida

The ruling affirmed a preliminary injunction, so the classroom provisions stay blocked while the case continues. Florida can ask the full appeals court to rehear it or petition the Supreme Court.

The reach is wider than one state. Florida’s law was a model that other states copied, and a bipartisan panel calling it unconstitutional makes those copycats harder to defend. It draws a line under a simple idea: the government does not get to ban unpopular thoughts from the classroom, and calling a ban “anti-woke” does not change that.

What You Can Do Now

  1. Learn how these laws work. Our explainer on critical race theory covers what these classroom bans actually target and the gap between the political label and the academic idea.

  2. Watch your own state. Florida’s law was copied elsewhere, and this ruling gives opponents a strong precedent. Ask your state legislators whether they support any similar restriction on what public colleges can teach, and get them on the record.

  3. Support the groups defending academic freedom. The NAACP Legal Defense Fund and free-speech organizations litigated against this law. Backing that work is how the precedent holds when the next version is written.

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