Ron DeSantis spent four years making Florida the front line of the culture war.
Now a federal appeals court – stacked with Trump's own judges – just killed his signature anti-woke law.
Here's what that means for every red state that followed Florida's lead.
A Trump Appointee Wrote the Opinion That Buried the Stop WOKE Act
Judge Britt Grant didn't get appointed by Biden.
She clerked for Brett Kavanaugh.
She worked for the George W. Bush administration.
Donald Trump put her on the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in 2018.
And on Tuesday, she wrote the majority opinion striking down Florida's Stop WOKE Act – the law DeSantis signed in 2022 to ban critical race theory indoctrination in Florida's public universities.
The ruling was 2-1.
The dissent came from another Trump appointee, Judge Barbara Lagoa, who argued Florida acted "well within its authority" to restrict what professors push in state-funded classrooms.
But Grant sided with the left, joining a Clinton appointee to hand the ACLU and the NAACP Legal Defense Fund a clean victory – two organizations that have spent decades suing police departments, fighting voter ID laws, and now celebrating that Florida professors can push whatever radical ideology they want in taxpayer-funded classrooms.
Florida argued that because the state pays professors' salaries, it controls their speech.
Grant called that "a breathtaking assertion of power."
What the Stop WOKE Act Actually Did
DeSantis signed HB 7 in April 2022 when his national profile was at its peak.
The law banned Florida's public university professors from teaching eight specific concepts – ideas like systemic racism as the root cause of all inequality, the notion that any individual is inherently racist because of their race, and the framing that America is fundamentally oppressive.
It never went into effect.
A federal district court blocked it the same year it was signed.
The 11th Circuit in 2024 already struck down the workplace provisions – which prohibited employers from forcing employees to sit through DEI training sessions.
https://twitter.com/scotus_wire/status/2074521964136353943?s=20
Tuesday's ruling finishes the job on the university side.
The case now returns to federal district court – or Florida can appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court.
SCOTUS is under no obligation to take it.
Why This Matters Beyond Florida
Fourteen other states followed Florida's lead and passed similar laws targeting CRT indoctrination in higher education.
Those laws are now vulnerable.
The 11th Circuit's decision marks the first appellate court to deliver a final merits ruling on these higher-education CRT bans – and every circuit that hasn't ruled yet is looking at this opinion.
The Second, Fourth, Fifth, Sixth, Seventh, and Ninth Circuits have all previously held that public university professors have some First Amendment protection in the classroom.
Not one appellate court had ruled directly on laws like Florida's – until now.
Lagoa's dissent is the roadmap for a Supreme Court appeal – and she's right.
She argued the First Amendment protects free speech in the public square – but it does not require the government to endorse every viewpoint in its own taxpayer-funded institutions.
That is exactly correct.
https://twitter.com/FLVoiceNews/status/2074604376195203093?s=20
And there are at least three justices on SCOTUS who've shown they're willing to think seriously about government speech doctrine.
The real question is whether Florida files the cert petition before DeSantis leaves office in November – and whether the new governor keeps fighting.
Meanwhile, your tax dollars are paying the salaries of professors who just got a federal court ruling telling them Florida can't stop them from teaching your grandkids that America is systemically racist and they should feel guilty about it.
The judge who handed them that win was put there by Donald Trump.
If Florida doesn't file that Supreme Court appeal – and fast – 14 other states lose their laws too, and the ACLU pops the champagne on all of them at once.
Sources:
- Stephany Matat, "Appeals court rules Florida Stop WOKE Act violates First Amendment," USA TODAY Network Florida, July 7, 2026.
- "11th Circuit strikes down part of Florida's 'Stop WOKE Act' as unconstitutional," Courthouse News Service, July 7, 2026.
- "VICTORY: Federal appeals court decisively rejects Florida's 'Stop WOKE Act,'" Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, July 7, 2026.
- "Federal judge strikes down Florida's Stop WOKE Act," WUSF, July 7, 2026.
- "Federal court halts Florida law banning 'woke' instruction in universities," WUWF, July 7, 2026.
