The fight over teaching race and gender in college classrooms is escalating

[marmar]

The fight over teaching race and gender in college classrooms is escalating
Two court cases this week — one blocking Florida's Stop WOKE Act and another challenging restrictions at Texas Tech — could shape how states and universities decide what professors teach.

Nadra Nittle
Education Reporter


(The 19th) A pair of consecutive court actions this week brought renewed attention to policies in Republican-led states to control lessons and conversations on gender and race in public colleges and universities.

A group of legal advocates sued the Texas Tech University system Wednesday over curriculum restrictions they say have created a chilling effect at the institution — including prohibiting lessons on medical treatment for LGBTQ+ people and communities of color.

Just a day before, a federal appeals court blocked the enforcement of Florida’s “Stop WOKE Act,” a 2022 law that set out to limit what schools and companies can teach about gender, race and privilege. In a 2-1 split decision, a three-judge panel on the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that Stop WOKE infringed on free speech rights in college instruction.

“Florida seeks to strip public university professors — and by extension their students — of the ability to fully engage with ideas that are, for better or for worse, very popular in some academic circles,” Judge Britt Grant wrote in the majority opinion. “The State asks us to consider its rules a means of targeting discrimination. But hearing an idea you disagree with is not discrimination; it is an opportunity to come up with a better idea, or maybe even change your mind.” .................(more)

https://19thnews.org/2026/07/college-classrooms-policies-race-gender/