A hearing date has been set for this October in a lawsuit filed by a group of Central High School teachers, parents and students challenging a section of the Arkansas LEARNS Act related to “indoctrination” in classrooms.
The hearing, which will be presided over by U.S. District Judge Lee Rudofsky, is scheduled for 9 a.m. Oct. 23 in federal court in Little Rock. It is in regards to Arkansas Attorney General Tim Griffin’s motion to dismiss the case, which Griffin filed shortly after an order from the judge in May that partially blocked a portion of the law.
In addition to the motion to dismiss, Griffin has appealed Rudofsky’s May order to the 8th Circuit Court of Appeals.
The plaintiffs in the case are Central High teachers Ruthie Walls and Colton Gilbert, along with two Central High students, their mothers and the Arkansas State Conference of the NAACP. The suit, filed in March, challenges Section 16 of the LEARNS Act, a sweeping education overhaul law that is one of the policy hallmarks of the Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders administration.
Section 16 relates to free speech in classrooms and bans “indoctrination” of students. Language in the statute seemingly bars teachers from teaching certain subject matters, like critical race theory. The state has said it the section doesn’t seek to outright prohibit certain topics but only to prevent situations in which a teacher forces ideas or opinions upon a student, such as by penalizing the student for not accepting the validity of those ideas.
Griffin’s office represents the state defendants, including Sanders, Arkansas Department of Education Secretary Jacob Oliva and eight members of the state Board of Education.
Attorneys for the plaintiffs have said the language is overly broad and vague while also impinging on First and Fourteenth Amendment rights under the Constitution. There is concern the law could have an overall chilling effect in classrooms across the state as teachers may not be clear on whether they could face termination or other repercussions for violating the law.
In May, Rudofsky, the federal judge, issued an order guaranteeing that the Central High teacher plaintiffs would not be punished or prevented from teaching controversial topics. But the ruling stopped short of blocking the law on a statewide basis, in part because the state argued that the law was narrower in scope than its opponents claimed. The ruling was only related to the plaintiffs’ motion for a preliminary injunction to block Section 16.
The preliminary injunction followed an April 30 hearing during which attorneys for the state and the plaintiffs argued at length about legal precedent related to free speech in schools, as well as interpreting the linguistic intent of Section 16.
The scope and the complexity of the lawsuit expanded in July after 14 states, including Iowa, Florida, Texas and Utah, submitted a brief to the 8th Circuit arguing that previous case law used by Rudofsky in his May preliminary injunction ruling is not applicable.
The 40-page brief, filed by the states’ attorneys general, said “the states have a strong interest in the correct interpretation of the First Amendment and the authority to create a public-school curriculum that both adequately educates the youth while ensuring students do not feel pressured to submit to teachers who control their grades.”
The amicus brief argues that Rudofsky “erred when it applied Pratt as good law.”
“Pratt” refers to a 1982 ruling by the 8th Circuit related to a school board in Minnesota that banned the showing of a film in classrooms because of content that did not reflect the values of the board’s members. In the Pratt ruling, the appellate court found the ban unconstitutional.
In their amicus brief, though, the states argue that Pratt is now “dead” based on subsequent decisions by the U.S. Supreme Court and other federal courts. Upholding the precedent could hinder the ability of states to determine what is taught in the classroom, they say.
“After all, Pratt’s logic does not stop with including a morally dubious movie in the curriculum,” the brief, filed July 10, said. “Students could force the state to require classes on underwater basket weaving because failing to include that would violate the student’s right to receive information. They could also force the state to mandate classes on the interdisciplinary study of “Call of Duty: World at War – Zombies”, critical film analysis of World War Z, or physiology of the undead.”