From Honeyfund.com inc v. Governor, decided today by the Eleventh Circuit, in an opinion by Judge Britt Grant, joined by Judges Charles Wilson and Andrew Brasher:
The State of Florida seeks to bar employers from holding mandatory meetings for their employees if those meetings endorse viewpoints the state finds offensive. But meetings on those same topics are allowed if speakers endorse viewpoints the state agrees with, or at least does not object to. This law, as Florida concedes, draws its distinctions based on viewpoint—the most pernicious of dividing lines under the First Amendment. But the state insists that ordinary First Amendment review does not apply because the law restricts conduct, not speech.
We cannot agree, and we reject this latest attempt to control speech by recharacterizing it as conduct….
Florida's law, the Individual Freedom Act [part of the Stop W.O.K.E Act], bans certain mandatory workplace trainings. The Act says employers cannot subject "any individual, as a condition of employment," to "training, instruction, or any other required activity that espouses, promotes, advances, inculcates, or compels" a certain set of beliefs. It goes on to list the rejected ideas, all of which relate to race, color, sex, or national origin:
