The opinion is here. Judge Walker was not amused by Gov. Viktor DeSantis's outrageous legislation:
In the popular television series Stranger Things, the “upside down” describes a parallel dimension containing a distorted version of our world…..Recently, Florida has seemed like a First Amendment upside down. Normally, the First Amendment bars the state from burdening speech, while private actors may burden speech freely. But in Florida, the First Amendment apparently bars private actors from burdening speech, while the state may burden speech freely
Now, like the heroine in Stranger Things, this Court is once again asked to pull Florida back from the upside down. Before this Court is a motion for a preliminary injunction, asking this Court to enjoin a host of Government officials from enforcing portions of the Individual Freedom Act—a law that prohibits employers from endorsing any of eight concepts during any mandatory employment activity. Because the challenged provision of the Act is a naked viewpoint-based regulation on speech that does not pass strict scrutiny, Plaintiffs’ motion for a preliminary injunction, ECF No. 18, is GRANTED in part.
(A broader constitutional challenge [on behalf of students and teachers] to the legislation is also being mounted by the ACLU, since the particular issue here [described in the second paragraph, above] was more narrow.)
UPDATE: Reader Brock Sides points out to me that footnote 12 in the Court's opinion cites Kant, Nietzsche, and Merleau-Ponty on the question of what "objectivity" is and whether it is possible!
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