A federal appeals panel took a red pen to Ron DeSantis’s Stop WOKE Act on Tuesday, handing the governor yet another lesson in constitutional law he apparently didn’t attend.
The 11th Circuit ruled 2-1 that the law’s higher-ed provisions — which tried to muzzle professors from so much as discussing race and gender in class — violate the First Amendment, because it turns out the government doesn’t get to script what college professors say. Bold concept, we know.
The judges didn’t mince words either, accusing Florida of “puppeteering” educators — turning them into state-approved mouthpieces rather than, you know, teachers.
Judge Britt Grant — a Trump appointee who wrote the majority opinion — rejected Florida’s argument that professors’ speech belongs to the state simply because taxpayers fund their salaries, calling the theory “Emphatically no,” The Guardian reports.
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