A federal judge on Thursday blocked a key provision of Florida’s “Stop WOKE Act,” which targets private businesses.
judgment Honeymoon registrant Honeyfund.com and Primo Partners, a Ben & Jerry’s franchisee, and two Florida firms, diversity consultants, have filed lawsuits. They argue that laws restricting discussion of “white privilege” and other racial bias issues during diversity training provided by private employers are violations of free speech. .
Formally called the Personal Freedoms Act, signed into law earlier this year by Gov. Ron DeSantis, it’s one of the latest flashpoints between big business and lawmakers. According to the Dealbook newsletter, it was partly amid a discussion of how far both businesses and lawmakers could go in tackling the social issues that are dividing them in the workplace and enforcing certain policies. I made Florida the epicenter.
Harvard business professor Bill George recently told DealBook:
Florida law seeks to determine how organizations of all kinds, including private companies, can deal with race, gender, and national origin. Prohibits employers in the state from forcing workers to participate in diversity training that makes them feel uncomfortable or guilty about their race because of past events.
Also prohibited: Talking about strengths or weaknesses based on race. Florida argues that by restricting these discussions, it is actually protecting speech as a whole.
But Judge Mark E. Walker of the United States District Court for the Northern District of Florida said in a preliminary injunction that the law could be found in another universe.
“‘Upside Down’ in the hit TV series ‘Stranger Things’ represents a parallel dimension that contains a distorted version of our world,” wrote Judge Walker. “Now, like the heroine of Stranger Things, this court is once again being asked to turn Florida upside down.”
Judge Walker said the bill’s restrictions were too broad and were “naked-point regulations” aimed at specific ideas that Mr. DeSantis and other Florida legislators didn’t like. “It is not intended for training because training is mandated,” he writes, but rather “for the speeches given in training.”
Gregory Magarian, a law professor at the University of Washington, said he agreed with the judge’s ruling. The state of Florida’s position that it could be made “has no basis, for reasons so well explained by Judge Walker,” he said.
“An employer communicating ideas to an employee that may offend some employees is a completely different situation than an employer creating or enabling identity-based harassment,” Magarian said. said.
Judge Walker’s ruling is provisional. But Joel Paul, professor of constitutional law at the University of California, Hastings College of the Law, said it appears to be well-debated.
“When we say the law is perspective-based, the burden shifts to Florida to provide reasons why the government has a credible interest in restricting this kind of speech,” Paul told DealBook. I have no idea what the government’s interest will be.”