Tallahassee U.S. District Judge Mark Walker just declared parts of Florida Governor Ron DeSantis’ backed Stop WOKE Act unconstitutional. In a 44-page ruling Judge Walker stated “the act violates the First Amendment and is impermissibly vague. Walker also refused to issue a stay that would keep the law in effect during any appeal by the state.”
Walker said the law, as applied to diversity, inclusion and bias training in businesses, turns the First Amendment “upside down” because the state is barring speech by prohibiting discussion of certain concepts in training programs.
He compared the law to Netflix’s blockbuster science-fiction hit, “Stranger Things.”
“In the popular television series Stranger Things, the ‘upside down’ describes a parallel dimension containing a distorted version of our world,” Walker, a nominee of then-President Barack Obama, wrote in his opinion. “Recently, Florida has seemed like a First Amendment upside down.”
This ruling is just one of three lawsuits challenging the Stop Woke act. Plaintiffs in the case were Honeyfund.com, a Florida honeymoon registry technology company, Ben & Jerry’s franchisee Primo Tampa, and workplace diversity consultancy Collective Concepts and its co-founder Chevara Orrin.claiming their free speech rights are curtailed because the law infringes on company training programs stressing diversity, inclusion, elimination of bias and prevention of workplace harassment.
The ACLU, ACLU of Florida, Legal Defense Fund and law firm Ballard Spahr filed a lawsuit Thursday on behalf of a group of Florida professors, arguing that “Stop WOKE” violates the Constitution’s First Amendment and Fourteenth Amendment.
