For the second time in more than a month, a federal judge dismissed a lawsuit challenging Florida’s so-called “Don’t Say Gay” legislation restricting teaching on gender identity and sexual orientation in schools, PBS reported.
On Oct. 20, U.S. District Judge Wendy Berger in Orlando dismissed a lawsuit brought by LGBTQ students, parents and their families as well as several civil-rights groups and refused their request for a preliminary injunction to stop the law from being implemented.
Earlier this month, a federal judge in Tallahassee dismissed a similar challenge to the law.
Berger gave the plaintiffs until Nov. 3 to file an amended lawsuit if they desired.
Civil-rights groups that had helped the families file the lawsuit called the judge’s decision “wrong.” Lambda Legal staff attorney Kell Olson said, “The students and families at the heart of this case have experienced more bullying in the months since the law went into effect than ever before in their lives, but the court dismissed their experiences of bullying as ‘a fact of life.'”