The Southern Poverty Law Center and the Legal Defense Fund (LDF) filed an amicus brief in the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals in support of plaintiff-appellants’ challenge to Oklahoma’s HB 1775, a law that critically restricts classroom instruction on topics related to race, gender and inequality in public schools and universities. The law places sweeping restrictions on educational institutions that deny students and educators of their First Amendment rights.
The amicus brief filed in Black Emergency Response Team v. Drummond argues that HB 1775 unconstitutionally limits Oklahoma students’ right to learn certain information and ideas about race and racism, which is protected under the First Amendment. It highlights the negative impacts of HB 1775 on Oklahoma public school students’ ability to receive important, historically accurate information regarding race and racism, including the systemic racism that fueled the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre, an infamous, violent and instructive historical event that occurred in the state’s capital. The brief urges the court to reverse a prior district court decision that denied some claims as a basis for prohibiting part of HB 1775.
Black Emergency Response Team v. Drummond was filed on Oct. 19, 2021, by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), ACLU of Oklahoma, the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, and pro bono counsel Schulte Roth & Zabel LLP on behalf of a group of Oklahoma public school teachers, a high school student and various community, professional, and cultural organizations, including the Black Emergency Response Team (BERT); the University of Oklahoma Chapter of the American Association of University Professors (OU-AAUP); the Oklahoma State Conference of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP-OK); and the American Indian Movement (AIM) Indian Territory on behalf of itself and its members who are public school students and teachers.
