Corporate diversity training portion of ‘STOP WOKE Act’ put on hold
A federal judge has blocked part of Florida’s new individual freedom law or, as Gov. Ron DeSantis initially dubbed it, the “STOP WOKE Act.”
The ruling only blocks part of the law dealing with corporate diversity training, one of the law’s two main components.
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The other, which remains in effect, prohibits certain concepts related to race from being taught in public schools.
Dr. Tammy Hodo is the president of All Things Diverse, a St. Augustine-based business that offers corporate diversity training.
She told Action News Jax that diversity training offers employers the opportunity to create a more equitable workplace.
“Where people are educated about the differences that we have and how we actually have more in commonality than differences,” said Hodo.
But Hodo’s training could have put companies that hired her at risk of violating state law because they include topics like white privilege and implicit bias, which are concepts banned by the STOP WOKE Act.
In a ruling released Thursday, federal judge Mark Walker struck down that portion of the law for violating the First Amendment.
In his ruling he conjured up imagery from Netflix’s “Stranger Things,” likening Florida’s take on the First Amendment to the “upside down,” a kind of alternate reality, in the series.
“In Florida, the First Amendment apparently bars private actors from burdening speech, while the state may burden speech freely,” wrote Walker in the ruling.
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Attorney Shalani Goel Agarwal with Protect Democracy is representing the companies challenging the law.
“It’s pretty much a bedrock principle of the Constitution that the government can’t come in and tell private parties, ‘Oh, this is what you can say, this is what you can’t say, if you take this position this cannot be said.’ I think, you know, I mean, I think there are good arguments for why teachers and professors should also not be restricted in their speech, but you know, they’re not private employers. They are, in a sense, state employees or government employees. So, there may be some different interests involved,” said Agarwal.
But State Representative Randy Fine, who co-sponsored the bill in the Florida legislature, argued the concepts prohibited in the law actually promote a racist view of society.
“For example, it says that you can’t say that one race is superior to another,” said Fine.
The governor’s office had a similar take.
“Judge Walker has effectively ruled that companies have the right to instruct their employees in white supremacy,” said DeSantis’ communications director, Taryn Fenske, in an emailed statement.
Hodo with All Things Diverse pushed back on those characterizations.
She said the law mandates a color-blind view of the world, which she argued isn’t realistic.
“We are not a color-blind society. Unless you’re actually color-blind, you do see color and there’s nothing wrong with that. There’s beauty in that diversity of color,” said Hodo.
The governor has already vowed to repeal the ruling.
It now heads to the more conservative-leaning 11th Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta, which does have a history of overturning the judge that ruled in this case.
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