A multiracial group of students and educators sued the state of Oklahoma Tuesday over an anti-critical race theory law they say “severely restricts” classroom discussions about race and gender.
argues House Bill 1775, which Gov. Kevin Stitt聽signed into law in May as a wave of Republican-controlled states were banning critical race theory, violates students’ and educators’ First Amendment right to talk about race and gender in K-12 and higher education settings.
The law also prevents students from learning American history from the perspective of historically marginalized communities, says the lawsuit, which was filed by the American Civil Liberties Union and the L on behalf of the Black Emergency Response Team, the University of Oklahoma Chapter of the American Association of University Professors, Oklahoma’s NAACP chapter and the American Indian Movement.
鈥淎ll young people deserve to learn an inclusive and accurate history in schools, free from censorship or discrimination,鈥 Emerson Sykes, staff attorney with the ACLU Speech, Privacy, and Technology Project, said in a statement. 鈥淗B 1775 is so poorly drafted鈥攊n places it is literally indecipherable鈥攖hat districts and teachers have no way of knowing what concepts and ideas are prohibited.
, signed into law by Gov. Kevin Stitt in May as a wave of Republican-controlled states were banning critical race theory, bars schools from teaching that people can be inherently racist, sexist, or oppressive聽based on their own race or sex.
Schools also cannot teach that “an individual, by virtue of his or her race or sex, bears responsibility for actions committed in the past by other members of the same race or sex.” And instruction cannot make anyone feel uncomfortable or guilty on account of their race of sex, the bill says.
Seven other states have passed similar bills this year.
The plaintiffs in the Oklahoma case are asking that the court issue an injunction and declare the law unconstitutional.
鈥淗.B. 1775 is an unvarnished attempt to silence the experiences and perspectives of Black, indigenous, and LGBTQ+ people, and other groups who have long faced exclusion and marginalization in our institutions, including in our schools,鈥 said Genevieve Bonadies Torres, associate director of the Educational Opportunities Project with the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law.
Since the bill’s passage, school districts in Oklahoma have told teachers to stop using terms such as “diversity鈥 and 鈥渨hite privilege鈥 in their classrooms, the ACLU says.
Books, including聽To Kill a Mockingbird听补苍诲 Raisin in the Sun have been removed from reading lists while some districts have scaled back聽diversity, equity, and inclusion training, the ACLU says.
