On Monday, the NAACP Legal Defense Fund and the American Civil Liberties Union filed an appeal in a lawsuit challenging the anti DEI law SB129 on behalf of college students and instructors at Alabama’s public universities.
In a press release, ACLU of Alabama Legal Director Alison Mollman called the appeal a “necessary next step to ensuring that the constitutional rights of all professors and students are protected in Alabama.”
Filed last January, the lawsuit alleges that SB129 is an unconstitutional infringement on Alabamians’ First and Fourteenth Amendment rights.
“SB 129 unconstitutionally abridges the First Amendment right of the students to receive information and the right of the professors to disseminate ideas without undue imposition of governmental viewpoints,” the original complaint asserts. “SB 129 violates the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment because it was enacted with intent to discriminate against Black professors and students, and those who ally with them.”
APR reported earlier this year that documents submitted as evidence in the lawsuit showed professors concerned that their classes would be effectively banned by SB129 and describing a general “pall of distrust, anxiety, and fear.”
“As a senior, I have watched our campus change overnight, as students are afraid to speak, opportunities for thoughtful engagement have disappeared, and students’ shared sense of belonging has eroded,” Sydney Testman, a student at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, stated. “With this appeal, we hope the courts will recognize the real and lasting damage that SB 129 has caused to me, my classmates, and my professors.”
Before SB129 was enacted, Testman was the finance coordinator for UAB’s Social Justice Advocacy Council, which had received funding from the university that was terminated after UAB and other public universities closed their offices meant to encourage and help students who are members of minority groups.
Signed by Governor Kay Ivey during the 2024 legislative session, SB129 formally prohibits state agencies and public universities from sponsoring diversity, equity and inclusion programs or requiring individuals to “personally affirm, adopt, or adhere to a divisive concept.”
In August, a federal district court judge denied the plaintiffs’ request for a preliminary injunction against SB129’s enforcement. He wrote that the University of Alabama Board of Trustees “clearly has an interest in regulating the type of classroom indoctrination forbidden by SB 129” and referred to the current Trump administration’s stance on “preferential treatment based on race.”
Requesting the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit approve a preliminary injunction, the appeal filed earlier this week charges that the district court judge “committed an abuse of discretion” by ruling that the students and the Alabama NAACP lacked standing, which contributed to the denial of the request for an injunction.
It also challenges claims that SB129 is not unconstitutionally vague and that professors’ speech affected by SB129 is not protected by the First Amendment.
“The law continues to censor classrooms, restrict student expression, and disproportionately harm Black and LGBTQ+ students,” Legal Defense Fund Senior Counsel Antonio Ingram wrote. “We will continue to challenge SB 129 because every student in Alabama deserves an accurate, high-quality education free from discrimination, fear, or undue interference from politicians.”
