Chief U.S. District Judge Mark Walker issued a preliminary injunction against the “Stop Wrongs to Our Kids and Employees (W.O.K.E.) Act,” officially dubbed the Individual Freedom Act. The judge’s move means that the law cannot be enforced on college campuses for now.
“This is positively dystopian,” Walker wrote in his order. “The law officially bans professors from expressing disfavored viewpoints in university classrooms while permitting unfettered expression of the opposite viewpoints.”
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“‘It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen,’ and the powers in charge of Florida’s public university system have declared the State has unfettered authority to muzzle its professors in the name of ‘freedom,’” Walker wrote, quoting George Orwell’s dystopian novel “1984.”
The judge also quoted Orwell’s remark that, “if liberty means anything at all it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear.”
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In September, a professor and student at the University of South Florida filed a lawsuit against the law. The lawsuit alleged that the law infringes on their First Amendment rights and threatens the professor’s livelihood.
USF history professor Adriana Novoa and student Sam Rechek celebrated the judge’s decision Thursday.
“It is a happy day not only for Sam and me, but for the institutions of this country,” Novoa said in a statement through the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE), which is representing the two.
“This is positively dystopian,” Walker wrote in his order. “The law officially bans professors from expressing disfavored viewpoints in university classrooms while permitting unfettered expression of the opposite viewpoints.”
[clip]
“‘It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen,’ and the powers in charge of Florida’s public university system have declared the State has unfettered authority to muzzle its professors in the name of ‘freedom,’” Walker wrote, quoting George Orwell’s dystopian novel “1984.”
The judge also quoted Orwell’s remark that, “if liberty means anything at all it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear.”
[clip]
In September, a professor and student at the University of South Florida filed a lawsuit against the law. The lawsuit alleged that the law infringes on their First Amendment rights and threatens the professor’s livelihood.
USF history professor Adriana Novoa and student Sam Rechek celebrated the judge’s decision Thursday.
“It is a happy day not only for Sam and me, but for the institutions of this country,” Novoa said in a statement through the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE), which is representing the two.
