On July 7, the US Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit, in its decision on Pernell v. Lamb, struck down the portion of Gov. Ron DeSantis’s Stop WOKE Act that handcuffed intellectual freedom in Florida’s colleges and universities. That decision was an important victory in the raging cultural wars. There are, however, still more battles to fight.
The decision and its language sent a very powerful message. In its critique of the law, the court noted that the law represented a “breathtaking assertion of power to ban unpopular ideas from public discourse in the very places the State’s own statutes recognize as centers of inquiry–classrooms where students are trusted to puzzle through ideas that are good and bad, easy and hard, ideally getting ever closer to the truth.”
It is a relief that, in a political landscape increasingly populated by anti-democratic and anti-intellectual actors, a federal court took a stand in favor of free thinking and free speech.
The battle is not over, however. Next year, Florida’s new anti-DEI law, SB 1134, goes into effect, prohibiting cities and counties from using public dollars to award contracts or to support programs and activities that reference race, ethnicity, gender, or sexual orientation. If violated, this new law opens the door for civil lawsuits against elected officials and the possibility that they could be removed from office.
Your city’s or county’s Black History and Haitian Heritage Month Celebrations may be illegal next year. Contract awards for minority-owned or women-owned businesses will also be criminal acts.
SB 1134 represents the continuing efforts in Florida and nationwide to marginalize or erase information about or the study of marginalized people. From libraries, to school bookshelves, to college classrooms, to museums and cultural centers, to our university classrooms, conservative activists will not be satisfied until their singular, whitewashed version of the nation’s history is the exclusive version of what passes as fact in our national landscape.
Take, for example, the White House’s scathing criticism of the National Museum of American History, released on Independence Day, no less, demanding a more “patriotic” history. This is after President Trump issued Executive Order 14253, entitled “Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History,” the previous year, initiating a federal whitewashing of history and prompting investigations at the Smithsonian and the National Park Service. In response to this most recent attack, the Organization of American Historians, the largest professional group of US historians, firmly rejected the White House’s attacks, calling out the continued attempts to politicize the telling of American history.
One can only hope that SB 1134 suffers the same fate as the Stop WOKE Act.
All of this is important because our understanding of the past and the lessons we learn from the times we got it wrong are critical to informing the path we choose as a nation to craft our future as we strive to get this project called America right.
Dr. Tameka Bradley Hobbs is regional manager of the African American Research Library and Cultural Center.
