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Ron DeSantis's war on "wokeness" is a war against the First Amendment
VoxDeSantis v. the First Amendment
Broadly speaking, DeSantis’s efforts to limit free speech and shape public discourse fit into three boxes. The first, which includes things like Florida’s laws attacking Disney and attempting to gain control over social media sites, seek to control what major companies can say and what speech they must broadcast. These laws are clearly unconstitutional.
The second box includes laws, like Florida’s “Don’t Say Gay” law and the so-called Stop WOKE Act, which impose speech restrictions on public school teachers and professors. The constitutional status of these sorts of laws is more nuanced. While the Supreme Court has repeatedly said that the First Amendment provides some protections for academic freedom, it hasn’t fully fleshed out those statements. As a general rule, moreover, states do have the power to write their own school curriculums and to require instructors to follow those curriculums.
That said, the Supreme Court has said that laws governing classroom instruction may not be so vague that people “of common intelligence must necessarily guess at its meaning and differ as to its application.” Neither the Don’t Say Gay law nor the Stop WOKE Act complies with this rule.
Then there’s a third box, which consists of actions that use governmental institutions to promote a conservative viewpoint, but without suppressing speech. Florida acted within its lawful authority, for example, when it appointed former Sen. Ben Sasse, a conservative Republican, to lead the University of Florida. And Sasse will have broad authority to use his new office to promote Republican ideas on campus.
Broadly speaking, DeSantis’s efforts to limit free speech and shape public discourse fit into three boxes. The first, which includes things like Florida’s laws attacking Disney and attempting to gain control over social media sites, seek to control what major companies can say and what speech they must broadcast. These laws are clearly unconstitutional.
The second box includes laws, like Florida’s “Don’t Say Gay” law and the so-called Stop WOKE Act, which impose speech restrictions on public school teachers and professors. The constitutional status of these sorts of laws is more nuanced. While the Supreme Court has repeatedly said that the First Amendment provides some protections for academic freedom, it hasn’t fully fleshed out those statements. As a general rule, moreover, states do have the power to write their own school curriculums and to require instructors to follow those curriculums.
That said, the Supreme Court has said that laws governing classroom instruction may not be so vague that people “of common intelligence must necessarily guess at its meaning and differ as to its application.” Neither the Don’t Say Gay law nor the Stop WOKE Act complies with this rule.
Then there’s a third box, which consists of actions that use governmental institutions to promote a conservative viewpoint, but without suppressing speech. Florida acted within its lawful authority, for example, when it appointed former Sen. Ben Sasse, a conservative Republican, to lead the University of Florida. And Sasse will have broad authority to use his new office to promote Republican ideas on campus.
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