HB1775 prohibits teachings that include one race or sex is superior or that someone is inherently racist or sexist based on their race or sex.
More than two years ago, a district court order enjoined Oklahoma from full enforcement of the measure while a lawsuit works its way through the court, writing that certain provisions were unconstitutionally vague in violation of the Fourteenth Amendment.
The lawsuit against the bill was brought by the OU Black Emergency Response Team, public school teachers and students, who were represented by the ACLU, the ACLU of Oklahoma, the Lawyers Committee, and McDermott, Will & Schulte LLP.
Part of HB1775 prohibits Oklahoma colleges and universities from requiring students to engage in mandatory gender or sexual diversity training or counseling. In response to the law, the University of Oklahoma changed its policy in 2021 of requiring the Gateway to Belonging diversity course for first-year students to instead allow students to choose one of three different courses.
HB1775 prohibits “orientations or requirements that present any form of certain stereotyping of bias.” Lawyers for BERT say that directly affects the diversity training BERT demanded and won during its historic February 2020 sit-in.
In June of 2025, the Oklahoma Supreme Court decided the law does not apply to college and university classrooms.
Defendant and Attorney General Gentner Drummond calls the ruling a victory.
“Every Oklahoma student deserves to be treated as an individual, not defined or divided by race or sex,” Drummond said in a news release.
Opponents to the law say its vague nature opens the door to arbitrary enforcement and has created a chilling effect on critical discussions in the classroom — something they say already happened when the state penalized Tulsa Public Schools for a “potential” violation in 2022.
A Norman teacher, Summer Boismier, also made national headlines for suing the state after her teaching certificate was revoked in 2024 for an alleged violation of HB1775.
ACLU Oklahoma is not conceding defeat over Wednesday’s ruling. In a news release, it pointed out that the narrow reading of the law does not prohibit schools from “presenting robust instruction on issues related to identity and discrimination.”
“The majority [decision] states that teachers only violate the law if they present an ‘unqualified racist or sexist assertion’ as fact, something the broad majority of teachers are clearly not doing,” said Michael Pillera, Director of the Educational Opportunities Project at the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, in a news release.
The case now returns to district court.
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