西蒙诉艾维案

On January 14, 2025, several University of Alabama professors (Cassandra Simon, Dana Patton, Richard Fording), students (Sydney Testman, Miguel Luna, Isabella Campos), and the Alabama State Conference of the NAACP filed a federal lawsuit challenging Alabama Senate Bill 129 (SB 129). SB 129, which took effect on October 1, 2024, prohibits public schools from sponsoring diversity, equity, and inclusion programs and bars teachers from requiring students to assent to eight specified "divisive concepts". Plaintiffs alleged the law violated the First Amendment, the Due Process Clause, and the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. They sought a preliminary injunction to block enforcement. The court held evidentiary hearings on June 25-26, 2025, and oral arguments on July 2, 2025. On August 13, 2025, Judge R David Proctor denied the preliminary injunction and granted Governor Kay Ivey's motion to dismiss. Plaintiffs appealed to the Eleventh Circuit.

On August 13, 2025, the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Alabama denied plaintiffs' motion for preliminary injunction and granted Governor Kay Ivey's motion to dismiss. The court found that professors' in-classroom instruction constitutes government speech and that the Board has an interest in regulating classroom indoctrination. Plaintiffs filed an appeal to the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals.

Whether Alabama SB 129 unconstitutionally restricts academic freedom and free speech in public universities under the First and Fourteenth Amendments, and whether the law is impermissibly vague. The court also considered whether plaintiffs had standing and whether the Governor was entitled to sovereign immunity.

The case became a landmark challenge to anti-DEI legislation in higher education, drawing national attention to the tension between state efforts to regulate classroom content and constitutional protections for academic freedom. Civil rights organizations, including the NAACP Legal Defense Fund and the ACLU of Alabama, represented the plaintiffs. Scholars at Risk filed an amicus brief in support of the plaintiffs on appeal. The ruling allowed SB 129 to remain in effect pending appeal, leading to the closure of diversity offices, loss of funding for student organizations, and dismantling of inclusive campus spaces.