Document Type
Blog Post
Publication Date
10-10-2023
Abstract
May 2023, Florida Governor Ron Desantis signed into law Florida Senate Bill 266 (SB 266) concerning changes to funding requirements for Florida State University System institutions.. Under SB 266, university undergraduate courses may not “distort significant historical events or include a curriculum that teaches identity politics…or is based on theories that systemic racism, sexism, oppression, and privilege are inherent in the institutions of the United States and were created to maintain social, political, and economic inequities”.
The bill is popularly known as the “Stop Woke Act” (hereafter “the Act”)—an attempt to curtail the apparent horrors of Critical Race Theory (CRT) discussion. Desantis has been outspoken in his disdain for tenets of CRT. Consistent with Desantis’s mischaracterization, the Florida legislature believes CRT materially distorts history, victimizes Caucasian Americans, and silences what it would call “Western values”. Accordingly, the Florida legislature began a campaign to ban or remove CRT as an approach to education in state-funded universities. Under the Act, Department heads and professors must present their curricula to the institution’s Board of Trustees annually to ensure compliance; professors may lose their positions and schools may lose their funding if classes integrate CRT teaching.
Recommended Citation
Kearns, Emily, "Florida’s Stop Woke Act and its Function as a Content-Based Restriction" (2023). GGU Law Review Blog. 113.
https://digitalcommons.law.ggu.edu/ggu_law_review_blog/113