US appeals court strikes down key part of Florida law restricting campus race and gender discussions

According to The Guardian, a federal appeals court has struck down a major piece of Florida's so-called Stop Woke Act, the law championed by Governor Ron DeSantis to restrict how race and gender are discussed on college campuses. In a two-to-one ruling, the eleventh circuit court of appeals found that the higher-education provision — which barred university professors from teaching or sharing certain ideas about race and gender — violated free-speech protections under the First Amendment. The court's majority sharply criticized the state, with the law's defenders accused of, in the court's words, puppeteering what educators can say. It marks another legal defeat for DeSantis's effort to reshape speech in Florida's public universities.

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