A lawsuit filed Monday in federal court challenges the LEARNS Act and seeks to temporarily halt its implementation.
The complaint, filed in the Eastern District of Arkansas, calls the education overhaul an "unconstitutional law" that violates plaintiffs' rights under the First and 14th Amendments. Its arguments largely center around use of a section within the law prohibiting "indoctrination" and the state's removal last August of AP African American Studies from its course code listings.
The plaintiffs include Ruthie Walls, who teaches AP African American Studies at Little Rock Central High School. The other plaintiffs are three students enrolled in Walls' class and their parents: Sadie Annabella and Jennifer Reynolds, as well as Giselle and Chandra Williams Davis. They are represented by Laux Law Group and Porter Law Firm.
Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders and state Department of Education Secretary Jacob Oliva are named as defendants in the lawsuit.
Demanding a jury trial, the lawsuit seeks declaratory judgment, "preliminary and permanent injunctive relief," and compensatory damages relief.
The state drew national attention last August when, citing a state ban on "indoctrination" and critical race theory in schools, the Education Department removed the second-year pilot class from its course code listings.
Sanders signed an executive order on her first day in office "to prohibit indoctrination and critical race theory in schools."
Similar restrictions were later placed in Section 16 of Act 237 of 2023, the LEARNS Act. The law includes codification of Sanders' executive order on Critical Race Theory, which requires the state Education Department to review policies and materials that "promote teaching that would indoctrinate students with ideologies, such as Critical Race Theory."
Among the allegations made in the complaint is that the removal of the course's listing from Arkansas' course code catalog stripped the class "of its full AP status and made it ineligible for multiple benefits to which it was previously entitled. This attack on [the course] started a chain reaction of constitutional, economic and even physical harms."
All six schools that planned to offer it elected to continue doing so for local credit, despite its removal from the course code catalog. The schools are Little Rock Central High School, North Little Rock High School, North Little Rock Center Of Excellence, The Academies at Jonesboro High and Jacksonville High School and eStem High School.
However, the move still meant students could not use the course to meet core graduation requirements, and the state would not pay the cost of the end-of-year exam.
The complaint states that Section 16 puts teachers, faculty members, guest speakers and students at risk of penalty "without adequate notice of what conduct or speech is prohibited."
"It absolutely chills free speech," the complaint states.
It also alleges the section discriminates on the basis or race in that it "stigmatizes [the course] as inferior and dissuades" prospective students because of concerns about the course's future.
The complaint also lists a series of arguments calling the section unconstitutional. Among those arguments is that it impermissibly regulates free speech in the classroom on the basis of the speech content, and that the rules authorized the state Education Department "to remove fact-based state educational resources which they find disagreeable and replace them with information more to their liking."
The complaint also criticizes as unconstitutional Section 16 because it is "unworkably vague and overly broad to the point where it fails to give reasonable notice of the conduct and speech it prohibits."
Finally, the plaintiffs argue in their complaint that the section violates the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment because it "creates two different classes along racial lines" by restricting the course's curriculum but not doing the same to similar AP courses that cover the same subject matter.
The plaintiffs suffered "physical injury, economic damages and significant emotional damages" as a result, including anxiety, fear and stigmatization.
In an emailed statement sent by governor's office spokeswoman Alexa Henning, Sanders said, "In the State of Arkansas, we will not indoctrinate our kids and teach them to hate America or each other. It's sad the radical left continues to lie and play political games with our kids' futures."
Oliva denied that students were prevented from participating in the course, or that they were stripped of the benefits offered by the course, calling such claims "a total lie."
"The department advised schools they could offer local course credit to students who complete the pilot, and six schools participated," he said in an email sent by an Education Department spokeswoman. "After discussions, College Board updated course framework and assured it does not violate Arkansas law. The department approved the course for the 24-25 school year and will continue to work with districts to ensure courses offered to students do not violate Arkansas state law."
The national College Board that developed the course has denied that the course indoctrinates students. In a statement released shortly after the class was removed from code listings, the organization said it shared educators' "surprise, confusion, and disappointment at this new guidance that the course won't count toward graduation credits or be weighted the same as other AP courses offered in the state."
The decision to remove the course also drew criticism from such groups as the Arkansas State Conference of the NAACP to members of the Little Rock Nine.
In December, the College Board released its revised framework for the class. However, the Education Department at the time did not respond to questions over whether the agency planned to reintroduce the AP class for the next school year.
Walls is a veteran Arkansas social studies and economics teacher and former charter high school director. After the course first came under scrutiny last year for possible violation of Sanders' executive order against indoctrination, she defended the course to the Central High School Tiger newspaper.
Monday's lawsuit is at least the second against the LEARNS Act to have been filed since the education overhaul was signed last March. The Arkansas Supreme Court ultimately reversed and dismissed a Pulaski County circuit judge's ruling in an earlier case that the state General Assembly failed to follow the Arkansas Constitution in passing an emergency clause as part of the law.
On June 30, Pulaski County Circuit Judge Herbert Wright ruled the emergency clause contained in the LEARNS Act did not receive a separate roll-call vote as required by the Arkansas Constitution, rendering the emergency clause procedurally invalid, and parts of the law would take effect Aug. 1 rather than March 8 when the governor signed the law.