Fourteen states back Arkansas in lawsuit over LEARNS Act

(The Center Square) - Arkansas is getting help from other states in its defense of an injunction that halted a portion of the LEARNS Act.

U.S. District Judge Lee Rudofsky issued a ruling in May that keeps Arkansas Education Secretary Jacob Oliva and the Department of Education from enforcing a portion of the law that requires a review of items "that may purposely or otherwise, promote teaching that would 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, familial status, disability, religion, national origin, or any other characteristic protected by federal or state law."

The injunction does not affect an executive order issued by Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders in January 2023 that bans the teaching of critical race theory in Arkansas schools, but Judge Rudofsky said the executive order and the section in question are similar.

The state is appealing the ruling. Fourteen other attorneys general, led by Iowa's Brenna Bird, filed an amicus brief supporting Arkansas and questioning the reasoning behind the injunction.

“As a mom, I know how important it is that we create a healthy culture for our kids to learn and grow,” Bird said in a statement. “And most schools and teachers do an amazing job at that. But when education turns into indoctrination, parents have a right to push back.”

The brief, authored by Bird's office, said schools can ban some speech.

"For example, this Court held a school did not violate the First Amendment when it punished students for wearing shirts with the Confederate flag because it created an objectively harmful learning environment," the attorneys general said in the brief . "This Court explained the shirts 'subjected' '15 to 20 minority students' to extreme “racial tension from a white majority student and community population sufficient to motivate some to withdraw. Because 'racial tension can devolve to violence suddenly,' the students created conditions that could “hardly be considered an environment conducive to educational excellence.”

The attorneys general said that ideologies such as CRT "openly encourage discrimination based on race."

The brief is also supported by attorneys general in Florida, Idaho, Indiana, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, New Hampshire, North Dakota, South Carolina, South Dakota, Texas, Utah and West Virginia.