Woke-Bashing of the Week: DeSantis ‘Stop WOKE’ law suffers major defeat – again!

Nigel Farage’s self-detonated debacle wasn’t the only bit of good news for progressives this week. Across the Atlantic, the USA men’s football team endured a bruising 4-1 World Cup defeat to Belgium, prompting widespread online mockery after President Trump personally intervened to have striker Folarin Balogun’s red card overturned. But an even bigger setback for conservatives came in the courtroom, where one of Florida Governor Ron DeSantis’ most contentious culture war policies suffered a legal defeat.

In what CNBC described as “a major blow to one of Republican Governor Ron DeSantis’ signature culture war policies,” the US Court of Appeals, in a 2-1 decision, upheld an injunction preventing Florida from enforcing the higher education provisions of the so-called Stop WOKE Act.

Passed in 2022 as the Individual Freedom Act (IFA), but labelled the “Stop the Wrongs to Our Kids and Employees Act” or “Stop WOKE,” the legislation sought to restrict how race, gender, diversity, equity and inclusion could be taught in Florida’s public colleges and universities.

The court rejected the state’s central argument that professors’ classroom speech belongs to the government simply because they are public employees.

Writing for the majority, Judge Britt Grant, an appointee of Trump, dismissed that claim.

“Because the government pays the professors’ salaries, Florida says, their speech is the state’s speech. Emphatically no.”

Grant accused the state of trying to turn academics into government mouthpieces, adding that if the First Amendment provides any protection for public university classrooms, “this statute crosses it.”

The ruling is the latest legal setback for the legislation. It follows the same appeals court’s 2024 decision blocking the Act’s workplace provisions, which found Florida had attempted to sidestep constitutional free speech protections by reclassifying protected expression as prohibited conduct.

It also reinforces a district court injunction first issued in November 2022, representing a victory for the civil liberties and free speech organisations that challenged the law.

The ruling was warmly received online, with many questioning politicians continued use of the term “woke” without defining it.

“I really feel like if politicians are going to keep justifying laws with the term ‘woke’, they should have to create a legal definition,” wrote one social media user.

Another added: “Why are they calling it woke? It’s sad that they can’t even use actual words to describe what their problem is.”

Indeed.