The National Center for Youth Law (NCYL) has filed an amicus brief in the Fifth Circuit that supports plaintiffs who are challenging Mississippi’s House Bill 1193, a law that restricts discussion or engagement with certain “divisive concepts” in public schools. The brief argues that the law violates students’ First Amendment rights.

The brief, available to read in full here, was filed by NCYL and partner firm Simpson Thacher & Bartlett LLP on March 20 in support of plaintiffs-appellees in Jackson Federation of Teachers v. Fitch. It focuses on two critical ways in which H.B. 1193 violates students’ rights:

• The law unconstitutionally restricts student speech and violates established Supreme Court precedent that protects student expression in schools.
• The law violates students’ right to receive information and ideas. While states have authority to set school curricula, restrictions must still be reasonably related to legitimate educational goals. H.B. 1193 fails this standard because its restrictions are overly broad, vague, and not clearly tied to preventing discrimination or improving education.

NCYL urges the court to uphold the district court’s preliminary injunction that blocks H.B. 1193 on the grounds that it likely infringes on students’ constitutional rights. Further, the law goes against decades of Supreme Court precedent, which has established that public education is foundational to forming a democratic citizenry and that schools are not places for imposing political orthodoxy.