Overview
- A three-judge panel of the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld a lower court injunction that stops Florida from enforcing the law at public colleges and universities, in a 2-1 decision issued on July 7, 2026.
- The court found the statute unconstitutionally censors viewpoints by barring professors from endorsing eight specified concepts about race, sex, national origin, and privilege.
- Judge Britt C. Grant wrote for the majority that the state’s ‘salary-for-speech’ theory — the idea that professors speak for the government because the state pays them — fails under the First Amendment.
- The ruling noted a dissent by Judge Barbara Lagoa and leaves open Florida’s options to seek rehearing by the full 11th Circuit or to petition the U.S. Supreme Court for review.
- The lawsuits were brought by faculty, students, and student groups with backing from FIRE, the ACLU and the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, and the decision preserves academic freedom in public universities while K–12 provisions of the law remain unaffected.