A pair of consecutive court actions this week brought renewed attention to policies in Republican-led states to control lessons and conversations on gender and race in public colleges and universities. 

A group of legal advocates sued the Texas Tech University system Wednesday over curriculum restrictions they say have created a chilling effect at the institution — including prohibiting lessons on medical treatment for LGBTQ+ people and communities of color. 

Just a day before, a federal appeals court blocked the enforcement of Florida’s “Stop WOKE Act,” a 2022 law that set out to limit what schools and companies can teach about gender, race and privilege. In a 2-1 split decision, a three-judge panel on the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that Stop WOKE infringed on free speech rights in college instruction.

“Florida seeks to strip public university professors — and by extension their students — of the ability to fully engage with ideas that are, for better or for worse, very popular in some academic circles,” Judge Britt Grant wrote in the majority opinion. “The State asks us to consider its rules a means of targeting discrimination. But hearing an idea you disagree with is not discrimination; it is an opportunity to come up with a better idea, or maybe even change your mind.”

The Stop WOKE Act stands out as a flagship policy of Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, who has made a point to battle “culture war” issues during his seven-year tenure. The legislation also drew inspiration from President Donald Trump’s September 2020 “Executive Order on Combating Race and Sex Stereotyping.”

In a press release, the ACLU said the ruling stands out as the only time “an appellate court has considered the constitutionality of the censorship movement.” It predicts the decision, which could be reheard by the full 11th Circuit or head to the Supreme Court, will have an impact on students and educators in states with similar laws. 

As the lawsuit against the Texas university system begins, civil liberties advocates are celebrating the blocking of Florida’s Stop WOKE. The law changed the Florida Civil Rights Act so that DEI practices are now widely considered discriminatory in the state.

“Faculty have to consider, ‘If I teach what I know is a great text, will some right-wing whack-a-doodle tell me that it’s actually a form of discrimination?” said Isaac Kamola, director of the American Association of University Professors’ Center for the Defense of Academic Freedom.

Kamola added: “The Stop WOKE Act is not only a malicious piece of legislation, but it’s cruel by design. It’s intentionally vague, designed to lead higher education institutions to overcomply.” He said the appellate court’s decision “sets the standard that we need . . . in challenging that corrupting, vague and cruel language in courthouses around the country.”

The broadness of Stop WOKE, critics say, has led universities to chill lessons related to diversity to avoid violating the law. It has national relevance, Kamola said, because it was “one of the first bills that included model language that has become normalized across at least a dozen states.”

These states include Arizona, Idaho, Iowa, New Hampshire, Oklahoma, Tennessee, South Carolina and Texas. The Lone Star State has enacted more than one law that mirrors Stop WOKE — including state Senate Bill 17, which banned DEI in all public universities, and state Senate Bill 12, which restricts instruction related to sexual orientation, gender identity and race. There, Lambda Legal, the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund and Davis Wright Tremaine LLP are suing Texas Tech University System Chancellor Brandon Creighton and members of the board of regents over curriculum restrictions implemented over the past eight months.

The lawsuit, AAUP v. Creighton, alleges that memoranda issued in December and April required professors to reveal whether their course materials include prohibited subject matter related to race, sex, sexual orientation or gender identity. If such material was included, the instructor had to stop teaching it pending a board of regents ruling. The process led to Plato’s “Republic” being barred in a philosophy course and first-year law students being prohibited from receiving information about the famous 1857 Supreme Court case Dred Scott v. Sandford. The lawsuit aims to block the university system from enforcing these memos on the grounds that they are unconstitutional, overly broad and discriminatory.

Erin Daly Wilson, spokesperson for Texas Tech’s Office of the Chancellor, told The 19th in a statement that the “university system is confident its policies are lawful, constitutionally sound and fully compliant with state and federal law.” She continued: “Our commitment to academic integrity and the First Amendment rights of our students and faculty will not be distracted by lawsuits as we continue our mission to deliver rigorous academic programs, relevant coursework, and groundbreaking research.”

But Nicholas Hite, senior attorney at Lambda Legal, accused the chancellor of trying to erase the experiences of LGBTQ+ people and people of color from the classroom.

“Faculty at Texas Tech are being barred from teaching that gay and bisexual men were persecuted during the Holocaust, medical students pulled out of exam rooms rather than learn to treat transgender patients, and an entire Women’s and Gender Studies program shuttered by administrative decree,” according to Hite. “That is viewpoint discrimination, and it’s unconstitutional. Lambda Legal is asking the court to put a stop to it.”

Antonio L. Ingram II, senior counsel at the Legal Defense Fund, stressed in a statement that all faculty members, including Black and LGBTQ+ faculty, deserve to teach the truth without fear of being targeted based on their identities. 

“We will fight to make Texas Tech inclusive for all Texans,” he said.