A Chilly Time in Schools: State Content Restriction Laws and the Intent to Discriminate

• In Event: Legal Pathways of Discrimination

Abstract

The passage of state content restriction laws limiting schools’ ability to teach about and individuals’ right to discuss discrimination against people of color and members of the LBGTQIA+ community in certain ways (or at all) after the summer of racial reckoning raises questions about whether these laws were designed to allow discrimination to continue. This article uses the Equal Protection intent to discriminate framework to analyze the claims in the lawsuits challenging the anti-CRT lawsuit in Oklahoma and the Don’t Say Gay law in Florida that they were designed to chill speech about race and gender issues in schools and discriminate against members of these protected classes of people.

Author

• Regina R. Umpstead, University of Louisville