{"id":123842,"date":"2025-03-10T09:47:23","date_gmt":"2025-03-10T09:47:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/peraltafinancing.com\/business\/legal\/11th-circuit-stops-floridas-stop-woke-law-based-on-1st-amendment\/"},"modified":"2025-03-10T09:47:23","modified_gmt":"2025-03-10T09:47:23","slug":"11th-circuit-stops-floridas-stop-woke-law-based-on-1st-amendment","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fivemor.com\/?p=123842","title":{"rendered":"11th Circuit Stops Florida’s “Stop Woke” Law Based on 1st Amendment"},"content":{"rendered":"


\n<\/p>\n

\n

I know. I know. I keep saying there’s no such thing as free speech at work. But while you workers don’t have First Amendment protection in private workplaces, private employers do. Because corporations are “people” too. The distinction: the First Amendment prohibits restrictions on speech by government, not by individuals or corporations.<\/p>\n

Confused yet? Well, I’m here specifically to discuss Florida’s “Stop Woke” law* that said employers couldn’t have trainings about not engaging in racism and discrimination in the workplace. The 11th Circuit just held that “Stop Woke” is a clearly illegal restriction on corporate free speech.<\/p>\n

Here are some key excerpts from the opinion<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\n

The State of Florida seeks to bar employers from holding mandatory meetings for their employees if those meetings endorse viewpoints the state finds offensive.\u00a0 But meetings on those same topics are allowed if speakers endorse viewpoints the state agrees with, or at least does not object to.\u00a0 This law, as Florida concedes, draws its distinctions based on viewpoint\u2014the most pernicious of dividing lines under the First Amendment.\u00a0 But the state insists that ordinary First Amendment review does not apply because the law restricts conduct, not speech.<\/p>\n

The Act says employers cannot subject \u201cany individual, as a condition of employment,\u201d to \u201ctraining, instruction, or any other required activity that espouses, promotes, advances, inculcates, or compels\u201d a certain set of beliefs.\u00a0 Id.\u00a0 It goes on to list the rejected ideas, all of which relate to race, color, sex, or national origin<\/p>\n

Discussion of these topics, however, is not completely barred\u2014the law prohibits requiring attendance only for sessions endorsing them.\u00a0 Id. \u00a7 760.10(8)(b).\u00a0 Employers can still require employees to attend sessions that reject these ideas or present them in an \u201cobjective manner without endorsement of the concepts.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u00a0By limiting its restrictions to a list of ideas designated as offensive, the Act targets speech based on its content.\u00a0 And by barring only speech that endorses any of those ideas, it penalizes certain viewpoints\u2014the greatest First Amendment sin.\u00a0 Florida concedes as much, even admitting that the Act rejects certain viewpoints.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Florida has no compelling interest in creating a per se rule that some speech, regardless of its context or the effect it has on the listener, is offensive and discriminatory.\u00a0 \u201cIt is firmly settled that under our Constitution the public expression of ideas may not be prohibited merely because the ideas are themselves offensive to some of their hearers.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

No matter how hard Florida tries to get around it, \u201cviewpoint discrimination is inherent in the design and structure of this Act.\u201d\u00a0 NIFLA, 585 U.S. at 779 (Kennedy, J., concurring).\u00a0 Given our \u201cprofound national commitment to the principle that debate on public issues should be uninhibited, robust, and wide-open,\u201d the answer is clear: Florida\u2019s law exceeds the bounds of the First Amendment.\u00a0 New York Times Co. v. Sullivan, 376 U.S. 254, 270 (1964).\u00a0 No matter how controversial the ideas, allowing the government to set the terms of the debate is poison, not antidote.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

* I’ve written about this law before, here <\/a>and here<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I know. I know. I keep saying there’s no such thing as free speech at work. But while you workers don’t have First Amendment protection in private workplaces, private employers do. Because corporations are “people” too. The distinction: the First Amendment prohibits restrictions on speech by government, not by individuals or corporations. Confused yet? Well, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[97],"tags":[7911,6711,20346,3528,3023,14567,12685,1403,19493,36493],"dealstore":[],"offerexpiration":[],"class_list":["post-123842","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-legal","tag-11th","tag-1st","tag-amendment","tag-based","tag-circuit","tag-floridas","tag-law","tag-stop","tag-stops","tag-woke"],"yoast_head":"\n11th Circuit Stops Florida's "Stop Woke" Law Based on 1st Amendment - Som2ny Network<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/fivemor.com\/?p=123842\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"11th Circuit Stops Florida's "Stop Woke" Law Based on 1st Amendment - Som2ny Network\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"I know. I know. I keep saying there’s no such thing as free speech at work. But while you workers don’t have First Amendment protection in private workplaces, private employers do. Because corporations are “people” too. The distinction: the First Amendment prohibits restrictions on speech by government, not by individuals or corporations. Confused yet? 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