A federal appeals court on Monday blocked a Florida law backed by Governor DeSantis that prohibits businesses from subjecting staff to mandatory trainings that endorse Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion and critical race theory.
The state law, the Individual Freedom Act, bans private employers from requiring “any individual, as a condition of employment” to participate in “training, instruction, or any other required activity that espouses, promotes, advances, inculcates, or compels” DEI ideology. Such ideas rejected by the state include that members of one race, color, sex, or national origin are morally superior or inherently racist, sexist, or oppressive compared with members of another race, color, sex, or national origin.
In the Monday order, the three-judge panel for the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals said that the law violates the First Amendment, accusing the state of attempting to “control speech by recharacterizing it as conduct.” The ruling found that the financial penalties placed on companies for noncompliance — back pay, compensatory damages, and up to $100,000 in damages, among other fines — were punitive.
Judges Britt Grant and Andrew Brasher were appointed by former president Trump, while Judge Charles Wilson was appointed by former president Clinton.
Lawyers for the state have argued that the law prohibits employers only from demanding of employees “certain speech against their will” that could jeopardize their jobs if they refuse to speak the required utterances. An example the state might have had in mind is a mandatory DEI training that requires staff to attest to certain racial statements maintaining that injustice is deeply rooted in America because of the historic oppression of black people by white people.
A coalition of businesses — including a honeymoon-registry technology company, a Ben & Jerry’s franchisee, and a workplace-diversity consulting firm — sued the state on the grounds that the law encroaches on their freedom of speech as private enterprises. Multiple Florida businesses including Honeyfund and Primo Tampa wanted to host mandatory DEI sessions for staff but said they were barred by the law. They sued Desantis, Florida Attorney General Ashley Moody, and several members of the Florida Commission on Human Relations, to challenge the mandatory-meeting provision of the law on a free-speech basis.
In August 2022, U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Florida struck down the workplace provisions in the law, ruling that it infringed on free-speech protections under the First Amendment and the 14th Amendment’s due-process clause for being impermissibly vague.
The law, more broadly known as the “Stop WOKE Act,” also contains a K–12 clause that targets public-school curricula and staff programming — such as lessons on systemic racism and white guilt — that advance critical race theory.