The Individual Freedom Act is vague about what race-related conversations are allowed and disallowed in the classroom, according to a Winter Park lawyer.
“The act limits instruction on racism and sexism to viewpoints approved by the Florida legislature, inhibiting free speech in Florida classrooms but the prohibited concepts are poorly defined, leaving instructors uncertain of what they can and cannot say,” attorney Mary Kogut-Lowell said.
IFA, also known as the Stop Wrongs to Our Kids and Employees (W.O.K.E.) Act is currently the subject of a lawsuit that is on appeal with the 11th Circuit.
Falls v. DeSantis was filed in the Northern District of Florida federal court Tallahassee division on April 21 after Gov. Ron DeSantis signed HB 7 into law.
“What surprises me is that the powers that be would so openly attack free speech and academic freedom,” said Kogut-Lowell. “Free speech is essential to our democracy and must be protected.”
The Stop WOKE Act is unenforceable in K-12 schools for now because a federal appellate court ruled against removing a temporary injunction imposed by U.S. District Judge Mark Walker who decided it is unconstitutional, according to media reports.
However, the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals has yet to rule on the merits of the case.
“The controversy is evidence of the deep political divide that exists in Florida and in other parts of the country,” Kogut-Lowell told the Florida Record. “Our democracy is at stake.”
Kogut-Lowell served as an adjunct professor at Florida A&M University College of Law where one of the plaintiffs, Professor LeRoy Pernell, currently teaches criminal procedure, race, and law at FAMU.
The Southern Poverty Law Center is among the organizations that filed an amicus brief.
“The existing reluctance to teach slavery due to the discomfort of teachers and students produces students who lack basic information about the history of their country and its effect on the present,” wrote Sam Boyd, an SPLC attorney.
For example, Learning for Justice found in a national survey of high-school seniors that only 8 percent could correctly identify slavery as the central cause of the Civil War and 45 percent believed incorrectly that enslaved women’s children were raised by the plantation owners’ wives.
“The purpose of the W.O.K.E. Act is to censor certain speech about racism and sexism that the legislature considers ‘woke,’ speech protected by the First Amendment,” Kogut-Lowell added. “But if the state is free to censor speech about racism and sexism, what will stop it from censoring viewpoints on other issues? This is dangerous legislation that infringes on free speech and academic freedom.”