Tag: Law

More Law Schools Embrace AI

As of 2024, 55 percent of law schools offered courses on AI.

Photo illustration by Justin Morrison/Inside Higher Ed | Maxxa_Satori and PhonlamaiPhoto/iStock/Getty Images

As more and more law firms integrate generative artificial intelligence into their practices, a growing number of law schools are preparing future lawyers to adapt.

Nearly three years after OpenAI’s ChatGPT went mainstream—followed by Anthropic’s Claude, Google’s Gemini and a host of other similar platforms—some 30 percent of law offices are using AI-based technology tools, according to data published by the American Bar Association this past spring. While ChatGPT is the most widely used, legal research–specific tools, such as Thomson Reuters’ CoCounsel, Lexis+ AI and Westlaw AI, are also catching on in the sector.

At the same time, 62 percent of law schools have incorporated formal opportunities to learn about or use AI into their first-year curriculum; 93 percent are considering updating their curriculum to incorporate AI education. In practice, however, many of those offerings may not be adequate, said Daniel W. Linna Jr., director of law and technology initiatives at Northwestern University’s Pritzker School of Law.

“Law firms are starting to expect more and more that students will be exposed to this in law school,” he said. “But they also understand that the current reality is that not many law schools are doing much more than basic training. And some may not even be doing that.”

AI-Savvy Will Have ‘Leg Up’

At its best, experts believe AI has the power to make lawyers more efficient and accurate, as well as the potential to expand public access to legal services. But as fake citations and misquotes appearing in AI-generated legal filings have already shown, lawyers need more than access to these tools to get the most out of using them. They need to know how they work and recognize their limitations.

“Law schools have to prepare students to be intentional users of this technology, which will require them to have foundational knowledge and understanding in the first place,” said Caitlin Moon, a professor and founding co-director of Vanderbilt Law School’s AI Law Lab. “We have to preserve that core learning process so that they remain the human expert and this technology complements and supports their expertise.”

It’s not clear yet the extent to which AI will reshape the legal job market over the next several years, especially for new lawyers whose first jobs after law school have historically involved reviewing documents and conducting legal research—two areas where AI tools excel. According to one interpretation of a new report from Goldman Sachs on how AI could affect the workforce, 17 percent of jobs in the legal sector may be at risk.

“Law firms on the cutting edge of innovation are certainly trying to figure out how leveraging this technology improves their bottom line,” Moon said. “For recent graduates, those who are coming into firms with an understanding and familiarity with AI have a leg up.”

Pressure on Law Schools

Regardless of what’s to come, all this uncertainty is putting pressure on law schools across the country to meet the moment, said Gary Marchant, faculty director of the Center for Law, Science and Innovation at Arizona State University’s Sandra Day O’Connor College of Law, which began offering an AI specialization last year.

“It creates a requirement for law schools and law firms to train future lawyers differently, so that they learn some of the third- and fourth-year associate skills while they’re still in law school,” Marchant said. “Even if AI doesn’t advance any further, it’s already come so far that it’s transforming the practice of law, and it could change even more. Right now, the conclusion is that lawyers who know AI will replace lawyers who don’t know AI.”

Recognition of that reality drove the University of San Francisco School of Law to become the first in the country to integrate generative AI education throughout its curriculum. Those efforts will be aided through partnerships with Accordance and Anthropic, the school announced last week.

“AI is something every student needs to understand, no matter what kind of law they want to do,” said Johanna Kalb, dean of USF’s law school. “Given how quickly these AI tools are improving and becoming more specialized, each of these innovations is going to change what lawyers are being asked to do and what skills they really need.”

While USF may be one of the few law schools with an AI curriculum mandate, 55 percent of programs offered specialized courses designed to teach students about AI in 2024, according to the most recent available ABA data.

That percentage has likely increased over the past year, said Andrew Perlman, dean of Suffolk University Law School and a member of the ABA’s Task Force on Law and Artificial Intelligence.

This fall Suffolk’s law school, which launched one of the country’s first legal technology programs nearly a decade ago, is requiring all first-year students to complete a custom generative AI learning track as part of its course on legal practice skills.

“There was a lot of hesitation early on about how useful AI may be inside law practices, but there is now an increasingly widespread recognition that hiring lawyers who understand both the traditional methods of practicing law and have the ability to embrace AI is a useful combination,” Perlman said. “Training students with that new skill set is going to put our graduates in a better position to succeed in the long run.”

Jacob Levine, a second-year student at Harvard Law School, got a taste of the demand for that balance during an internship at a law firm this summer.

“AI was a tool that was present and using it was permitted, but there was a lot of emphasis on gauging the ability of the individual to be able to do the analytical work that’s expected of a young attorney,” he said. “It’s important to know how to use AI but not purely rely on it and use it blindly. A big part of being able to do that is knowing how to do everything yourself.”

Source link

August 29, 2025
New York Passes Law Requiring Title VI Coordinators

Many institutions, including the SUNY system, have invested in Title VI coordinators in recent months.

Photo illustration by Justin Morrison/Inside Higher Ed | howtogoto/iStock/Getty Images

New York is mandating that all colleges in the state designate a coordinator to oversee investigations into discrimination on the basis of race, color, national origin and shared ancestry, which is prohibited under Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, Gov. Kathy Hochul’s office announced Wednesday.

According to Hochul, the state is the first in the country to pass such a law.

“By placing Title VI coordinators on all college campuses, New York is combating antisemitism and all forms of discrimination head-on,” she said in the press release. “No one should fear for their safety while trying to get an education. It’s my top priority to ensure every New York student feels safe at school, and I will continue to take action against campus discrimination and use every tool at my disposal to eliminate hate and bias from our school communities.”

Many colleges have begun hiring for Title VI coordinator roles in the past several months in response to the surge in reports of antisemitism and Islamophobia following Hamas’s fatal Oct. 7, 2023 attack on Israeli civilians. In some cases, the Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights required institutions to add these roles after finding that they failed to adequately address complaints of discrimination on their campuses.

The State University of New York system had already mandated each of its campuses to bring on a Title VI coordinator by the fall 2025 semester.

Source link

August 28, 2025
Ohio University to cut 11 academic programs to comply with new law
This audio is auto-generated. Please let us know if you have feedback.

Dive Brief:
- Ohio University plans to wind down 11 undergraduate programs and merge another 18 to comply with a new state law that sets minimum graduation thresholds. The university said Tuesday it would suspend admission to the programs upon receiving approval from the state higher education department.
- Signed in March, Ohio’s sweeping Advance Ohio Higher Education Act gave state colleges just months to determine which programs to cut. The law requires public institutions to eliminate any undergraduate program that issues fewer than five degrees annually over a three-year period.
- At Ohio University, 36 programs fell below the allowed threshold. Along with the programs it plans to cut and merge, the university said it will request waivers to keep operating another seven.
Dive Insight:

With the passage of the new legislation, also known as SB 1, Ohio lawmakers made deep inroads into the academic operations of public colleges, asserting new state controls over decisions historically left to faculty and administrators.

The law bans diversity, equity and inclusion training, requires post-tenure review, prohibits full-time faculty from striking and even requires certain questions in student evaluations of professors.

SB 1 also created a policy that could wipe out dozens or even hundreds of academic programs if the experience of Ohio’s neighboring state is any gauge.

In Indiana, a similar policy with programmatic graduation thresholds — inserted into the most recent state budget bill — has already put 75 degree programs on the chopping block. The state’s public colleges also moved to suspend another 101 programs and consolidate 232.

As in Ohio, Indiana state colleges only had months to review their portfolios for cuts. That created uncertainty for many.

“Even tenured faculty are wondering, am I going to have a job in two months?” one faculty governance leader in Indiana told local media, describing “chaos and confusion” on campus.

At Ohio University, many programs slated to end have parallel programs that will continue. For example, the university is on track to suspend bachelor’s of arts degrees in chemistry, geological sciences, mathematics and physics, but it will continue offering bachelor’s of science degrees in those topics.

Students currently enrolled in affected programs will be able to complete their degrees, the university said.

Meanwhile, the institution is planning curricular changes to merge 18 programs with similar or overlapping degrees, most of them in the visual and performing and liberal arts such as instrumental music and several geography majors.

Ohio University requested waivers to keep open seven other programs, even though they fell below the thresholds. The institution said the degrees are unique, have undergone curriculum changes or meet workforce needs, the institution said.

Earlier this year, the University of Toledo also announced it was suspending admissions to nine programs to comply with SB 1.

Some students in Ohio are protesting SB 1’s overall and widespread impacts on campuses in the state. A petition launched by the Ohio Student Association asserts that “students have lost not only programs, centers, and scholarships — but also the sense of community and support that made higher education in Ohio accessible, inclusive, and excellent.”

The petition urged administrators at state colleges “not to overcomply with SB 1 — to act in the interest of students rather than in fear of the legislature,” adding that “institutional overcompliance furthers a broader political movement that seeks to erase the progress made toward justice in higher education.”

The group called on campus stakeholders to wear black in protest of the bill and its impacts.
Source link
August 27, 2025
Law Firm Threatens Brown Climate Researchers

A law firm representing anti–wind energy groups is demanding that Brown University researchers retract findings linking those groups to the fossil fuel industry, The New York Times reported Monday.

The move comes weeks after Brown reached an agreement with the Trump administration. The government restored $510 million in frozen federal research grants after the university agreed to certain demands, including adopting the Trump administration’s definitions of male and female and turning over admissions data.

The Trump administration has halted or canceled thousands of other research grants across the country, including many focused on climate change.

Marzulla Law LLC characterized the research published by Brown’s Climate and Development Lab as “false and injurious” in an Aug. 11 letter to Brown’s general counsel. It threatened to file complaints with Brown’s public and private funders, including the Energy Department, the National Science Foundation and the Mellon Foundation.

A university spokesperson did not comment specifically on the law firm’s demands but told the Times that it’s committed to maintaining academic freedom.

Brown researchers who authored a case study about Marzulla Law have written that the firm has “a history of advancing anti-environmental lawsuits and significant ties with the fossil fuel industry.” Researchers have also published findings accusing one of the firm’s clients—the nonprofit Green Oceans, which is trying to shut down the construction of a nearly complete $4 billion wind farm off the coast of Rhode Island—of being part of “a fossil-fuel-funded disinformation network.”

On Friday, the Trump administration, which opposes the wind energy industry, halted the wind farm project without citing specific reasons.

Source link

August 26, 2025
After Hechinger story, Illinois passes law requiring hospitals to connect parents of premature infants with life-changing therapies

Illinois hospital staff will soon be required by law to refer parents of severely premature infants to services that can help prevent years of intensive and expensive therapy later, when the children are older. The new law follows reporting from The Hechinger Report that exposed how hospitals often fail to connect many eligible parents to these opportunities for their children after they leave neonatal intensive care units.

Earlier this year, Hechinger contributor Sarah Carr wrote about how, across the country, far too few parents are made aware of the kinds of therapies their babies are entitled to under federal law. Such early intervention services can ultimately reduce the need for these children to require costly special education support as schoolchildren.

Carr noted: “Federal law says children with developmental delays, including newborns with significant likelihood of a delay, can get early intervention from birth to age 3. States design their own programs and set their own funding levels, however. They also set some of the criteria for which newborns are automatically eligible, typically relying on qualifying conditions like Down syndrome or cerebral palsy, extreme prematurity or low birthweight. Nationally, far fewer infants and toddlers receive the therapies than should. The stats are particularly bleak for babies under the age of 1: Just 1 percent of these infants get help. Yet an estimated 13 percent of infants and toddlers likely qualify.”

After the Hechinger Report story was published, Illinois state Rep. Janet Yang Rohr authored legislation to require that hospitals distribute materials informing parents of premature and low birth weight babies about their eligibility for early intervention therapies. The bill also required that hospitals make a nurse or physical therapist available to explain these rights to families.

Related: Young children have unique needs and providing the right care can be a challenge. Our free early childhood education newsletter tracks the issues.

“The problem is that these families often don’t know about these services,” Yang Rohr said last spring, after her chamber passed the bill. “So this bill improves that early intervention process by requiring NICU staff to share information about these services and requires hospital staff to write a referral to these programs for families that are eligible.”

Illinois Representative Janet Yang Rohr Credit: ILGA

Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker signed that bill into law earlier this month. It takes effect in January.

Carr also wrote: “The stakes are high for these fragile, rapidly growing babies and their brains. Even a few months of additional therapy can reduce a child’s risk of complications and make it less likely that they will struggle with talking, moving and learning down the road. In Chicago and elsewhere, families, advocates and physicians say a lot of the failures boil down to overstretched hospital and early intervention delivery systems that are not always talking with families very effectively, or with each other hardly at all. ‘They really put the onus of helping your child get better outcomes on you,’ said Jaclyn Vasquez, an early childhood consultant who has had three babies of her own spend time in the NICU.”

“Early intervention is life-changing for many families, as these programs provide critical services and therapies as children develop,” Illinois state Sen. Ram Villivalam said when the bill was sent to Pritzker. “But, these services can only benefit those they are able to reach, which means uplifting the program and expanding its outreach to those who need it is imperative.”

Contact editor Nirvi Shah at 212-678-3445, securely on Signal at NirviShah.14 or via email at [email protected].

This story about premature infants was produced by The Hechinger Report, a nonprofit, independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education. Sign up for the Hechinger newsletter.

The Hechinger Report provides in-depth, fact-based, unbiased reporting on education that is free to all readers. But that doesn’t mean it’s free to produce. Our work keeps educators and the public informed about pressing issues at schools and on campuses throughout the country. We tell the whole story, even when the details are inconvenient. Help us keep doing that.

Join us today.

Source link

August 25, 2025
George Mason University violated civil rights law, Education Department alleges
This audio is auto-generated. Please let us know if you have feedback.

Dive Brief:
- The U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights alleged Friday that Virginia’s George Mason University has violated civil rights law by illegally using race and other protected characteristics in its hiring and promotion practices.
- Craig Trainor, the office’s acting assistant secretary for civil rights, accused George Mason President Gregory Washington of waging a “university-wide campaign to implement unlawful DEI policies that intentionally discriminate on the basis of race.”
- Under the Trump administration, Trainor and other officials have set their sights on diversity, equity and inclusion programs and other policies that were designed to help historically disadvantaged groups.
Dive Insight:

George Mason has faced a torrent of investigations in recent weeks from the Trump administration, including probes into whether the university is practicing discriminatory hiring and admissions and adequately responding to antisemitism on campus.

The most recent allegations from the Education Department, announced just six weeks after it opened the probe, said the agency determined that the university violated Title VI. The civil rights law bars federally funded institutions from discriminating based on race, color or national origin.

The agency gave George Mason, which is located near Washington, D.C., 10 days to agree with the Trump administration’s proposal to voluntarily resolve the alleged violations.

Under the proposed agreement, Washington would have to release a statement saying the university’s hiring and promotion practices will comply with Title VI and explaining the steps for submitting a discrimination complaint.

The university would also have to review its employment policies, conduct annual training for all employees involved in hiring and promotion decisions, and maintain and share records with the federal government upon request to prove compliance.

The agreement would also require Washington to apologize to the university community “for promoting unlawful discriminatory practices in hiring, promotion, and tenure processes,” the Education Department said.

In a Friday statement, George Mason’s governing board said the Education Department notified it of the violation, and it will review the proposed resolution and fully respond to government inquiries.

“Our sole focus is our fiduciary duty to serve the best interests of the University and the people of the Commonwealth of Virginia,” the board said.

The Education Department said it opened the investigation following a complaint from multiple George Mason professors who alleged that university leadership has implemented policies that give preferential treatment to underrepresented groups since 2020.

The agency pointed to a 2021 statement from Washington as evidence of “support for racial preferencing.”

In it, Washington said that leaders wanted staff and faculty to reflect the diversity of the student population. “This is not code for establishing a quota system,” he added. “It is a recognition of the reality that our society’s future lies in multicultural inclusion.”

He noted that a majority of George Mason’s students weren’t White, yet only 30% of the university’s faculty were part of a ethnic minority group, were multi-ethnic or came from international communities. To achieve the university’s vision, officials should focus on both professional credentials and lived experiences when recruiting employees, he said.

“If you have two candidates who are both ‘above the bar’ in terms of requirements for a position, but one adds to your diversity and the other does not, then why couldn’t that candidate be better, even if that candidate may not have better credentials than the other candidate?” Washington said at the time.

On Friday, the Education Department also cited several George Mason policies it said violated Title VI, including one it said appeared on the university’s website in 2024. The policy said officials could forgo a competitive search process for faculty members when “there is an opportunity to hire a candidate who strategically advances the institutional commitment to diversity and inclusion,” the agency said.

Washington, George Mason’s first Black president, pushed back on the Education Department’s allegations when it first opened the investigation. In a July 16 statement, he said that the university’s promotion and tenure policies don’t give preferential treatment based on race or other protected characteristics.

He also pointed to a “profound shift in how Title VI is being applied.”

“Longstanding efforts to address inequality — such as mentoring programs, inclusive hiring practices, and support for historically underrepresented groups — are in many cases being reinterpreted as presumptively unlawful,” he said.

The U.S. Department of Justice has also opened several investigations into George Mason, including one over its hiring and promotion practices.

Another DOJ probe is looking into the university’s Faculty Senate after its members approved a resolution supporting Washington and the diversity initiatives following the federal investigations, according to The New York Times. The agency has demanded internal communications from the Faculty Senate as part of its investigation.

Todd Wolfson, president of the American Association of University Professors slammed the probe shortly after it was announced.

“Let’s call this what it is: a gross misuse of federal power to chill speech, silence faculty members, and undermine shared governance,” he said in a July statement. “It is an attack on academic freedom, plain and simple.”
Source link
August 22, 2025
Ed Dept. Says George Mason Violated Civil Rights Law

The Virginia university has been under investigation since early July.

John M. Chase/iStock Unreleased/Getty Images

Gregory Washington, president of Virginia’s George Mason University, must apologize to the university community for “promoting unlawful discriminatory practices” in order to resolve allegations that the institution violated civil rights law, the Department of Education announced Friday.

The department claims that the university has illegally factored race and “other immutable characteristics” into hiring, promotion and tenure practices since at least 2020.

Acting Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights Craig Trainor said the unlawful practices began shortly after the murder of George Floyd, when Washington called on faculty and administrators to expunge campus of “racist vestiges” by “intentionally discriminat[ing] on the basis of race.”

“You can’t make this up,” Trainor said in the statement. “Despite this unfortunate chapter in Mason’s history, the university now has the opportunity to come into compliance with federal civil rights laws by entering into a Resolution Agreement with the Office for Civil Rights.”

The Education Department first announced in early July that it would investigate GMU for potentially violating Title VI of the Civil Rights Act, which bars discrimination based on race and national origin. Later that month, the Department of Justice announced it would investigate the institution’s Faculty Senate after the panel passed a resolution in support of Washington, who had been quick to push back on the Trump administration and defend the university’s commitment to addressing social injustice. Many conservatives called for Washington—the institution’s first Black president—to be fired. But the university’s Board of Visitors spared him at a meeting Aug. 1, at least for now, and gave him a raise.

Trainor said in the statement that “the Trump-McMahon Department of Education will not allow racially exclusionary practices—which violate the Civil Rights Act, the Equal Protection Clause, and Supreme Court precedent—to continue corrupting our nation’s educational institutions.”

In addition to an apology, the Education Department is demanding that GMU post that statement “prominently” to the university’s website, remove any contrary statements from the past and revise campus policies to prevent future race-based programming. It also wants the institution to begin an annual training session for all individuals involved in recruitment, hiring, promotion or tenure decisions to emphasize the ban on racial consideration and provide records documenting compliance whenever they are requested moving forward.

George Mason officials have 10 days to respond to the department’s proposed resolution agreement.

Source link

August 22, 2025
Federal Agency Finds George Mason University Violated Civil Rights Law Through DEI Policies

The U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights has determined that George Mason University violated federal civil rights law by using race as a factor in hiring and promotion decisions, the agency announced on Friday.

The finding concluded that GMU violated Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which prohibits discrimination based on race, color, and national origin in federally funded education programs. The university now has 10 days to accept a proposed resolution agreement or risk losing federal funding.

Acting Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights Craig Trainor said President Gregory Washington led “a university-wide campaign to implement unlawful DEI policies that intentionally discriminate on the basis of race.”

“You can’t make this up,” Trainor said in a statement, noting that Washington had previously called for removing “racist vestiges” from campus in 2020.

The investigation, launched in July 2025, stemmed from complaints filed by multiple GMU professors who alleged the university adopted preferential treatment policies for faculty from “underrepresented groups” between 2020 and the present.

Federal investigators said that they found several problematic practices. As recently as fall 2024, they argue that the university’s website stated it “may choose to waive the competitive search process when there is an opportunity to hire a candidate who strategically advances the institutional commitment to diversity and inclusion.”

The current Faculty Handbook also requires approval from the “Office of Access, Compliance, and Community” – previously called the “Office of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion” until GMU renamed it in March 2025 – before extending job offers.

One high-level administrator told investigators that Washington “created an atmosphere of surveillance” regarding hiring decisions related to diversity objectives.

Under the proposed resolution agreement, Washington must personally issue a statement and apology to the university community, acknowledging the discriminatory practices. The university must also revise hiring policies, conduct annual training, and remove any provisions encouraging racial preferences.

GMU must post the presidential statement prominently on its website and remove any contradictory materials. The university would also be required to maintain compliance records and designate a coordinator to work with federal officials.

George Mason University, located in Fairfax, Virginia, enrolls approximately 39,000 students and receives federal funding that could be at risk if the violations are not resolved.

George Mason officials said that they are reviewing the specific resolution steps proposed by the Department of Education.

“We will continue to respond fully and cooperatively to all inquiries from the Department of Education, the Department of Justice and the U.S. House of Representatives and evaluate the evidence that comes to light,” the university said in a statement. “Our sole focus is our fiduciary duty to serve the best interests of the University and the people of the Commonwealth of Virginia.”

Source link

August 22, 2025
Judge Keeps Alabama’s Anti-DEI Law in Place for Now

The judge denied a motion for a preliminary injunction to block the anti-DEI law.

Just_Super/iStock/Getty Images Plus

Ruling in part that professors lack First Amendment protections in the classroom, a federal judge denied an effort from college faculty and students in Alabama to block a 2024 state law that banned diversity, equity and inclusion programs as well as the teaching of so-called divisive concepts.

The plaintiffs, who include students from the University of Alabama at Birmingham and professors at the University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa, argued in court filings and at hearings that the legislation known as Senate Bill 129 amounted to state-sponsored censorship and infringed on their rights under the First and 14th Amendments. The professors alleged that they had to cancel class projects or events and faced other questions about their classroom conduct from administrators because of the law. They’ve also changed course material as a result.

R. David Proctor, chief judge in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Alabama, found that while the professors and the Alabama NAACP had standing to sue, they weren’t likely to succeed at this time. For instance, he ruled that the professors aren’t protected by the First Amendment because their “in-class instruction constitutes government speech.”

Furthermore, Proctor wrote, based on other rulings in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit, “when there is a dispute about what is taught in the classroom, the university’s interests outweigh those of a professor, and the professor’s interest in academic freedom and free speech do not displace the university’s interest inside the classroom.”

The plaintiffs said Proctor’s ruling was disappointing.

“I feel incredibly dismayed that SB 129 is allowed to continue going into the new school year,” said Sydney Testman, one of the students who sued, in a statement. “As a senior at University of Alabama at Birmingham, I’ve seen firsthand how SB 129 has transformed my college campus for the worst. Voices have been silenced, opportunities have been revoked, and meaningful community engagement has faded. This decision undermines the need for students to properly feel a sense of belonging and inclusion on campus.”

Source link

August 15, 2025
Federal judge declines to block Alabama anti-DEI law
This audio is auto-generated. Please let us know if you have feedback.

Dive Brief:
- A federal judge declined to temporarily block the enforcement of a state law that bans public colleges from funding diversity, equity and inclusion programs and from compelling students to affirm certain “divisive concepts.”
- Earlier this year, a group of students and faculty members sued the state’s governor and the University of Alabama’s trustees over the new law, arguing that it violates their free speech rights by placing viewpoint-based restrictions on what can be taught in the classroom. They also contended that the law undermines due process by being so ambiguous that instructors and students don’t know what is prohibited.
- U.S. District Judge R. David Proctor — a George W. Bush appointee — pushed back on those arguments in his 146-page ruling Wednesday. Proctor denied their request for a preliminary injunction, writing that public colleges could reasonably control curricular content and rejecting assertions that the law’s language is impermissibly vague.
Dive Insight:

Last year, Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey signed a law known as SB 129, which bans public colleges and K-12 schools from having DEI initiatives. It defined those efforts as programs, training or other events where attendance is based on “race, sex, gender identity, ethnicity, national origin, or sexual orientation.”

PEN America noted last year that while this language doesn’t outright ban all DEI initiatives, the attendance restrictions could bar public colleges from activities like creating programming specifically for international students or recognizing a Black student union.

The law also barred public colleges from requiring students to affirm or adhere to a list of so-called divisive concepts.

Under the law, one of the concepts is that individuals “are inherently responsible for actions committed in the past by other members of the same race, color, religion, sex, ethnicity, or national origin.” Another is that people are “inherently racist, sexist, or oppressive, whether consciously or subconsciously” based on their personal characteristics.

The law also contains carve-outs. It says that the language does not bar public colleges from teaching or discussing divisive concepts “in an objective manner and without endorsement as part of a larger course of academic instruction.”

According to court documents, faculty members who sued over the measure said that while they do not require students to affirm or adhere to these concepts, they worry that their instruction on race and gender could be viewed as running afoul of the law — even with the carve-outs for teaching.

“I do not know what it means to discuss a divisive concept ‘in an objective manner’ and ‘without endorsement,’” plaintiff Cassandra Simon, a social work professor at University of Alabama, said in court documents. “There is robust empirical evidence of implicit bias, white privilege, and the absence of a colorblind meritocracy. I am unable to determine whether continuing to present these scholarly findings, and assigning readings on these subjects, would violate SB 129.”

One of Simon’s class assignments — that students select a social issue of their choice and advocate for it — was abruptly canceled due to the law, according to court documents.

Her students chose to hold a sit-in to protest SB 129 for their project. The day of the sit-in, however, the social work dean told Simon to cancel the assignment in part over concerns that it would compel students to agree with one of the banned divisive concepts.

Another plaintiff raised concerns over teaching about topics such as structural racism, employment discrimination and health disparities by race. And another voiced concerns that the law potentially limits his ability to teach about eugenics.

However, Proctor wrote in his ruling that the law doesn’t prohibit the teaching of divisive concepts and pointed to the carve-outs provided.

The judge also cited an appeals court case that found a public college could “reasonably control the content of its curriculum, particularly that content imparted during class time.”

“There is no legal basis for concluding that the First Amendment protects a university professor’s academic freedom in the way the Professors suggest,” Proctor wrote.

Referring to the canceled sit-in, Proctor wrote that it was “a reasonable exercise of control over course curriculum to ensure that students would not feel coerced into advocating for a belief with which they disagreed.”

Proctor also dismissed Ivey as a defendant in the case, ruling that plaintiffs’ alleged injuries aren’t traceable to her.

The plaintiffs in the case slammed the decision on Thursday.

“SB129 created a culture of fear that has severely hindered the ability of professors to provide comprehensive instruction in our areas of expertise,” Dana Patton, a University of Alabama professor and plaintiff in the case, said in a statement. “The law infringes on our academic freedom and our duty to students to provide a truthful and comprehensive education.”

Alabama state Sen. Will Barfoot, the sponsor of the legislation, didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
Source link
August 14, 2025