Law & Courts

Critical Race Theory Law Violates Teachers’ Free Speech, ACLU Argues in New Lawsuit

By Stephen Sawchuk — October 19, 2021 4 min read
Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt, above, is named in a new lawsuit alleging that the state's recent law restricting teaching on race and sex is unconstitutional.
  • Save to favorites
  • Print

Newly passed Oklahoma legislation banning how race and gender can be taught in classrooms is vague, sweeping, arbitrary—and unconstitutional, alleges a new lawsuit filed in federal court.

The lawsuit contends that the law will have a chilling effect on what K-12 teachers, as well as higher education faculty, choose to teach. And it will likely result in arbitrary penalties for teachers, like having their licenses pulled.

All that impermissibly deprives them of their free-speech and equal protection rights, the lawsuit claims.

“The [law’s] vague, overbroad, and viewpoint discriminatory provisions leave Oklahoma educators with an impossible—and unconstitutional—choice: avoid topics related to race or sex in class materials and discussions or risk losing their teaching licenses for violating the law,” the complaint reads. “ … Its application has also chilled and censored speech that strikes at the heart of public education and the nation’s democratic institutions. Educators at all levels are blacklisting books by diverse authors and adapting their instructional approaches to avoid raising complex questions about race and gender.”

More than a dozen states have passed legislation similar to Oklahoma’sor regulations with the same intent, and the lawsuit is the first of what’s likely to be other legal challenges to those laws. Dozens of local school districts nationwide have also considered or passed similarly worded bans on what teachers can teach regarding race.

Filed in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Oklahoma, the suit is being brought by the American Civil Liberties Union, its Oklahoma chapter, and the Lawyers Committee on Civil Rights on behalf of a Black student organization at Oklahoma University, the state’s NAACP chapter, and groups representing the state’s Native Americans and college professors, among other parties.

It names the state’s Republican governor, John O’Connor, along with state Superintendent of Education Joy Hofmeister, the Oklahoma state school board, the state attorney general, and the regents of Oklahoma’s two state university systems.

Lawyers argue that the law that weakens students’ knowledge of the state’s history

In general, the lawsuit argues that Oklahoma’s H.B. 1775, passed in May, unlawfully proscribes what educators can address in the classroom in pursuit of a political agenda that complicates teachers’ ability to teach dark moments in the state’s history, like the Tulsa Race Massacre; makes schools less welcoming to LGBTQ students and Black students; and weakens students’ knowledge of the state’s Native American and Indigenous communities.

Already, it claims, teachers have removed books like Zora Neale Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God and Maya Angelou’s I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings from their reading lists in fear of running afoul of the law.

Principals are frightened of including unconscious bias among the topics for staff training. Higher education professors are avoiding certain theoretical readings. And librarians aren’t sure what books they can order, it says.

Those consequences deprive teachers of their first amendment rights to provide students with a multitude of viewpoints that help them develop as citizens and interferes with college professors’ academic freedom.

In addition, the lawsuit says, the law is so vaguely written that it “invites arbitrary and discriminatory enforcement” against teachers, depriving them of equal protection under the law. And finally, the lawsuit claims, the law and successive regulations were passed with racial and partisan intent in mind that would harm students of color.

The lawsuit faces a steep battle ahead

The lawsuit comes as the next salvo in what has been an unusually disruptive six months in American public education.

School districts nationally are ground zero for hotly charged debates over race and over COVID-19 mitigation policies like masking,resulting in tense, raucous school board meetings, and even threats of violence against superintendents and school board members.

Educators in states that have passed the curriculum-restriction laws, meanwhile, have variously described feeling either defiant, resigned, or frightened about them.

The two national teachers’ unions have said they will aggressively defend members who are targeted under the news laws, and a coalition of curriculum groups have also launched a collective effort to fight back, underscoring the importance of “hard history.”

And all that’s occurring in the midst of confusion over the term “critical race theory.” In general, it refers to an analytical framework used mainly by legal and policy scholars. But conservative activists have ascribed a number of other things to the term, including cultural competency training, culturally relevant teaching, popular anti-racist best-sellers, “action civics” in K-12 classrooms, and diverse children’s books.

It’s not clear what kind of reception the lawsuit might find in the courts. Some legal scholars have pointed out the sweeping language in the laws, but others have noted that state legislators typically have wide latitude to set educational standards, including the content of what schoolchildren learn.

Plus, teachers and students alike do not maintain the same free-speech rights when in classrooms that they do as private citizens.

The full effect of the laws on everyday teaching and learning still isn’t clear. But they have already led to some high profile, troubling examples.

One Tennessee district has received complaints about a children’s book relaying the history of Ruby Bridges, who helped integrate New Orleans schools in 1960, for instance, and Texas teachers in another district have been asked to cull their classroom libraries.

The case is Black Emergency Response Team et. al. v. O’Connor.

Events

Jobs Virtual Career Fair for Teachers and K-12 Staff
Find teaching jobs and other jobs in K-12 education at the EdWeek Top School Jobs virtual career fair.

EdWeek Top School Jobs

Teacher Jobs
Search over ten thousand teaching jobs nationwide — elementary, middle, high school and more.
View Jobs
Principal Jobs
Find hundreds of jobs for principals, assistant principals, and other school leadership roles.
View Jobs
Administrator Jobs
Over a thousand district-level jobs: superintendents, directors, more.
View Jobs
Support Staff Jobs
Search thousands of jobs, from paraprofessionals to counselors and more.
View Jobs

Read Next

Law & Courts Wisconsin Teachers Sue to Restore Collective Bargaining Rights
The lawsuit takes fresh aim at a 2011 law that severely restricted bargaining, and has survived several legal challenges since.
6 min read
Wisconsin Education Association Council (WEAC) vice president Betsy Kippers leads a chant during a rally to protest Governor Scott Walker's budget repair bill, at the Brown County Courthouse in downtown Green Bay on February 16, 2011.
Betsy Kippers, vice president of the Wisconsin Education Association Council, leads a chant during a rally to protest Gov. Scott Walker's budget repair bill, at the Brown County Courthouse in downtown Green Bay on February 16, 2011.
H. Marc Larson/The Green Bay Press-Gazette via AP
Law & Courts What Sandra Day O'Connor Did to Shape School Law and Civics Education
O'Connor wrote influential opinions on affirmative action, Title IX, and other education issues. Then she tirelessly worked on civics.
10 min read
Justice Sandra Day O'Connor listens as Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg pays tribute to O'Connor's advocacy work on behalf of civic education, impact on female judges and justice for women and girls worldwide at the Seneca Women Global Leadership Forum at the National Museum of Women in the Arts, on April 15, 2015 in Washington.
Justice Sandra Day O'Connor listens to a tribute to her advocacy work on behalf of civics education and women's role in the legal profession at the National Museum of Women in the Arts, on April 15, 2015, in Washington.
Kevin Wolf/Invision for Seneca Women via AP Images
Law & Courts U.S. Supreme Court Takes Up Major Gun Case With School Safety in Backdrop
The principle that guns may be barred from schools may bolster a federal law restricting firearm possession by domestic abusers.
6 min read
Gun safety and domestic violence prevention organizations gather outside of the Supreme Court before oral arguments are heard in United States v. Rahimi on Nov. 7, 2023, in Washington.
Gun safety and domestic violence prevention organizations gather outside the U.S. Supreme Court before oral arguments are heard in <i>United States</i> v. <i>Rahimi</i> on Nov. 7, 2023, in Washington.
Stephanie Scarbrough/AP
Law & Courts What the Supreme Court Had to Say About School Board Members Blocking Constituents
The justices take up a case involving school board members who blocked some constituents from posting comments on public social media pages.
7 min read
The sun rises behind the U.S. Supreme Court in Washington on Nov. 10, 2020.
The sun rises behind the U.S. Supreme Court in Washington on Nov. 10, 2020.
Alex Brandon/AP