There’s no such thing as academic freedom. There is no such thing as professors’ free speech. That’s what the state of Florida has claimed in its reply brief to the ACLU’s lawsuit against the Stop WOKE Act. It’s an all-out assault. storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.usco…

Not a lawyer, but I can get the gist. The state seeks to extend Garcetti to classroom instruction in higher ed, including to speech germane to the course’s subject matter. It’s all government speech, says Florida. We get to control it all.

Of course, Garcetti famously left higher ed’s status unclear. To get around that, the state cites an 11CA decision, Bishop v. Aronov, that recognizes the state’s right to control curriculum. But curriculum control (eg Don’t teach bio in an English class) is totally different.

This distinction, which has been addressed n multiple key decisions, gets completely ignored by the state here. The state also argues that AF belongs to institutions, not individuals. Count the strawmen below.

All in all, a depressing document. Doomed to fail at the district level, but with the 11CA and SCOTUS, who knows?

The state also filed a response yesterday on plaintiffs’ standing. storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.usco…