U.S. District Judge Mark Walker, who previously blocked other portions of the law in a separate case, quoted the opening sentence of George Orwell’s dystopian novel “1984” as he issued a preliminary injunction blocking the law’s higher education provisions and pushed back on the state’s arguments.
Walker ruled the First Amendment protects professors’ in-class speech and the provisions were impermissibly vague, describing the law as “positively dystopian” as he compared it to the Ministry of Truth, the propaganda agency in Orwell’s novel.
“Our professors are critical to a healthy democracy, and the State of Florida’s decision to choose which viewpoints are worthy of illumination and which must remain in the shadows has implications for us all,” Walker ruled.ARTICLE HERE