Federal Court: Arkansas Teachers Can Teach CRT, But Can’t Make Students “Adopt, Affirm, or Profess” It
Court: This Order should give comfort to teachers across the state (and to their students) that Section 16 does not prohibit teachers from teaching about, using, or referring to Critical Race Theory so long as they do not compel their students to accept it as valid.
In a preliminary ruling, a federal court has blocked the state of Arkansas from taking action against two public school teachers for teaching Critical Race Theory (CRT) while their lawsuit challenging the anti-indoctrination provision of Arkansas’ LEARNS Act (“Section 16”) plays out.
The state may, however, discipline those teachers for compelling a student to “adopt, affirm, or profess” a belief in CRT, U.S. District Judge Lee Rudofsky ruled earlier this week.
Two students joined the teachers as plaintiffs in the litigation over Section 16, which prohibits the promotion of “teaching that would indoctrinate students with ideologies such as Critical Race Theory … that conflict with the principle of equal protection under the law.”
The two teachers said they were self-censoring what and how they teach to avoid punishment under Section 16. Based on that self-censorship, the students asserted a constitutional claim. The First Amendment protects their right to receive information, they said, including information their teachers would otherwise be providing them.
The court emphasized that its early ruling narrowly applies only to the two teachers involved in the lawsuit. Nonetheless, it said:
The Order as a whole should give comfort to teachers across the state (and to their students) that Section 16 does not prohibit teachers from teaching about, using, or referring to Critical Race Theory or any other theory, ideology, or idea so long as the teachers do not compel their students to accept as valid such theory, ideology, or idea.
You have to wonder, though, how the court’s order will be enforced in a real-life, woke classroom. How will the court distinguish between a teacher who merely teaches CRT and one who compels a student to accept it?
The order explains:
Compulsion requires speech or actions like the following examples: (1) a teacher grading or threatening to grade on the basis of whether a student accepts or rejects a theory, ideology, or idea; (2) a teacher giving or promising preferential treatment (or worse treatment) to a student based on that student’s declaration of (or refusal to declare) agreement or disagreement with a theory, ideology, or idea; (3) a teacher denigrating a student on the basis of his or her agreement or disagreement with a theory, ideology, or idea; (4) a teacher telling a student that all reasonable people would accept a theory, ideology, or idea; or (5) a teacher begging a student to accept a theory, ideology, or idea.
Meanwhile, the state has taken the position—a position the court relied on to reach its ruling—that Section 16 doesn’t prohibit “ordinary teaching” about CRT in the first place. Arkansas Attorney General Tim Griffin says the court’s decision just confirms what he’s been saying all along:
Today’s LEARNS Act decision confirms what I’ve said all along. Arkansas law doesn’t prohibit teaching the history of segregation, the civil rights movement, or slavery. I’m pleased that the District Court entirely rejected the Plaintiffs’ vagueness claims. And the very limited… pic.twitter.com/qOIGaOjllM
— Attorney General Tim Griffin (@AGTimGriffin) May 8, 2024
In other words, as the court concluded, “the only thing being enjoined is something the Defendants believe the statute does not do anyway.”
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Comments
Not good
Yep, “” teacher who merely teaches CRT and one who compels a student to accept it?” is leaving the barn door wide open. Those teachers should be covertly monitored,
Like the state media, it is the tone, the choice of words, the context or the outright deletion of facts that will influence the young skulls full of mush.
It is called a curriculum for a reason. School boards adopt curricula. They tell teachers what they must cover and can specify what is not to be covered. Teachers are employees and must adhere to the boundaries set by curriculum. Teachers remain free to express their views to the world on issues of public interest but speak only for themselves, not their schools. Academic freedom has its limits.as to what is taught but the court correctly found that you cannot make students mouth acceptance of doctrine directly or indirectly. Being taught to think carries with it the right to question and dissent both for students and teachers alike in terms of not have to profess views they don’t have. The problem is that often there is no bright line between encouraging critical thought and indoctrinating a particular view.
I imagine there’s a difference between the State banning a teaching and a school board setting a curriculum that doesn’t include the teaching. Parents should decide what they want teachers (their servants) to teach their children. So long as nothing is off the table by law, the parent’s selections aren’t “bans” for excluding any particular subject, and arguably the direction isn’t coming from the State. (The State becomes the source of direction when the parents are constructively or effectively excluded from the curriculum’s development. This can make the choices instituted within the curriculum legally suspect and potentially subject to challenge, deriving as they do from the State, rather than the people.)
Parents should act as actual parents, and teach their children to recognize CRT bulls—t, and to walk out of the classroom if a teacher begins promoting it.
It isn’t about “teaching CRT” but about using it as a moral analytical tool. This is far more damaging than teaching CRT.
If I never teach Christianity, but approach many topics using scripture as a tool to analyze the events/topics presented, then I am not fooling anybody about proselytizing. The same holds true for any set of beliefs/assumptions that can be used as a lens through which interpret people’s actions.
CRT is simple anti-white racism
Since when does a federal court get to dictate what is and is not allowed to be taught in a state school?
Why are these “teachers” being allowed to waste class time on non-testable material? Are their students getting high marks in the state required curriculum?
Those ones? Almost certainly not.
“The First Amendment protects their right to receive information, they said, including information their teachers would otherwise be providing them.”
Nice. I wonder what Judge Merchan thinks of this.
What if the teacher was instructing them on how to build bombs? Create and deploy a biological weapon? Hack into a election server? Rob a bank? Cheat on their taxes? Acquire an illegal handgun? Conduct an abortion?
Or on the other side of the political chasm – field dress a deer? Long range marksmanship? Gunsmithing? Investigate Democrat corruption?
I mean hey, it’s the student’s 1st amendment right to receive information isn’t it? Yet something tells me those topics wouldn’t be allowed. And the state makes those decisions, not the feds.
The reasoning is insane on the face of it. I get asked a lot of questions I decline to answer.
They do get all excited about what bills don’t say.
But wait I thought CRT wasn’t taught?
And if it isn’t taught, under exactly what circumstances does it come up for the teacher to expound upon?
ahahahahhaahaaaaaaaaaa
I WILL TOP THIS ONE!!!
NOW THE FJB ADMIN IS SAYING ITS ILLEGAL TO HAVE SENT WEAPONS TO ISRAEL!
A VIOLATION OF THE LAW
LEFTY WILL STOP AT NOTHING TO ACHIEVE ITS GOALS OF
DOMINATION OVER GOOD PEOPLE
how come the teachers are not named?
did the schools fire them?
if not,,then the school board has to also be held accountable for allowing the law breaker to teach
how are going to have freedom and equity if we dont allow whites to be punished?? asked the unions
That’s a loophole you could drive a space shuttle through. There are so many indirect means of compulsion.
Just play it like the white student’s version of the Ghetto Lottery. Have a teacher that crosses the line? Whistleblow him. Get him sued. Will that have a chilling effect on the teachers who “just want the kids to be informed of what the philosophy is about?” Ask me if I care.
It’s a Loophole that the entire solar system will fit through. If a student does not say “exactly” what a teacher wants the student to say, the student will not receive a passing grade. It’s a simple as that. If multiple teachers, feel that way – or especially the principal – agrees with the teacher, the student is hosed.
Well, if that’s the state’s position then of course the court isn’t going to say that it does prohibit it, let alone say that such a prohibition wouldn’t violate the first amendment.
But the constitutional status as I understand it is that a law banning the doctrines of CRT from being taught in the classroom would be unconstitutional in universities, but not in high schools. University professors are assumed to be talking for themselves, and thus have the freedom to say whatever they like, but high school teaches are assumed to be talking for the school, and therefore can be told what they can and can’t say. And the state legislature can, of course, tell state schools what restrictions they may or must put on their teachers’ classroom speech.
There are very tight limits on what I can say in a classroom. That is good. I am no legal expert, but it is dangerous ground to compel attendance and then let government employees have total freedom to teach what/how they want.
I prefer my government to be restrained by more than the integrity of individual state employees.
It’s not about compelled attendance, since they’re not compelled to attend your school or class. It’s about the fact that you’re speaking for your employer, so the employer has the right to dictate what you do and don’t say on its behalf. You’re not exercising your own freedom of speech, you’re exercising the school’s freedom of speech, and the state’s.
Whereas college professors are not speaking for the college, they’re speaking for themselves, so the first amendment does protect their right to say whatever they like. Including leading prayers, endorsing religion, or preaching political propaganda for whomever they support.
Students in my district have four options for their high school science education:
1) Homeschool
2) Me (public charter)
3) A good teacher in a horrible public school
4) A relatively incompetent private school teacher.
That’s twice as many options as a lot of rural people have. If you want a decent science education near my area, the compulsion is pretty real.
I guess, if a parent really hates those options, they can move to the city with many options.
Those are all options. The point, however, is that any employee who is speaking for his employer has no freedom of speech at that time. To give him freedom to say whatever he likes in the employer’s name would violate the employer’s freedom of speech.
Whereas someone who isn’t speaking for the employer, and won’t be perceived that way, has the freedom of speech even on the job.
https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2024/05/university_of_minnesota_graduation_destroyed_by_leftist_groupthink_and_coercion.html
Minnesota Cultural Marxist Seminaries graduates took their studies to heart
This is why Parent Involvement is so important. Discuss what your kid “learned” in school that day and explain to them what was important in that teaching based on the morals you want your child to have. Ask teachers for their lesson plans/syllabus. Talk with your child’s teachers and arrange to visit the school and see the classes being taught. If the school won’t let you visit and observe then that is the time to lawyer up or get your kid out of that school.
Schools have actively discouraged parent involvement by saying it is disruptive. There is nothing wrong with wanting to know how and what your child is being taught and if your school doesn’t support that involvement then it is a school that is run by bad teachers and administration who are probably teaching them things that they know are against your morals.
I hear all the time; “Just homeschool”, but that is not realistic for most people, nor is private school.
Be involved, monitor your school board, and most importantly Vote to remove school board members who aren’t supportive of parents. There was a man who was so frustrated with the school board here that he actually ran for a position on the board and won. He replaced a particularly toxic board member who was the leader of a clique who had controlled the board for years.
The next election the half of the board was replaced and the level of toxicity was drastically reduced and the leftist lost control. After the 2nd school board meeting of that year 2 more leftist board members were so frustrated they resigned (i.e. threw a petty baby fit in the middle of a board meeting and embarrassed themselves while actually saying what they really thought on the record.)
Right now they are in the process of replacing the leftist in the administration and hiring people to replace the teachers who “resigned in protest” at the decisions the Board was making.
One of the things they did as a board was institute a dress code for staff that mandated “business casual”, “Natural Hair Colors” and even restrictions on the length of and type of fingernails for staff. Now that was really hilarious. No more jackets full of message buttons and patches in class and no more purple haired freaks.
Granted it is a small southern school district, but it was all done by parents who were not happy. Oh and since the School Board changes the school district used to bus their 7th thru 12 grades to another district, now the district has Pre-k thru 12.
Parents can make a difference, but you have to be involved and you have to work together.
Ok rant over.
School board elections have very low turnout and have a huge impact on our lives. Thank you for participating in that fight.
better yet
dont pay school taxes when the gop does their JOB and makes that finally a reality
you can be educated it doesnt mean you have to be publicly funded
Now it is the state’s duty to ignore the corrupt federal judge. There is no “right” for teachers to promote lies in the classroom. And if some continue, they have no “right” to work in state jobs either.
You can’t ignore a court order.
Especially when the court has just agreed with you!
these are the same “teachers” that are sleeping with underage students no doubt
Is it MANDATORY that students attend such indoctrination sessions?