Tallahassee US District Judge Mark Walker issued a temporary injunction against the so-called “Stop Woke” act in a ruling he called the legislation “positively dystopian.” The law prohibits teaching or business practices that argue that members of an ethnic group are inherently racist and should feel guilty for past actions committed by others. It also rules out the idea that a person’s status as privileged or oppressed is necessarily determined by their race or gender, or that discrimination is acceptable to achieve diversity. “Our teachers are critical to a healthy democracy, and Florida State’s decision to choose which views are worthy of illumination and which should remain in the shadows has implications for all of us,” Walker wrote. “If our ‘priests of democracy’ are not allowed to shine a light on challenging ideas, then democracy will die in darkness. The decision is at least a temporary setback to the powerful Republican governor’s agenda to combat what he describes as liberals’ “woke ideology” and critical race theory, a way of thinking about America’s history through the lens of racism. DeSantis won a landslide re-election to a second term this month after a campaign that focused heavily on cultural issues. The governor has often said that rulings that halt his legislative priorities are likely to be overturned by Florida’s generally more conservative appeals courts. A spokesman for DeSantis said they will appeal the decision. “The Stop WOKE Act protects the open exchange of ideas by prohibiting teachers or employers who have agency over others from imposing discriminatory concepts on students as part of classroom instruction or on employees as a condition of maintaining employment,” said Bryan Griffin , the Press of DeSantis. secretary. In his lengthy ruling, Walker quoted from George Orwell’s dystopian novel “1984,” writing “It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks struck thirteen,” and the powers that be in charge of Florida’s public university system have declare the State has unlimited power to silence its teachers in the name of “liberty”. Judge Walker issued a similar ruling in August on the law that blocked its application to businesses. The law is also subject to another legal challenge by a group of K-12 teachers and a student. The governor began pushing for the law late last year, and the Republican-controlled Legislature passed it during the 2022 legislative session. “What you’re seeing now with the rise of this vigilante ideology is an attempt to really delegitimize our history and delegitimize our institutions, and I think of vigilantism as a form of cultural Marxism,” DeSantis said when the legislation first appeared. “They really want to tear at the fabric of our society.” Critical race theory developed during the 1970s and 1980s in response to what scholars saw as a lack of racial progress under the civil rights legislation of the 1960s. It focuses on the idea that racism is systemic in institutions of the nation and that they function to maintain white supremacy in society. Conservatives have rejected critical race theory, arguing that the philosophy racially divides American society and aims to rewrite history to make whites believe they are inherently racist.
