TALLAHASSEE, Fla. — A University of South Florida (USF) student, professor, and the First Amendment Forum at the school have filed a lawsuit against the state of Florida over the "Stop WOKE Act."
The lawsuit, filed in Tallahassee, is the latest filed against the state after the "Stop WOKE Act" was signed into law earlier in 2022 by Florida Governor Ron DeSantis. The governor has since made the law a signature issue of his re-election campaign.
According to the lawsuit, the "Stop Woke Act" runs afoul of the First and Fourteenth Amendments to the U.S. Constitution.
"In dictating to faculty and students what ideas are true and false, Florida runs headlong into the Bill of Rights," the lawsuit stated.
Continuing, the lawsuit said that beyond the First Amendment violation, "the 'Stop Woke Act' is also irreconcilable with a law Florida adopted just one year earlier — The Campus Free Expression Act."
READ THE LAWSUIT:
That law, the suit states, "obligates public universities to refrain from 'shielding students' from 'access to, or observation of, ideas and opinions' — expressly including 'faculty research, lectures, writings and commentary' — on the basis that the ideas may be 'uncomfortable, unwelcome, disagreeable, or offensive.'"
According to the lawsuit, the "Stop WOKE Act" would also be an unconstitutional usage of prior restraint of the speech from the university and professors. By forbidding topics from being taught, the suit argues the state is restraining professor and university speech before it's spoken or written.
"A blanket prior restraint on faculty speaking on matter of public concern cannot survive unless it 'furthers some vital government end by a means that is least restrictive' of free speech," the lawsuit stated. "Defendants can point to no vital government end that requires faculty to refrain from speaking out about the prohibited topics of public concern in the the way the Stop WOKE Act requires them to. In essence, the Stop WOKE Act demands faculty 'toe the prescribed political line.'"
The plaintiffs asked the court to declare the law unconstitutional under the First and Fourteenth Amendments and issue preliminary and permanent injunctive relief to stop the defendants from enforcing the Stop WOKE Act.
