Three private Florida companies have decided to challenge Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis’s “Stop WOKE Act.”
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The three companies — Honeyfund, Whitespace Consulting, and NS Collective Concepts — filed a lawsuit in the Northern District of Florida on June 21 against DeSantis, Florida Attorney General Ashley Moody, and Florida Commission on Human Relations Chairman Darrick McGhee. The suit claims that the act violates the companies’ rights to free speech by restricting whether companies can require employees to attend training regarding matters of race or gender.
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“The defining feature of the American constitutional system of government is that the government cannot establish orthodoxy of thought,” the lawsuit states, “either by mandating certain beliefs or by prohibiting disfavored ideas. The State of Florida has blatantly violated these fundamental values of democracy, requiring swift and decisive action by this Court.”
The Stop WOKE Act “aims to forward the government’s preferred narrative of history and society and to render illegal speech that challenges that narrative,” the lawsuit argues.
The act was proposed in December 2021 in an attempt to ban schools and businesses from receiving state funding if they promoted critical race theory.
“Our legislation would defund any money from K-12 to higher ed going to CRT,” DeSantis said at a press conference announcing the proposed legislation. “I view the wokeness as a form of cultural Marxism. They want to tear at the fabric of our society and our culture, really things we’ve taken for granted, like the ability of parents to direct the upbringing of their kids.”
The legislation was passed in March 2022.
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“No taxpayer dollars should be used to teach our kids to hate our country or to hate each other,” he added.
The suit has requested that the district court declare the Stop WOKE Act unlawful and unconstitutional, stop DeSantis and his administration from enforcing it, and award the plaintiffs relevant relief.
DeSantis’s office did not respond to requests for comment from the Washington Examiner.
