AAUP joins suit over “Stop WOKE Act”

The American Association of University Professors is filing a brief today with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit backing faculty members who sued over the “Stop WOKE Act”—officially the Individual Freedom Act—which prohibits professors at Florida’s public universities from expressing certain viewpoints while teaching on topics including racial and sexual discrimination and injustice. The AAUP’s brief argues that the law violates the First Amendment and threatens to destroy academic freedom, sabotage higher education, and undermine democracy.

The measure, signed into law by Governor Ron DeSantis. a Republican, prohibits faculty at the state’s public colleges and universities from engaging in “instruction” that “espouses, promotes, advances, inculcates, or compels … student[s] or employee[s] to believe” certain concepts involving racial and sexual discrimination and injustice.

A federal district court judge issued an injunction barring enforcement.