ACLU Urges Eighth Circuit to Protect Students' Right to Learn about Race in School

The American Civil Liberties Union, ACLU affiliates within the Eighth Circuit and PEN America filed a friend-of-the-court brief in Walls v. Sanders, a First Amendment challenge to Arkansas’s ban on “prohibited indoctrination” in K-12 public schools. The law chills full and frank classroom discussion about race. The brief, submitted to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit, argues that students have an independent First Amendment right to receive information, including in public school curricula.

As the groups explain in the brief, the Eighth Circuit’s decision in Pratt v. Independent School District No.831, which recognizes students' right to receive information in classroom curricula, has been in place since 1982. Abandoning Pratt would have dramatic and devastating implications for public education, potentially allowing schools to become forums for actual government propaganda and indoctrination.

Below are comments from:

• Emerson Sykes, senior staff attorney with the ACLU's Speech, Privacy, and Technology Project: “Our students deserve an honest and comprehensive education, not one censored by political agendas. Laws like this undermine the very purpose of public education in a democracy.”
• Holly Dickson, executive director of the ACLU of Arkansas: “Students deserve to know the truth about our history and struggle with race and racism. Having facts is fundamental for progress toward racial equality and justice. It is especially ironic and appalling that the law could muzzle the teaching of accurate facts about racial equality at Central High School, ground zero for school integration in Arkansas and across the South.”
• Andrew Malone, staff attorney at the ACLU of North Dakota: “The outcome of this case is critically important. Here in North Dakota, we’re facing our own challenges when it comes to censorship in public schools. Instead of encouraging learning, our elected officials have continually proposed and passed policies that have a chilling effect on academic freedom. We should all agree that our public school students have a First Amendment right to receive information. We’re proud to join our ACLU partners on this brief.”
• Kasey Meehan, program director, Freedom to Read at PEN America: “Under the guise of protecting children from so-called indoctrination, laws like Arkansas’s LEARNS Act are a smokescreen for censorship of constitutionally-protected expression and access to information. All of us who value our Constitutional freedoms should be standing up for the First Amendment and students’ ability to learn about the complexities of American history. Every day that students are robbed of ideas and information as a result of Arkansas’s rights-effacing law is a day they are not getting the education and access to information they deserve.”

Arkansas’s law is one example of the disturbing wave of classroom censorship bills that are attempting to attack students’ right to learn across the country. However, as the brief also notes, the ACLU has challenged similar laws restricting classroom discussions in Oklahoma, New Hampshire, and Florida — each of which has been blocked in whole or in part by federal courts. The Eighth Circuit case is likely to be argued this fall, with a decision sometime next year.

The amicus brief is below.

About the ACLU of North Dakota

The American Civil Liberties Union of North Dakota is a non-partisan, nonprofit organization dedicated to the preservation and enhancement of civil liberties and civil rights. The ACLU of North Dakota is part of a three-state chapter that also includes South Dakota and Wyoming. The team in North Dakota is supported by staff in those states.

The ACLU believes freedoms of press, speech, assembly and religion, and the rights to due process, equal protection and privacy, are fundamental to a free people. In addition, the ACLU seeks to advance constitutional protections for groups traditionally denied their rights, including people of color, women and LGBTQ+ and Two Spirit communities. The ACLU of North Dakota carries out its work through selective litigation, lobbying at the state and local level, and through public education and awareness of what the Bill of Rights means for the people of North Dakota.

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