Florida Legislature Sends the ‘Stop WOKE’ Bill to Governor’s Desk

First introduced last December, the Stop the Wrongs of Our Kids Act, also known as Stop WOKE Act, is expected to become law in Florida. The bill would codify the Florida Department of Education’s ban on teaching “critical race theory” (CRT) in K-12. The measure also would ban school districts, colleges, and universities from hiring CRT consultants.

If employees in Florida perceive a hostile work environment because of CRT indoctrination “training,” they would have a private right of action to sue. The same goes for parents and students.

The legislature recently sent the bill to Governor Ron DeSantis, who called CRT state-sanctioned racism and said we “won’t allow Florida tax dollars to be spent teaching kids to hate our country or to hate each other.” He is expected to sign the bill.

Leftists, who claim schools don’t teach CRT, nevertheless defend the teaching of CRT and oppose any policies or laws that bar it. Among other things, CRT is the theory that groups of people are inherently inferior or superior to others based on race, ethnicity, sex or religion, and that the United States and its institutions are irredeemably racist. CRT began as a fringe Marxist idea that supposedly examines how race and racism influence culture, the justice system, and politics.

Christopher Rufo, a Manhattan Institute fellow, worked with Gov. DeSantis on this issue. Rufo recruited a team of legal foundations and law firms to file a lawsuit challenging President Joe Biden’s executive order that rolled back President Donald Trump’s order establishing the 1776 Commission.

The former president formed the Commission to counteract CRT and so-called diversity training in the country’s institutions. The 1776 Commission was formed in reaction to the 1619 Project, a series of New York Times articles that argued America’s true founding was in 1619, when the first slaves arrived, not with the signing of the Declaration of Independence in 1776. The authors also claimed that the American Revolution was fought to preserve slavery.

WINNING: The Florida state legislature has passed the S.T.O.P Woke Act, which prohibits schools, corporations, and government agencies from promoting race essentialism, collective guilt, and racial scapegoating. It now heads to Gov. DeSantis for signature. pic.twitter.com/WTwva3bbFk

— Christopher F. Rufo ⚔️ (@realchrisrufo) March 10, 2022

Photo credit: Gage Skidmore (Creative Commons) – Some rights reserved

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