Florida's culture war gets dinged in court
Why it matters: Activists have long said the state's restrictions on pronouns and school libraries violated federal civil rights law and the U.S. Constitution; recent rulings, for now, bolster their argument.
Catch up quick: Gov. Ron DeSantis signed several bills in 2023 aimed at the LGBTQ+ community, among them a measure that bars K-12 schools from requiring employees and students to use a person's preferred pronouns.
The same law lets parents challenge classroom and library books that "describe or depict sexual conduct," requiring their removal within five days and keeping them off shelves until the matter is resolved.
Critics called the legislation "an all-out attack on freedom."
Driving the news: Federal judges sided against the state in separate challenges to the law last week.
U.S. District Judge Mark Walker said Florida's pronoun restriction violated the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which bars employee discrimination based on "race, color, religion, sex, or national origin," WUSF reported.
Walker, however, paused further action on the case, which concerns a Hillsborough teacher, until an appeals court weighs in on a Georgia case over an alleged Title VII violation involving a transgender employee.
U.S. District Judge Carlos Mendoza in Orlando, meanwhile, ruled that the state's prohibition on material that describes sexual conduct ran afoul of the Constitution.
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