Strong suit

NEWS

PROTESTS AGAINST HOUSE BILL 1557 AT THE STATE CAPITOL BUILDING | PHOTO VIA NEWS SERVICE OF FLORIDA

STRONG SUIT

Sexual orientation and gender identity law dubbed ‘Don’t Say Gay’ draws quick legal challenge. Plus state news briefs

BY RYAN DAILEY, NSF

Three days after Gov. Ron DeSantis signed the measure, LGBTQ-advocacy groups, parents, students and a teacher filed a federal lawsuit Thursday challenging a new law that includes barring instruction on sexual orientation and gender identity in early school grades.

The lawsuit, filed in the federal Northern District of Florida, seeks to block Florida from moving forward with the law, which is set to take effect in July. While DeSantis and Republican lawmakers describe the law as boosting parental rights, it has drawn national attention as critics dubbed it the “Don’t Say Gay” bill.

DeSantis, the State Board of Education, the state Department of Education and Education Commissioner Richard Corcoran are named as defendants, along with the school boards in Manatee, Sarasota, Miami-Dade, St. Johns and Jackson counties. The challenge focuses on a part of the law (HB 1557) that would prohibit instruction on sexual orientation and gender identity in kindergarten through third grade and require that such instruction in older grades is age-appropriate in accordance with state academic standards.

Lawyers for the opponents, including the LGBTQ-advocacy group Equality Florida, argue in the lawsuit that the measure is discriminatory and “aims at sexual orientations and gender identities that differ from heterosexual and cisgender identities.” The 80-page complaint alleges that the law violates constitutional free-speech and equal-protection rights. Also, it contends that the law violates due-process rights because of “vagueness.”

“H.B. 1557 piles one violation on top of another. It offends principles of free speech and equal protection by seeking to censor discussions of sexual orientation or gender identity that recognize and respect LGBTQ people and their families. It offends due process by using broad and vague terms to define its prohibitions — thus inviting discriminatory enforcement and magnifying its chilling effect on speech. And it arises from discriminatory purposes and outdated sex-based stereotypes that offend deeply rooted constitutional and statutory requirements,” the lawsuit said.

The lawsuit points to other parts of Florida law that require a “uniform, safe, secure, efficient, and high quality system of education” that is “made available without discrimination” on the basis of factors like race, ethnicity, gender, religion or marital status. It also cited “inclusivity efforts” by local school districts that focused on LGBTQ students.

“H.B. 1557 seeks to undo all of this. Although it is formally entitled the ‘Parental Rights in Education Act,’ it is popularly and more accurately known as Florida’s ‘Don’t Say Gay’ law,” the lawsuit said.

DeSantis and the bill’s Republican backers have vigorously defended the measure and disputed the “Don’t Say Gay” moniker. DeSantis has accused lawmakers who opposed the measure and other critics of mischaracterizing the bill by “sloganeering.” The governor also argued that the bill’s detractors “support having woke gender ideology” in early grades.

“I think that they’ve gone through sloganeering and all these things really out of desperation. Because they know they could never argue their position on the merits. They would … crumble, I think, under the weight of outrage from parents if they were actually standing on the wall and saying that they support those things,” DeSantis said before signing the bill.

House Speaker Chris Sprowls, a Palm Harbor Republican who joined DeSantis for a bill-signing event, echoed the governor’s comments and took issue with objections to the bill by President Joe Biden’s administration and high-profile celebrities.

“This was super easy to figure out what this bill did. And yet, people lied about it. The media lied about it. Advocates lied about it. Whether it was in the White House press room, or whether it was … at the Oscars, there were lies about it. And the governor’s right, they were intentional,” Sprowls said.

DeSantis signs bonus, budget bill to bolster law enforcement

Gov. DeSantis signed a wide-ranging package last week that includes providing bonuses to help recruit law-enforcement officers from other states and giving county sheriffs more autonomy over their budgets. The highest profile part of the measure (HB 3) is $5,000 recruitment bonuses for lawenforcement officers. With the law taking effect July 1, the state Department of Economic Opportunity is required to develop minimum eligibility requirements for the program.

“We want to incentivize really strong, high-quality people to pursue law enforcement as a vocation in the state of Florida,” DeSantis said during a bill-signing ceremony at the Brevard County Sheriff’s Office in Titusville. “That may mean that you leave Seattle or Chicago or some of these places and come to the Brevard County Sheriff’s Office. But it could also mean that you’re somebody that’s in Florida trying to determine what you want to do with your life.”

Other aspects of the measure include establishing a Florida Law Enforcement Academy Scholarship Program to cover basic-training tuition and fees for new officers and creating an exemption from certain law-enforcement training requirements for military veterans. Sheriffs, under the bill, will see their base salaries increase by $5,000 a year. Sheriffs will also get more leeway with their budgets after the spending plans have been approved by county commissions. Currently, sheriffs can appeal county budgetary decisions to the state Administration Commission, which is made up of the governor and members of the Florida Cabinet. But lawmakers included the change into the bill in response to a legal battle started when former Alachua County Sheriff Sadie Darnell shifted money within her budget. Alachua County fought the move, and the Florida Supreme Court in January ruled that the money couldn’t be shifted without approval from the county commission.

Firefighters allowed to pursue case over Facebook posts

A federal appeals court has cleared the way for two Palm Beach County firefighters to pursue a lawsuit over being disciplined for Facebook posts. A panel of the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals overturned part of a district judge’s rulings in favor of Palm Beach County.

The case stemmed from an exchange between firefighters AJ O’Laughlin and Crystal Little on an invitation-only Facebook page associated with a campaign by O’Laughlin to become president of the local firefighters’ union. The exchange dealt with an accusation that a union official attempted to misuse time that firefighters had donated to a union “time pool,” according to Friday’s ruling. O’Laughlin and Little were disciplined with written warnings under a fire department social-media policy. They filed a lawsuit against the county, alleging that the policy unconstitutionally restricted free-speech and free-association rights and was overbroad and vague. A district judge dismissed or made summary-judgment rulings against them on the allegations, leading to the appeal to the Atlanta-based appeals court. The panel last week overturned the rulings related to free speech and whether the policy was overbroad.

“It expressly prohibits ‘disseminating content’ that ‘could be reasonably interpreted as having an adverse effect upon Fire Rescue morale, discipline, operations, the safety of staff, or perception of the public,’” said the ruling, written by Judge Kevin Newsom and joined by Judges Stanley Marcus and Richard Story. Quoting a legal precedent, the ruling said “that ‘could be just about anything.’”