FLORIDA — The 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals struck down the higher education provisions of Florida's Stop Woke Act in a 2024 ruling, determining they violated free expression rights guaranteed by the First Amendment. The court's decision was made by a 2-1 majority.

The higher education component of the legislation, formally known as the Individual Freedom Act, aimed to prevent college and university professors from teaching or discussing certain concepts related to race and gender. The Stop Woke Act was passed in 2022 and also restricted how these topics could be addressed in schools and workplaces.

Judge Britt Grant, who wrote the majority opinion, stated: "Because the government pays the professors' salaries, Florida says, their speech is the state's speech. Emphatically no. 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." Grant was appointed by Donald Trump. The court order also noted: "The ideas Florida targets may well be noxious. Or maybe not. Either way, in this context the first amendment trusts students to figure it out for themselves."

LeRoy Pernell, a professor at Florida A&M University's College of Law and a named plaintiff in the lawsuit, expressed satisfaction with the court's decision. "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," Pernell said in a statement.

A district court had previously issued an injunction against the implementation of the law at Florida's colleges and universities in November 2022. This ruling affirms that earlier injunction.