Federal Appeals Court Rules Against Florida’s Stop WOKE Act

A federal appeals court struck down a Florida law that banned businesses from requiring their employees to participate in workplace diversity training promoting equity, diversity, and inclusion (DEI) in the state. A three-judge panel of the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on March 4 unanimously upheld the District Court’s ruling that previously blocked portions of the law relating to prohibiting Critical Race Theory training in workplaces. Judge Britt C. Grant said the Florida law violated the free speech protections of the Constitution’s First Amendment by barring discussions about topics the state finds “offensive” but not others. “By limiting its restrictions to a list of ideas designated as offensive, the act targets speech based on its content. And by barring only speech that endorses any of those ideas, it penalizes certain viewpoints, the greatest First Amendment sin,” she said....