A group of professors in Florida filed a federal lawsuit against the 2023 state law banning teaching about diversity, equity, and inclusion, claiming that it restricts freedom of speech.
The law was enacted as part of Governor Ron DeSantis’s war on “woke,” meaning any teaching about or practice related to DEI.
The Orlando Sentinel reported:
TALLAHASSEE — A group of Florida university professors on Thursday filed a federal lawsuit challenging a 2023 state law and related regulations that prevent colleges from spending money on diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives, saying the restrictions are “punishing educators and students for expressing differing and disfavored viewpoints.”
The lawsuit, filed by the American Civil Liberties Union of Florida and Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher LLP on behalf of six professors, alleges that the restrictions violate educators’ and students’ speech rights and is chilling expression in public universities. It targets the 2023 law (SB 266) and rules passed last year by the state university system’s Board of Governors.
“Continuing its effort to police the marketplace of ideas, the Florida Legislature again passed vague, viewpoint-discriminatory legislation that broadly restricts academic freedom and imposes the state’s favored viewpoints on public higher education, punishing educators and students for expressing differing and disfavored viewpoints,” the lawsuit said.
The restrictions ban funding for programs or campus activities that advocate for diversity, equity, or inclusion or that engage in “political or social activism.”
One of the rules defines DEI as “any program, campus activity, or policy that classifies individuals on the basis of race, color, sex, national origin, gender identity, or sexual orientation and promotes differential or preferential treatment of individuals on the basis of such classification.” Colleges and universities risk losing funding if they violate the restrictions.
The lawsuit alleged that the regulations’ definitions are “ambiguous, inconsistent, and far too broad to provide any real guidance other than indicating the Legislature’s and the BOG’s (Board of Governors’) intent to disfavor certain speech.”
The restrictions “have left instructors and students fearful for the future of not only education, but also free thought and democracy in Florida,” the professors’ lawyers wrote.
The rules have “stripped hundreds of university courses” from being designated as “general education” courses, according to the lawsuit. Universities also have denied scholarship and research money to faculty and students who have received it in the past.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Had such a law been on the books in 1953, would there be a Brown v. Board of Education (undoing preferential treatment entails recognizing differences).
Had the law been in place, would campus protests across the country all become Kent States? Would Tinker v. Des Moines schools (students suspended for protest armbands) have been heard?
What of parent organizations across the country seeking recognition and inclusion of the children with disabilities being educated in isolation rooms, separate schools, and disciplined at every move? Would IDEA be on the books?
Title IX. Federal laws prohibiting discrimination in hiring including gender orientation (which many states do not have on their books).
And, those are “easy” ones to identify differences – gender, race, disability, an event.
The matrix of “expression” is as qualitative as it gets.
The laws are not the problem (well, they are). It’s the scare tactic, pre-emptive silencing by teachers and students unsure that one comment isn’t being recorded and handed over to the language police (1984).
I hope every university and professional organization has the gumption to sign on as a “co” whatever it takes to join this law suit.
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I spent the first 25 years of my career as a classroom teacher of young children and, after returning to college for additional degrees, at the urging of my own professors, I then spent the last 25 years of my 50+ year career in education working as a professor myself in Teacher Education, training people to be teachers. Restrictions like those described here can severely hamstring the field of Teacher Education, because teachers really need to be prepared to work with ALL children. Thus, education courses in college cover content that helps teachers to understand and reach all kids. That includes recognizing, addressing and accommodating individual differences, special needs, historically marginalized & under-represented groups, diverse family configurations, personal/developmental and familial issues/concerns, as well as laws that support and protect the rights of children and adults (including around matters of abuse and neglect) –and all are truly critical to that aim.
When I was growing up, teachers had not been trained in most of these matters. Many of today’s laws and regulations were not yet in place then, too. Often, the result was that, out of ignorance, some teachers acted like all kids were alike (or should be) and they were insensitive to and/or discriminated against kids who were different, such as children with disabilities. Most teachers had not learned then how to make accommodations so that the strengths of each student were identified and nurtured.
Why learning all that in college today is considered to be problematic is about politics trumping human needs –and at the expense of innocent children, IMHO.
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