11th Circuit Stops Florida's "Stop Woke" Law Based on 1st Amendment

I know. I know. I keep saying there's no such thing as free speech at work. But while you workers don't have First Amendment protection in private workplaces, private employers do. Because corporations are "people" too. The distinction: the First Amendment prohibits restrictions on speech by government, not by individuals or corporations.

Confused yet? Well, I'm here specifically to discuss Florida's "Stop Woke" law* that said employers couldn't have trainings about not engaging in racism and discrimination in the workplace. The 11th Circuit just held that "Stop Woke" is a clearly illegal restriction on corporate free speech.

Here are some key excerpts from the opinion:

The State of Florida seeks to bar employers from holding mandatory meetings for their employees if those meetings endorse viewpoints the state finds offensive.  But meetings on those same topics are allowed if speakers endorse viewpoints the state agrees with, or at least does not object to.  This law, as Florida concedes, draws its distinctions based on viewpoint—the most pernicious of dividing lines under the First Amendment.  But the state insists that ordinary First Amendment review does not apply because the law restricts conduct, not speech.

The Act says employers cannot subject “any individual, as a condition of employment,” to “training, instruction, or any other required activity that espouses, promotes, advances, inculcates, or compels” a certain set of beliefs.  Id.  It goes on to list the rejected ideas, all of which relate to race, color, sex, or national origin

Discussion of these topics, however, is not completely barred—the law prohibits requiring attendance only for sessions endorsing them.  Id. § 760.10(8)(b).  Employers can still require employees to attend sessions that reject these ideas or present them in an “objective manner without endorsement of the concepts.” 

 By limiting its restrictions to a list of ideas designated as offensive, the Act targets speech based on its content.  And by barring only speech that endorses any of those ideas, it penalizes certain viewpoints—the greatest First Amendment sin.  Florida concedes as much, even admitting that the Act rejects certain viewpoints. 

Florida has no compelling interest in creating a per se rule that some speech, regardless of its context or the effect it has on the listener, is offensive and discriminatory.  “It is firmly settled that under our Constitution the public expression of ideas may not be prohibited merely because the ideas are themselves offensive to some of their hearers.” 

No matter how hard Florida tries to get around it, “viewpoint discrimination is inherent in the design and structure of this Act.”  NIFLA, 585 U.S. at 779 (Kennedy, J., concurring).  Given our “profound national commitment to the principle that debate on public issues should be uninhibited, robust, and wide-open,” the answer is clear: Florida’s law exceeds the bounds of the First Amendment.  New York Times Co. v. Sullivan, 376 U.S. 254, 270 (1964).  No matter how controversial the ideas, allowing the government to set the terms of the debate is poison, not antidote.

* I've written about this law before, here and here.

Judge Blocks Private Employer Portions of Florida's Idiotic Stop WOKE Act

 I wrote a few weeks ago about the truly idiotic Stop WOKE Act that was passed in, you guessed it, Florida. Well, a federal judge just issued an injunction blocking its enforcement against private employers. The federal judge from the Northern District of Florida was duly irked:

In the popular television series Stranger Things, the “upside down” describes a parallel dimension containing a distorted version of our world. See Stranger Things (Netflix 2022). Recently, Florida has seemed like a First Amendment upside down. Normally, the First Amendment bars the state from burdening speech, while private actors may burden speech freely. But in Florida, the First Amendment apparently bars private actors from burdening speech, while the state may burden speech freely. . . . Now, like the heroine in Stranger Things, this Court is once again asked to pull Florida back from the upside down.

The law, among other things, prevented private employers from certain diversity and anti-discrimination training. 

The Court gives a detailed example, and the judge's frustration is palpable:

In the end, Defendants suggest that there is nothing to see here. They say the IFA does nothing more than ban race discrimination in employment. But to compare the diversity trainings Plaintiffs wish to hold to true hostile work environments rings hollow. Worse still, “it trivializes the freedom protected” by Title VII and the FCRA “to suggest that” the two are the same. FAIR, 547 U.S. at 62.

Just imagine two scenarios. In the first scenario, a Black employee complains about a mandatory safety training scheduled on Juneteenth. Then, at a mandatory training the day before Juneteenth, “to the surprise of the employees in attendance, a white woman in a black gorilla suit enter[s] the meeting.” Henry v. CorpCar Servs. Hous., Ltd., 625 F. App’x 607, 608 (5th Cir. 2015).* As one of the managers blocks the only exit, the woman does “Tarzan yells and repeatedly refer[s] in a suggestive manner to ‘big black lips,’ ‘big black butt,’ and bananas.” Id. As the woman dances suggestively on one of the Black employees who had complained, another manager leans in and says: “Here’s your Juneteenth.” Id. In the second scenario, a company directs a White employee to attend a mandatory training in which employees watch “a video about violence committed against Black people in the United States over the centuries.” ECF No. 18-3 at 4. After the video, the presenter defines “Black rage”—“resistance towards oppressive people, practices, structures, and systems”—and “White Humility”—“a reflective practice that helps white people develop [the]capacity to interrupt white supremacy”—and asks Black and White participants to discuss them. Id. at 4, 12, 14. 

These two scenarios, under Defendants’theory, are indistinguishable. Indeed, Defendants say, to hold that the state may not ban the latter scenario is to hold that it may not ban the former. ECF No. 49 at 27 (arguing that a ruling for Plaintiffs would doom “a vast range of routine employment discrimination claims”). “If the law supposes that, the law is an ass, an idiot.” Charles Dickens, Oliver Twist 463 (3d ed. The New American Library 1961). But the law is neither an ass nor an idiot. It can tell the difference. Telling your employees that concepts such as “normal” or “professional” are imbued with historically based racial biases is not—and it pains this Court to have to say this—the same as trapping Black employees in a room while a woman in a gorilla suit puts on a retaliatory, racially inflammatory performance the day before a holiday celebrating the end of slavery. Rather, it is speech protected by the First Amendment. (emphasis added)

Things you didn't think you had to say when you became a federal judge, but apparently did.

The state is, of course, appealing. And because the injunction applies only to private employers, state employees are being terrorized by this ridiculous law, especially since schools and colleges are resuming.

I'm sure this isn't the last we'll hear on this law. As I wrote before, the law is badly written and I believe it actually means the opposite of what the legislature intended. SMH. 

* The fact that the judge doesn't have to make this bizarre scenario up explains why I have had a busy law practice for 36 years.

Did Florida Make It Illegal To Refuse To Hire White Nationalists, and Yet Make Affirmative Action And CRT Legal? The Utter Stupidity of the Stop WOKE Act.

 The Florida legislature, in its infinite wisdom, has decided to modify Florida's anti-discrimination statute with the Stop WOKE Act. /1

There's a lot stupid about this, but let's unpack some of the most idiotic parts. 

The Whole Thing Is Opposite What They Meant

As has been the Florida Legislature's practice this session, the whole thing says the opposite of what they probably meant. Because the way it reads looks like the entire list (I put the whole list in a footnote below) is something the legislature believes is not discrimination, and should not be taught as such. But what they may have actually meant is that they think the entire list actually is discrimination. They wrote that, "Subjecting any individual, as a condition of employment, membership, certification, licensing, credentialing, or passing an examination, to training, instruction, or any other required activity that espouses, promotes, advances, inculcates, or compels such individual to believe any of the following concepts constitutes discrimination based on race, color, sex, or national origin under this section" is illegal.

But what they should have written instead is: "Subjecting any individual, as a condition of employment, membership, certification, licensing, credentialing, or passing an examination, to training, instruction, or any other required activity that espouses, promotes, advances, inculcates, or compels such individual to believe any of the following concepts constitutes discrimination based on race, color, sex, or national origin under this section" is illegal.

Is it illegal to discriminate against white nationalists?

What really jumps out at me is that employers are not allowed to refuse to hire someone who believes that, "Members of one race, color, sex, or national origin are morally superior to members of another race, color, sex, or national origin." We're talking white nationalists here. As I read this, employers can't refuse to hire white nationalists in Florida. Taking out all the qualifiers, other types of discrimination, and weaselly language, here's what it says is one of the things that is illegal with respect to race discrimination: 

Subjecting any individual, as a condition of employment, to any required activity that compels such individual to believe the following concept constitutes discrimination based on race: 

1. Members of one race are morally superior to members of another race.

Since white nationalists, by definition, believe whites are superior in every way to non-whites, that means employers can't refuse to hire (or fire once they find out about their beliefs) white nationalists? This is what happens when you put in language deliberately meant to confuse and obfuscate your intent. 

Is Discrimination Based On Your Ancestors' Race Now Legal?

Let's look at another provision that says something stupid. 

The legislature also says that this concept is not discrimination: 

"An individual, by virtue of his or her race, color, sex, or national origin, bears responsibility for, or should be discriminated against or receive adverse treatment because of, actions committed in the past by other members of the same race, color, sex, or national origin." 

So now it's also illegal to refuse to hire or fire anyone who believes that they should discriminate against employees or potential employees because of actions committed in the past by other members of the same race, color, sex, or national origin. Did they mean this? Or is it just too many double negatives? Who knows? It's the law now in Florida.

Is Affirmative Action Now Legal?

I think they also just made affirmative action legal, since they say this is not discrimination:

An individual, by virtue of his or her race, color, sex, or national origin, should be discriminated against or receive adverse treatment to achieve diversity, equity, or inclusion.

Hello affirmative action.

Wait, I Thought They Were Against Critical Race Theory

The legislature also decided that employers are not allowed to refuse to hire someone who believes in some key tenets of Critical Race Theory. They also decided that employers can't subject employees to training that says Critical Race Theory is discrimination. Don't believe me? Look at the wording and tell me I'm wrong.

/1The statute now has this language added to it:

760.10 Unlawful employment practices.— 

(8)(a) Subjecting any individual, as a condition of employment, membership, certification, licensing, credentialing, or passing an examination, to training, instruction, or any other required activity that espouses, promotes, advances, inculcates, or compels such individual to believe any of the following concepts constitutes discrimination based on race, color, sex, or national origin under this section: 

1. Members of one race, color, sex, or national origin are morally superior to members of another race, color, sex, or national origin. 

2. An individual, by virtue of his or her race, color, sex, or national origin, is inherently racist, sexist, or oppressive, whether consciously or unconsciously. 

3. An individual's moral character or status as either privileged or oppressed is necessarily determined by his or her race, color, sex, or national origin. 

4. Members of one race, color, sex, or national origin cannot and should not attempt to treat others without respect to race, color, sex, or national origin. 

5. An individual, by virtue of his or her race, color, sex, or national origin, bears responsibility for, or should be discriminated against or receive adverse treatment because of, actions committed in the past by other members of the same race, color, sex, or national origin.  

6. An individual, by virtue of his or her race, color, sex, or national origin, should be discriminated against or receive adverse treatment to achieve diversity, equity, or inclusion. 

7. An individual, by virtue of his or her race, color, sex, or national origin, bears personal responsibility for and must feel guilt, anguish, or other forms of psychological distress because of actions, in which the individual played no part, committed in the past by other members of the same race, color, sex, or national origin. 

8. Such virtues as merit, excellence, hard work, fairness, neutrality, objectivity, and racial colorblindness are racist or sexist, or were created by members of a particular race, color, sex, or national origin to oppress members of another race, color, sex, or national origin. 

(b) Paragraph (a) may not be construed to prohibit discussion of the concepts listed therein as part of a course of training or instruction, provided such training or instruction is given in an objective manner without endorsement of the concepts.