Washington, DC – -(AmmoLand.com)- Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, a leading presidential contender, is skilled at appealing to Republicans who resent the censorious self-righteousness of woke progressives. But instead of defending free inquiry and open debate, DeSantis seems bent on fighting intolerance with intolerance.
When he signed the Individual Freedom Act in April, DeSantis bragged that it would “prevent discriminatory instruction in the workplace,” striking a blow against “the far-left woke agenda.” But as a federal judge explained last week, the law’s restrictions on employee training blatantly violate the First Amendment.
The IFA expanded Florida’s definition of “unlawful employment practices” to include “any required activity” that promotes one or more of eight forbidden concepts. Some of those ideas are plainly illiberal (e.g., linking moral status to race) or patently silly (e.g., viewing virtues such as excellence, hard work and fairness as white supremacist constructs), while others are ambiguous or debatable (e.g., the notion that “members of one race, color, sex, or national origin cannot and should not attempt to treat others without respect to race, color, sex, or national origin”).
Whatever you think of those ideas, the government has no business decreeing whether and how they can be discussed in private workplaces. Yet that is what the IFA does: It allows discussion “in an objective manner without endorsement of the concepts” while forbidding speech that “espouses, promotes, advances, (or) inculcates” them.
As U.S. District Judge Mark Walker noted when he issued a preliminary injunction against those restrictions, they amount to “a naked viewpoint-based regulation on speech,” which is presumptively unconstitutional.
“Under our constitutional scheme,” Walker observed, “the ‘remedy’ for repugnant speech ‘is more speech, not enforced silence.'”
DeSantis argued that the IFA aims to prevent a “hostile work environment” created by ideas that might discomfit employees.
Walker thought that was a stretch because that term encompasses speech only when it is “both objectively and subjectively offensive (SET ITAL) and (END ITAL) when it is sufficiently severe or pervasive” — requirements that provide “shelter for core protected speech.”
More to the point, conservatives have long criticized discrimination claims based on an allegedly hostile work environment, precisely because they can transform otherwise protected speech into illegal “harassment.” Yet DeSantis is not only defending that concept; he is extending it to cover even a single “required activity” that “espouses” ideas he does not like.
The governor’s support for Florida’s social media law evinces a similar lack of principle. That 2021 law prohibits platforms like Facebook, Twitter and YouTube from removing or limiting access to content they deem objectionable, including material produced by “journalistic enterprises” and posts by or about political candidates.
As DeSantis saw it, the law would “ensure that ‘We the People’ — real Floridians across the Sunshine State — are guaranteed protection against the Silicon Valley elites.” He said it would combat the “Big Tech censors” who “discriminate in favor of the dominant Silicon Valley ideology.”
DeSantis likened Facebook et al.’s moderation decisions to the “censorship and other tyrannical behavior” of Cuban and Venezuelan despots. But as the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit pointed out when it blocked enforcement of Florida’s law last May, such comparisons elide a constitutionally crucial distinction.
Unlike “Big Tech censors,” an unconstrained government has the power to ban and punish controversial speech by force of law, as Florida sought to do with the IFA. The First Amendment, which aims to guard against that danger, does not impose any limits on the editorial judgment of private organizations.
To the contrary, the Supreme Court has repeatedly held that the First Amendment guarantees the right to exercise such discretion.
But in Florida, Walker wryly noted, “the First Amendment apparently bars private actors from burdening speech, while the state may burden speech freely.”
That backward view is not just diametrically wrong but dangerously shortsighted. Depending on the vicissitudes of elections, a government with the powers DeSantis has claimed easily could use them to advance “the far-left woke agenda” that keeps him awake at night.
About Jacob Sullum
Jacob Sullum is a senior editor at Reason magazine. Follow him on Twitter: @JacobSullum. During two decades in journalism, he has relentlessly skewered authoritarians of the left and the right, making the case for shrinking the realm of politics and expanding the realm of individual choice. Jacobs’ work appears here at AmmoLand News through a license with Creators Syndicate.
Ah, if only biased writers and judges would attack the left about their infringements of the 2A as hard as they do the right on tit for tat attacks on the 1A, we might see some balance. Ironically big-tech, is doing “big government’s” discrimination and attacks for them…you’re quite daft and ignorant if you can’t see the marriage and absolute abuse of government power through the complicit use of big tech to attack political and ideological opponents.
So OFFICER OPE (TEX etc) is back to hating on Heavy D and lying about him. Last week he was licking his star (the brown one, not the silver one) & hoping he’d run with Trump.
Well now we’ve heard from the sanctimonious LOLibertarians. What else does Jacob Sullum & “Reason” believe?
That there should be no limits on immigration. Which means massive redistribution (THEFT) of wealth and voting control, citizenship means nothing, and there can be no independent USA.
LOLibertarians are de facto socialists & globalists. They cannot honestly take the pledge of allegiance let alone the oath of office.
Years ago, Art Bell had an occasional guest on his show the name of whom I now forget. This guest had written a book, the name of which I have also forgotten, the premise of which was that even if there were no such thing as God, man would have invented Him. Generally, the author made a case that for some in-born reason, man has a need to believe in something bigger and greater than himself and to worship it. At the time, I considered these among the more boring of Art’s programs and usually switched off to FM and… Read more »
Liberal lawyers & liberal judges appointed by democrats are a force to be reckoned with. Their purpose is hack away at the us constitution in the lower courts intimidating those to weak to stand and fight.
Desantis has proven to me that he is a warrior against the far left and the democrats. I only hope the the republican party pulls up there big boy panties and begins take the fight to the democrats rather than always running defence.
So true. Departure from our core constitutional principles for any reason is wrong and short sighted. Any increase of governmental (or executive) powers will not be rescinded without a serious fight. Such powers will be extended and used by those with views diametrically opposed to one’s own. Take for example trump’s bumpstock ban. While wrong in and of itself, it has been used as a guideline by those who oppose gun rights – contributing greatly to #FAFT’s tyrannical actions under biden. Second example is Texas’s anti-abortion lawsuit authorization act. I’m fairly certain that california’s reactionary anti-gun laws are only the… Read more »