In a split ruling Wednesday, a federal appeals court dissolved a temporary injunction issued in 2024 that blocked implementation of portions of a 2021 Oklahoma law designed to limit classroom discussions of subjects related to race and gender.
The 10th U.S. Court of Appeals in Denver, by a 2-1 vote, said in a published ruling that a lower court judge abused his discretion when he issued the temporary injunction for K-12 classes based on portions of the law known as “subsection B” being vague.
The appellate court also upheld the lower court’s rulings granting judgment to the state of Oklahoma on the plaintiff’s right-to-receive information claims and its denial of a preliminary injunction on those claims.
“As we interpret it, subsection B prohibits school employees from teaching the prohibited concepts as correct principles or requiring teachers to do so,” the ruling states. “For example, a teacher can’t teach that ‘one race or sex is inherently superior to another race or sex,’ and an administrator can’t require a teacher to teach that an ‘individual’s moral character is necessarily determined by his or her race or sex.’”
The law prohibits the teaching of eight concepts. One of the eight prohibited concepts is that one race or sex is inherently superior to another race or sex.
“Though the plaintiffs fear that subsection B prohibits educators from discussing the eight concepts in the abstract or in connection with historical or popular figures, the statute’s language does not support such a broad interpretation,” the ruling continued.
The panel sent the case back to U.S. District Judge Charles Goodwin’s court for additional proceedings after dismissing the plaintiff’s First Amendment claim on jurisdictional basis.
The opinion was authored by Circuit Judge Gregory Phillips with Circuit Judge Harris Hartz. Circuit Judge Nancy Moritz dissented.
In her dissent, Moritz said she would have kept the preliminary injunction in place, calling subsection B an “obviously vague statute.”
As adopted, HB 1775 bans teaching that one race or gender is inherently superior. It also prohibits educators from saying a student should feel guilty or uncomfortable because of their race or gender, as well as teaching that anyone is inherently racist, sexist or oppressive, whether consciously or otherwise.
The text of the measure does not include the phrase “critical race theory.” However, many have construed its provisions as a ban on the concept, which argues that many key pillars of American society, including the judicial system and the economy, have been shaped in ways to benefit whites at the expense of minorities.
Filed in October 2021 by attorneys from the American Civil Liberties Union and the Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights Under the Law on behalf of multiple organizations plus individual teachers and students from Edmond and Oklahoma City Millwood public schools, the federal lawsuit claims that HB 1775 violates both the First and 14th amendments, is unconstitutionally vague, overbroad, and racially discriminatory, and has had a chilling effect on lesson plans.
The lawsuit named Attorney General Gentner Drummond in his official capacity, members of the state Board of Education and Gov. Kevin Stitt in his official capacity.
