ORLANDO, Fla-- On Thursday a federal judge ruled in favor of Gov. Ron DeSantis and against a group of educators and students that had accused the administration of ignoring a court injunction, against certain aspects of the so-called "Stop Woke Act," which restricts the teaching of certain race-related concepts.

The same judge had preliminarily blocked those rules from going into effect, calling the law “positively dystopian.” Following the injunction, which remains in place, the governor's director of policy and budget, requested information from all public colleges and universities about their staff, programs, and activities related to critical race theory, diversity, equity and inclusion.

Dr. Jonathan Cox, an assistant professor in the Department of Sociology at the University of Central Florida, pulled two of his classes last semester —  “Race and Social Media” and “Race and Ethnicity” — because of the legislation and concerns over critical race theory. This semester, he has brought one class back as an option for students. He said the other is not available simply because it is on a rotating schedule, and not because faculty decided they weren’t going to offer it.

While an injunction is in place blocking the "Stop Woke Act," Cox said the law has still had a chilling effect on educators.

"Even, some faculty who have heard that there has been an injunction are still a little wary about teaching things that were previously made illegal based on the law because of the uncertainty in the ways that the law was written," he said. "That is having impacts right now, whether or not there is an injunction. Moving forward, the big question is how will the appeals process play out."

Cox said that for the classes he normally teaches, there is one graduate-level course that deals with CRT. He said that despite arguments against teaching about CRT, the courses are rooted in fact, with data to back them up.

“It is based on decades of research that exists where we know that these things are happening," Cox said. "And so we are just teaching from a place of fact and science —  it is a social science. So, why would I ever be concerned that teaching some of that would be problematic? It wasn’t something that came to my radar until very, very recently."

Cox said part of the decision to bring the classes back this semester was because faculty members felt learning about the subject area was important for students.

“This is information that people need to know, students need to know,” he said. “What ends up happening in most of my classes is that the students are either surprised — some of them are even a little bit angry they haven’t learned about a lot of this stuff before.”

Spectrum News has reached out to UCF for comment on the classes, and the governor’s office about the decision as well as the legal battle.

Neither immediately responded to the request.