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“The NAACP will continue to use every tool” to fight, the organization said.

Published by ABC News By Beatrice Peterson
April 15, 2024, 3:54 PM ET

The Arkansas State Conference of the NAACP and the Lawyers Committee on Civil Rights are calling on a federal court to enact an injunction against the state of Arkansas over its Literacy, Empowerment, Accountability, Readiness, Networking and School Safety Act, known as the LEARNS Act, which is intended to prohibit public schools from teaching Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) and Critical Race Theory (CRT). Supporters of the LEARNS Act describe such teaching as “indoctrination.”

The NAACP joined the amended lawsuit, obtained first by ABC News, on Friday. The initial lawsuit was filed in March by national civil rights attorney Mike Laux in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Arkansas Central District. The NAACP and the Lawyers Committee on Civil Rights also filed a request for an injunction on Friday in an attempt to prevent the LEARNS Act from being enforced as the lawsuit is being litigated.

This latest effort is a part of the NAACP’s attempt to fight what they describe as a wave of anti-Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) legislation across the country. The lawsuit argues that the Advanced Placement (AP) African American Studies classes taught in Arkansas’ public schools have received inequitable treatment and have been marginalized and underfunded when compared to other advanced placement courses. The suit claims that the alleged inequities have both deprived students the opportunity to learn about African American history and contributions, and have maintained a level of systemic inequality.

“We refuse to go back. The NAACP will continue to use every tool at our disposal to ensure that our constitutional rights are protected, and our culture respected. This is what standing for community looks like,” NAACP President Derrick Johnson told ABC News.

Johnson added, “From Arkansas to Alabama, the desecration of diversity, equity and inclusion poses an imminent threat to the future of our nation.”

In January 2023, Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders signed an executive order to prohibit what the order describes as “indoctrination” and the teaching of critical race theory (CRT) in Arkansas public schools. At the time she signed the order, Sanders said CRT “is antithetical to the traditional American values of neutrality, equality, and fairness. It emphasizes skin color as a person’s primary characteristic, thereby resurrecting segregationist values, which America has fought so hard to reject.”

The governor added, “It is the policy of this administration that CRT, discrimination, and indoctrination have no place in Arkansas classrooms.”

Two months later, Huckabee Sanders signed the 144-page LEARNS Act into law.

The LEARNS Act allowed the Arkansas Department of Education to create “enhanced processes and policies that prevent prohibited indoctrination, including Critical Race Theory, as it relates to employees, contractors, and guest speakers or lecturers of the department.”

Although the legislation was met with resistance, the Arkansas Supreme Court ruled in favor of the law saying that the act passed with a valid emergency clause in October.

The plaintiffs in the new lawsuit include two high school teachers and two students from Little Rock Central High School, in Little Rock, Arkansas. The same high school was the focal point of the 1957 Supreme Court ruling which ordered the integration of public schools in the U.S., three years after the Supreme Court’s landmark Brown v. Board of Education decision.

Nine Black students, who thereafter were known as the “Little Rock Nine,” were subsequently allowed to enroll in Little Rock Central High School. The students became targets of anti-integration mobs, prompting then-President Dwight Eisenhower to deploy the National Guard to enforce the law and protect the students.

In addition to Little Rock Central High School’s place in American history culture, it is also Gov. Huckabee Sanders’ alma mater, with the majority of its student body now comprised of students of color.

One of the plaintiffs in the lawsuit, Ruthie Walls, is an AP teacher of African American studies. According to the lawsuit, Walls – who was named Little Rock Central High School’s “Teacher of the Year” for the 2023-2024 school year – is hamstrung by the bill.

The amended lawsuit says because of the LEARNS Act, Walls “now self-censors herself out of fear of the penalties that she may face,” and that she does not deeply delve into historic topics such as the impact of Jim Crow laws and the consequences of Brown v. Board of Education. The amended complaint further says Walls worries that the effects of the LEARNS Act will negatively affect her students’ success on the AP exam.

Additionally, the lawsuit alleges that the state of Arkansas and the Arkansas Department of Education “have purged state-provided resources, including information on civil rights from the NEA, the Martin Luther King, Jr. Research and Education Institute, and Selma online with no explanation for the removal.”

The lawsuit further alleges that the “State’s preferred 1776 Unites curriculum…could be interpreted as undermining discrimination and equal protection by white-washing history”

The lawsuit also alleges that a state doesn’t have “unchecked power to impose upon the teachers in its schools any conditions that it chooses,” and cannot prohibit teaching a “theory or doctrine where that prohibition is based upon reasons that violate the First Amendment.”

This Arkansas lawsuit is the latest in a broader national effort to fight anti-DEI legislation. In March, the NAACP sent a letter urging Black current and prospective NCAA student-athlete players to reconsider attending colleges in the state of Florida after the University of Florida announced plans to dismantle its Diversity Equity and Inclusion department. The dismantling is in response to Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ Stop WOKE Act, which, like the LEARN Act, passed in 2023.

In her State of the State address on Wednesday, Gov. Huckabee Sanders said that education was her first priority. She stated in part that the first year of the LEARNS Act “targeted the most at-risk students in our state. But education freedom is for everyone, and soon, Education Freedom Accounts will be too.” The latter is in reference to an Arkansas program to allow eligible families to receive public funds to pay for private or home schooling for their children.

Huckabee Sanders added, “Educational freedom is the least we can do for those who put everything on the line for our freedom. This time next year, we will have universal education freedom for the first time in Arkansas history.”

She urged the state legislature to send her a budget that fully funds the LEARNS Act, which she said she will sign.

“Students should be allowed to learn about real history, not a whitewashed version,” David Hinojosa, director of the Educational Opportunities Project at the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights, told ABC News. “The most painful chapters of American history should not be buried because it makes some people uncomfortable.”

“Frankly, it’s downright offensive and unjust for Arkansas to be forcing educators to censor their discussion on racism and stripping the AP African American Studies course of all its benefits, including extra weight for their GPAs, and potentially earning college credit,” Hinojosa.

“Make no mistake, these coordinated efforts to rewrite our history, remove our leaders from classrooms and degrade our culture are a covert attempt to revert the progress we’ve worked tirelessly to secure,” NAACP President Derrick Johnson told ABC News.

A federal lawsuit filed Monday challenges the constitutionality of a section of the LEARNS Act that prohibits “indoctrination” in Arkansas schools and asks the court to block its enforcement.

Civil rights attorneys Mike Laux and Austin Porter Jr. filed the lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Arkansas on behalf of three Little Rock Central High students, their parents and AP African American Studies teacher Ruthie Walls.

An AP African American Studies course that’s being piloted in six Arkansas schools, including Central High, received scrutiny after Gov. Sarah Huckabee signed an executive order banning “indoctrination” on her first day in office.

Similar language was later incorporated into the LEARNS Act, a new law that makes sweeping changes to the state’s education system. The state education department abruptly removed the advanced placement course from its list of approved courses days before the start of the 2023-2024 school year last August.

According to a statement from the Laux Law Group, Section 16 of the LEARNS Act is “a brazen, political attempt to silence speech and expression” that the governor and education secretary disagree with.

“The LEARNS Act violates the First and Fourteenth Amendments to the U.S. Constitution,” the statement reads. “It is unworkably vague and oppressive, and it discriminates on the basis of race. Section 16 is just another front in the culture war being waged by right-wing ideologues.”

In response to the lawsuit against her and Education Secretary Jacob Oliva, Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders said Monday: “In the State of Arkansas, we will not indoctrinate our kids and teach them to hate America or each other. It’s sad the radical left continues to lie and play political games with our kids’ futures.”

Oliva said in a statement that College Board, the organization that manages the AP program, updated the course framework after discussions and assured the Arkansas Department of Education that it doesn’t violate state law.

The department approved the course for the 2024-2025 school year and will continue working with districts to ensure courses are in compliance, Oliva said.

“The lawsuit falsely accuses ADE of not allowing students to participate in the AP African American Studies pilot program and stripped them from the benefits that the course provides — a total lie,” he said. “The department advised schools they could offer local course credit to students who complete the pilot, and six schools participated.”

At a Monday press conference, Laux called Little Rock’s Central High School “a crucible for positive social change” and criticized the state for “trying to erode the rights that the Little Rock Nine and others have fought so desperately for.”

“[Section 16] is a total affront to what this state has accomplished, to what these children have accomplished, to children’s capacity to understand,” Laux said. “They know what’s going on. They’re not being fooled.”

Central High is home to the Little Rock Nine, a group of African American students who desegregated the school in 1957 with the assistance of federal troops after the governor ordered the Arkansas National Guard to block their entry.

In addition to Walls, the lawsuit plaintiffs are Central High freshman Sadie Belle Reynolds and her mother, Jennifer Reynolds; senior Gisele Davis and her mother, Chandra Williams-Davis; and another unnamed student and parent.

Sadie Belle and Gisele are both enrolled in AP African American Studies and were present at the news conference, where Laux praised them for “walking in the footsteps of the Little Rock Nine.”

The plaintiffs ask the court to find Section 16 unconstitutional, both on its face and based on evidence. They also seek an injunction preventing that portion of the law from being further enacted and rolling back the ways it has been enforced so far, Laux said.

“The LEARNS Act violates the First and Fourteenth Amendments to the U.S. Constitution. It is unworkably vague and oppressive, and it discriminates on the basis of race. Section 16 is just another front in the culture war being waged by right-wing ideologues.”

– Laux Law Group

The suit argues Section 16 violates the First Amendment because “it impermissibly regulates classroom free speech on the basis of the speech content.” The imposed regulations are also viewpoint-based discrimination because they authorize the defendants “to remove fact-based state education resources” they find disagreeable, according to the complaint.

Laux added at the news conference that nothing in Section 16 prevents the removal of books from classrooms.

Additionally, “the law fails to define operative terms and contains redundant and confusing terms,” according to the complaint.

“Section 16 is unworkably vague and overly broad to the point where it fails to give reasonable notice of the conduct and speech it prohibits,” the lawsuit reads.

Laux said the vagueness of the section “sets people up for the arbitrary prosecution of this statute” and creates a “chilling effect” on students and teachers.

Plaintiffs argue Section 16 violates the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment because by restricting the AP African American Studies curriculum due to certain subject matter but not restricting the curriculum of similar AP courses covering the same subject matter, “it creates different classes along racial lines.”

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The suit argues plaintiffs have suffered physical injury as well as economic and emotional damages, “including but not limited to, stress, anxiety, fear, confusion, stigmatizations and consternation.”

The plaintiffs have requested a jury trial, and U.S. District Judge Kristine Baker will hear the case, according to court documents.

Background
Arkansas education officials removed the AP pilot class, now in its second year, from the state’s approved course list right before the start of school in August. As a result, the course does not count toward graduation credit.

Oliva defended the decision last August, saying the course “was listed in error” the previous year. State education officials can decide whether it should be considered for approval once the pilot is finalized and becomes an official course, he said.

An Arkansas Department of Education spokesperson said then that state officials needed clarity on the course to ensure it wasn’t violating state law regarding prohibited topics.

Oliva sent a letter to schools participating in the pilot requesting course materials for review and to pledge the curriculum would not violate state law against “indoctrination and Critical Race Theory” in public schools.

Critical race theory is typically not taught in K-12 schools in Arkansas, and is reserved mostly for graduate-level college coursework. The NAACP Legal Defense Fund defines critical race theory as “an academic and legal framework that denotes that systemic racism is part of American society — from education and housing to employment and healthcare.”

Sanders also defended the education department’s decision in a nationally televised interview on Fox News in August, calling critical race theory a “leftist agenda, teaching our kids to hate America and hate one another,” similar to her Monday statement.

Both Sadie Belle and Jennifer Reynolds, who are white, said at the news conference that they disagreed with Sanders’ comments based on Sadie Belle’s positive experiences in AP African American Studies.

“I don’t feel shamed or wronged [in this class],” Sadie Belle said. “I’m just excited to learn, and that’s all I wanted to take this course for: to be a more learned and active citizen.”

After being piloted at hundreds of schools across the country over two years, AP African American Studies will be available to all schools in the 2024-2025 academic year. Walls participated in both years of the pilot, and said at the news conference that roughly 100 Central High students are taking the interdisciplinary course this academic year.

Walls said she doesn’t want Little Rock’s youth to “go away for college and sit in a history classroom and say, ‘I never knew that, why didn’t I ever know that? Well, because my teacher didn’t teach us that.’

“That would be a shame and a mockery,” she said.

Williams-Davis said making the class ineligible for graduation credit the Friday before school started was a source of anxiety for Gisele, but she chose to take the class anyway.

“She has loved this class, but it’s always seemed to me since that Friday that this is an attempt to erase not just African-American history but [also] American history,” said Williams-Davis, who is Black.

Legal pushback
The LEARNS Act has been unpopular with many Central High students since its inception, with students staging a campus walkout and rally at the Capitol last March protesting the legislation.

“Reforms that attack school coursework deemed too inappropriate for students will dramatically decrease their preparation to face real-world social issues,” four students wrote in an open letter to Sanders, co-signed by more than 1,500 students and alumni.

This is also not the first time the LEARNS Act has been challenged in the courts. A group of Arkansans filed a lawsuit challenging the LEARNS Act’s emergency clause last May.

Plaintiffs were concerned about the quick implementation of a “transformation contract” between the Marvell-Elaine School District and the Friendship Education Foundation, a charter management organization.

A provision of the LEARNS Act, the contract allows public school districts with a “D” or “F”-rating or in need of Level 5 – Intensive Support to partner with an open-enrollment public charter school or another state board-approved entity in good standing to create “public school district transformation campus.”

Those plaintiffs argued, and a Pulaski County judge agreed, that the emergency clause was invalid because it was not passed with a separate roll-call vote garnering a two-thirds majority, as required by the Arkansas Constitution. An emergency clause allows legislation to take effect immediately instead of 91 days after the end of the legislative session. The Legislature’s long-standing practice has been to cast one vote on a measure but record the same vote separately for any emergency clause.

The months-long court battle ended in October when the Arkansas Supreme Court reversed the lower court’s ruling invalidating the LEARNS Act’s emergency clause and dismissed the case.

Also last summer, Citizens for Arkansas Public Education and Students (CAPES) pursued a referendum to overturn the LEARNS Act, but the group failed to gather enough signatures to place the measure on the 2024 ballot.

CAPES is one of several groups collecting signatures for a proposed ballot measure seeking to amend the Arkansas Constitution in response to the LEARNS Act, with its main goal to hold private schools that receive state funding to the same standards as public schools.

The Arkansas Conference of the NAACP, another group backing the ballot measure, also supports the Section 16 lawsuit, said Reginald Ford, first vice president of the NAACP’s Jacksonville branch.

Laux said the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, a national organization based in Washington D.C., has expressed support for the suit as well.

Terrence Roberts, one of the eight living members of the Little Rock Nine, wrote a statement that some of Walls’ students read during the press conference. He claimed Sanders’ and the Legislature’s enactment of the LEARNS Act was a self-interested political move “erecting barriers to learning in Arkansas public schools.”

“Let us not rob another generation of the opportunity to solve the problems generated by the continued embrace of ideologies based on the false notions of race and hierarchies of racial superiority,” Roberts said.

BY Jeannie Roberts ON March 25, 20245:57 pm in the Arkansas Times

A federal lawsuit challenging a state law against “indoctrination” in the classroom was filed Monday against Gov. Sarah Sanders and Arkansas Department of Education Secretary Jacob Oliva.

Civil rights attorneys Mike Laux and Austin Porter told a crowd gathered at a church across the street from Little Rock’s Central High School that they are asking the court to declare Section 16 of the Arkansas LEARNS Act unconstitutional and to immediately stop the state from enforcing it. Section 16, the portion of the law that prohibits indoctrination, was cited by the state education department last summer in its decision to no longer count AP African American Studies toward state graduation requirements.

“I think it’s a sad day in America when children cannot learn true history,” Porter said. “History has some ugly components to it. It’s a sad reality that in Arkansas, because of this law, our children have to resort to TikTok in order to learn true history. And that history should be taught in the classroom.”

The five plaintiffs — Central High School history teacher Ruthie Walls, parent Jennifer Reynolds, student Sadie Bell Reynolds, parent Chandra Williams Davis and student Gisele Davis — are also seeking damages.

LEARNS bars any lessons that “might indoctrinate students with ideologies, such as Critical Race Theory, otherwise known as ‘CRT,’ that conflict with the principle of equal protection under the law or encourage students to discriminate against someone based on the individual’s color, creed, race, ethnicity, sex, age, marital status, family status, disability, religion, national origin or any other characteristic protected by federal law.”

“The LEARNS Act’s Section 16 is nothing more than a brazen, political attempt to silence speech and expression with which Gov. Sanders and Secretary Oliva simply disagree,” Laux said. “The LEARNS Act violates the First and Fourteenth Amendments to the U.S. Constitution. It is unworkably vague and oppressive, and it discriminates on the basis of race.”

Laux, whose law practice is based in Chicago, has filed several federal lawsuits in Little Rock over alleged police misconduct and other civil rights issues.

The lawsuit stems from an 11th-hour decision made by the education department in August, a week before most schools began their year, that the AP African American Studies class would not count toward graduation credits or be weighted the same as other AP courses offered in the state. The state also would not cover the $90+ exam fee.

The course was added in 2022 to the state’s list of classes accepted for credit. Schools in Jonesboro and Little Rock offered the first-year pilot version of the class in the 2022-23 school year.

AP African American Studies is now in its second year of the pilot program and is offered in six schools across the state: Little Rock’s Central High School, North Little Rock High School, Jacksonville High and the Academies at Jonesboro, along with the charter schools North Little Rock Center for Excellence and eStem High School.

After it withdrew support for the course in August, the education department said in a statement that the department “supports rigorous courses not based on opinions or indoctrination” and warned the class could “unintentionally put a teacher at risk of violating Arkansas law.” teachers who offer the course may be breaking the law. The statement suggested AP African American Studies is academically shoddy and based on ideology instead of fact.

All six Arkansas high schools offering the pilot in the 2023-24 school year continued to do so even after the state withdrew support for the course.

Multiple Central High students read a statement at the press conference from Terrence Roberts, one of the Little Rock Nine, who likened the attempted elimination of the course to when Gov. Orval Faubus called out the Arkansas National Guard in 1957 to prevent the desegregation of Central High.

“In 2023 Gov. Sarah Huckabee of Arkansas aided and abetted by the Arkansas State Legislature, has acted in her own political interest by erecting barriers to learning in Arkansas public schools,” Roberts’ statement said. “Let us not rob yet another generation of the opportunity to solve the problems generated by the continued embrace of ideologies based on the false notions of race and hierarchies of racial superiority.”

Walls, who teaches AP African American Studies at Central, told the crowd that when she walked into the room last summer during a College Board training, people whispered, “She’s from Arkansas.” Questions ensued from her fellow teachers, Walls said.

“We must turn this around,” Walls said. “We must turn this humiliating spotlight away from us.”

Jennifer Reynolds, the mother of Sadie Bell Reynolds, told the group that the AP course was the one course that her daughter was most interested in. Approaching the end of the year, Jennifer Reynolds said she is very impressed with the critical thinking skills and the appreciation of multiple perspectives the course imbued.

“We have to be better for these kids,” she said.

Sadie Bell Reynolds told the crowd that the course is “just another way for me to learn another perspective.”

“I don’t think it’s right for us to cover up someone else’s perspective,” she said. “I’ve never felt shamed in Ms. Wall’s classroom about learning about another person’s perspective. It’s just about what happened in our history, in America’s history, in my history.”

The lawsuit also draws a connection between the desegregation of Central High and the state’s targeting of AP African American studies.

“Defendants’ brazen attack on full classroom participation for all students in 2024 is reminiscent of the State’s brazen attack on full classroom participation for all students in 1957,” the complaint says. “This presents a truly ironic situation because if plaintiffs were merely to discuss these unconstitutional attacks by Gov. Sanders in their [AP African American Studies] classroom, or liken the motivation of the attacks to the oppressive institutional racism faced by the Little Rock 9, plaintiffs would find themselves in violation of Section 16 and subject to criminal penalty imposed by the State.

BY Jeannie Roberts ON March 25, 20245:57 pm in the Arkansas Times

A federal lawsuit challenging a state law against “indoctrination” in the classroom was filed Monday against Gov. Sarah Sanders and Arkansas Department of Education Secretary Jacob Oliva.

Civil rights attorneys Mike Laux and Austin Porter told a crowd gathered at a church across the street from Little Rock’s Central High School that they are asking the court to declare Section 16 of the Arkansas LEARNS Act unconstitutional and to immediately stop the state from enforcing it. Section 16, the portion of the law that prohibits indoctrination, was cited by the state education department last summer in its decision to no longer count AP African American Studies toward state graduation requirements.

“I think it’s a sad day in America when children cannot learn true history,” Porter said. “History has some ugly components to it. It’s a sad reality that in Arkansas, because of this law, our children have to resort to TikTok in order to learn true history. And that history should be taught in the classroom.”

The five plaintiffs — Central High School history teacher Ruthie Walls, parent Jennifer Reynolds, student Sadie Bell Reynolds, parent Chandra Williams Davis and student Gisele Davis — are also seeking damages.

LEARNS bars any lessons that “might indoctrinate students with ideologies, such as Critical Race Theory, otherwise known as ‘CRT,’ that conflict with the principle of equal protection under the law or encourage students to discriminate against someone based on the individual’s color, creed, race, ethnicity, sex, age, marital status, family status, disability, religion, national origin or any other characteristic protected by federal law.”

“The LEARNS Act’s Section 16 is nothing more than a brazen, political attempt to silence speech and expression with which Gov. Sanders and Secretary Oliva simply disagree,” Laux said. “The LEARNS Act violates the First and Fourteenth Amendments to the U.S. Constitution. It is unworkably vague and oppressive, and it discriminates on the basis of race.”

Laux, whose law practice is based in Chicago, has filed several federal lawsuits in Little Rock over alleged police misconduct and other civil rights issues.

The lawsuit stems from an 11th-hour decision made by the education department in August, a week before most schools began their year, that the AP African American Studies class would not count toward graduation credits or be weighted the same as other AP courses offered in the state. The state also would not cover the $90+ exam fee.

The course was added in 2022 to the state’s list of classes accepted for credit. Schools in Jonesboro and Little Rock offered the first-year pilot version of the class in the 2022-23 school year.

AP African American Studies is now in its second year of the pilot program and is offered in six schools across the state: Little Rock’s Central High School, North Little Rock High School, Jacksonville High and the Academies at Jonesboro, along with the charter schools North Little Rock Center for Excellence and eStem High School.

After it withdrew support for the course in August, the education department said in a statement that the department “supports rigorous courses not based on opinions or indoctrination” and warned the class could “unintentionally put a teacher at risk of violating Arkansas law.” teachers who offer the course may be breaking the law. The statement suggested AP African American Studies is academically shoddy and based on ideology instead of fact.

All six Arkansas high schools offering the pilot in the 2023-24 school year continued to do so even after the state withdrew support for the course.

Multiple Central High students read a statement at the press conference from Terrence Roberts, one of the Little Rock Nine, who likened the attempted elimination of the course to when Gov. Orval Faubus called out the Arkansas National Guard in 1957 to prevent the desegregation of Central High.

“In 2023 Gov. Sarah Huckabee of Arkansas aided and abetted by the Arkansas State Legislature, has acted in her own political interest by erecting barriers to learning in Arkansas public schools,” Roberts’ statement said. “Let us not rob yet another generation of the opportunity to solve the problems generated by the continued embrace of ideologies based on the false notions of race and hierarchies of racial superiority.”

Walls, who teaches AP African American Studies at Central, told the crowd that when she walked into the room last summer during a College Board training, people whispered, “She’s from Arkansas.” Questions ensued from her fellow teachers, Walls said.

“We must turn this around,” Walls said. “We must turn this humiliating spotlight away from us.”

Jennifer Reynolds, the mother of Sadie Bell Reynolds, told the group that the AP course was the one course that her daughter was most interested in. Approaching the end of the year, Jennifer Reynolds said she is very impressed with the critical thinking skills and the appreciation of multiple perspectives the course imbued.

“We have to be better for these kids,” she said.

Sadie Bell Reynolds told the crowd that the course is “just another way for me to learn another perspective.”

“I don’t think it’s right for us to cover up someone else’s perspective,” she said. “I’ve never felt shamed in Ms. Wall’s classroom about learning about another person’s perspective. It’s just about what happened in our history, in America’s history, in my history.”

The lawsuit also draws a connection between the desegregation of Central High and the state’s targeting of AP African American studies.

“Defendants’ brazen attack on full classroom participation for all students in 2024 is reminiscent of the State’s brazen attack on full classroom participation for all students in 1957,” the complaint says. “This presents a truly ironic situation because if plaintiffs were merely to discuss these unconstitutional attacks by Gov. Sanders in their [AP African American Studies] classroom, or liken the motivation of the attacks to the oppressive institutional racism faced by the Little Rock 9, plaintiffs would find themselves in violation of Section 16 and subject to criminal penalty imposed by the State.