Florida governor Ron DeSantis introduced chaos in the state’s public schools by promoting and signing the law that bans teachers from saying anything positive about Gay people while ignoring the family situations of students who are Gay or whose parents are. The bill does not define any parameters as was made clear when he went after Disney because they are not as narrow-minded as DeSantis would like and a difference of opinion is not allowed in the most free state in America.
After slamming the state-wide closet door closed, DeSantis moved on to the next vague law with his “Stop WOKE Act” that limits conversations about race in schools and businesses basically meaning a teacher could face discipline if he or she were to point out that slavery was a bad thing and we have no idea how many Einsteins or anyone for that matter who could have made society greater died quietly on the plantation without their true potential, as God had ordained until the slave trade intruded, being realized.
The law allows students and workers to sue the alleged offender if they believe a classroom lesson or workplace training course caused them to “feel guilt, anguish, or any other form of psychological distress” due to their race. None of these are clearly defined, nor is the word woke.
This apparently does not apply when Florida schools cover what led up to the Civil War. Black students have to just sit there while their White classmates don’t have to learn the uncomfortable truths that the Black kids know all too well.
The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression filed a suit arguing that the legislation could restrict teaching about people, male or female, Black or white, Gay or Straight, who may have broken through the relevant glass ceilings because the conditions that had made their advancement impossible would require speaking negatively of those conditions and this might make some people feel uncomfortable about that.
The ACLU of Florida, and the Legal Defense Fund filed a suit because the legislation is “discriminatory classroom censorship law that severely restricts” dealing with race and gender in schools.
If courts are to pass judgment on those accused of being too woke, they need to know the details and have a formal definition of the term woke.
US District Judge Mark Walker who is hearing the Foundation’s case wants to know exactly what the term means and has blocked state officials from enforcing a central piece of the Stop WOKE Act because it violates the First Amendment as the judge sees that DeSantis and his acolytes seem to believe that
“the State has unfettered authority to muzzle its professors in the name of ‘freedom,’”
which is quite obviously not freedom at all.
Because of the fact that the law targets freedom of expression that DeSantis and fellow Republicans don’t like, Walker wrote:
“The law officially bans professors from expressing disfavored viewpoints in university classrooms while permitting unfettered expression of the opposite viewpoints. Defendants argue that, under this Act, professors enjoy ‘academic freedom’ so long as they express only those viewpoints of which the State approves.”
Proof of this is DeSantis’s recently claiming that to teach students that America was built on stolen land was a woke thing even as Native Americans descended from those who were sent west to Indian Territory or had to hide in the Everglades not to be are sitting in the classroom hearing all about Andrew Jackson as the perfect man who did no wrong and George Armstrong Custer a hero killed by savages who had no real reason to kill him.
Might I suggest the Book “And Still the Waters Run” by Angie Debo.
According to Emerson Sykes, a senior staff attorney at the ACLU,
“This [stay] is a huge victory for everyone who values academic freedom and recognizes the value of inclusive education. The First Amendment broadly protects our right to share information and ideas, and this includes educators’ and students’ right to learn, discuss, and debate systemic racism and sexism.”
Rather than present a coherent definition of the word Woke to support the law, the DeSantis administration is appealing the ruling.
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