In a blow to Gov. Ron DeSantis "war on woke," a federal appeals court Monday agreed with a lower court judge on blocking a key provision to Florida's 2022 “Stop WOKE Act."

That provision restricted businesses' diversity practices and trainings, blocking concepts that could make employees feel "personal responsibility" for actions committed in the past — such as discriminatory ones — by someone of the "same race, color, sex or national origin," sometimes referred to as "white guilt."

That language had been iced by U.S. District Judge Mark Walker of Tallahassee, who was appointed by former President Barack Obama. A unanimous three-judge panel of the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals concurred, despite Florida's assertion that its actions were OK because the law restricts conduct, not speech.

"We cannot agree, and we reject this latest attempt to control speech by recharacterizing it as conduct," wrote U.S. Circuit Judge Britt Grant, appointed by former President Donald Trump.

"Florida may be exactly right about the nature of the ideas it targets. Or it may not. Either way, the merits of these views will be decided in the clanging marketplace of ideas rather than a codebook or a courtroom."