MIAMI — The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit struck down the higher education provisions of Florida’s Stop the Wrongs to Our Kids and Employees Act, known as the Stop WOKE Act, in a 2-1 decision issued July 7, 2026, ruling the law unconstitutionally restricts speech in college classrooms.
The Stop WOKE Act was enacted in 2022 and was designed to censor and regulate how schools, from kindergarten through college, and businesses taught and discussed race, gender, sexuality, and diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) training. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis was a leading advocate for its passage.
The American Civil Liberties Union of Florida, the Legal Defense Fund and the law firm Ballard Spahr filed a lawsuit against the act, Pernell v. Lamb, “on behalf of a group of Florida professors at public universities whose teaching has been impacted by this law,” the ACLU’s July 7, 2026, press release stated.
“This ruling sets a strong precedent that higher education cannot be limited to the whims of politicians,” Leah Watson, senior staff attorney with the ACLU’s Racial Justice Program, said in the ACLU of Florida press release. “All students and educators deserve to have a free and open exchange about ideas without government control. Students can’t fight racial discrimination that they don’t see; training and instruction is key to empowering future leaders to pursue racial justice.”
Pernell v. Lamb found the Stop WOKE Act to be unconstitutional and instead decreed that, regardless of the government’s or educators’ political views, it is the responsibility of students to form their own opinions.
“Florida’s salary-for-speech rule is a breathtaking assertion of power to ban unpopular ideas from public discourse in the very places the State’s own statutes recognize as centers of inquiry—classrooms where students are trusted to puzzle through ideas that are good and bad, easy and hard, ideally getting ever closer to the truth,” the ruling stated. “Either way, in this context the First Amendment trusts students to figure it out for themselves.”
Advocates said the ruling will improve educational settings for students and give them the freedom to learn in an uncensored environment.
“We are thrilled the court has stopped the erasure of topics that have real implications for our students, allowing them to learn, discuss, and develop tools for combatting the complex issue of racism in our country without being gagged by those who would dictate that only state-approved thought may be promoted,” said LeRoy Pernell, a Florida A&M University College of Law professor and the named plaintiff in the lawsuit, in the ACLU’s press release.
The Stop WOKE Act, as well as the “Don’t Say Gay” law, significantly affected not only what teachers were allowed to discuss in classrooms but also their employment. Norín Dollard, senior policy analyst and KIDS COUNT director at the Florida Policy Institute, said that at the start of the 2022 school year, roughly “450,000 kids started school last year without a permanent teacher,” The 19th, a nonprofit news organization, reported in 2022.
“These right-wing extremist groups were talking about teachers indoctrinating kids with liberal [agendas] and saying that teachers are groomers and pedophiles if they ever support LGBTQ-anything in the presence of a minor,” Anita Carson, a former Polk County Public Schools teacher, said, according to The 19th. “I couldn’t take it anymore. I was like, ‘I have to get out of this. This is toxic. This is not the space that I want to be in anymore.’”
Violating the Stop WOKE Act carried “harsh” consequences for educators, including termination and disqualification from state funding, the ACLU’s press release reported. Overturning it has guaranteed First Amendment rights in classrooms, according to advocates.
“By upholding the district court’s ruling, the Eleventh Circuit ensured that our system of higher education is guided by the principle of free speech, not government censorship,” said Carrie McNamara, senior staff attorney at the ACLU of Florida, in the ACLU’s press release. “Our classrooms are meant to be rooms of curiosity, creativity, and learning. When we stifle this kind of critical thinking, we risk losing our education system as we know it.”
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