Judge Bans Anti-DEI Narrative In Mississippi Schools Indefinitely

by Sharelle B. McNair

August 20, 2025

The plaintiffs’ attorneys argued HB 1193 violates the U.S. Constitution’s First and Fourteenth amendments by prohibiting discussions of race, sex, gender identity, and sexual orientation in classrooms.

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Close to a month after U.S. District Judge Henry Wingate awarded a temporary ban on the diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) ban within Mississippi schools and universities, Wingate went a step further with an indefinite ban on the practice “for the foreseeable future,” WLBT reports. 

With a preliminary injunction granted Aug. 18, Wingate’s ruling prevents the ban from being enforced until there’s a final ruling. “(The law), if it lives down to the fears it has generated, has a mouthful of sharp teeth which could inflict deep bites,” Wingate wrote in his order.

In July 2025, the federal judge sided with a restraining order request from a group of plaintiffs, including the Mississippi Association of Educators and Jackson State University, a HBCU, arguing the DEI ban, passed in House Bill 1193, pushes the “preferred views” of Mississippi’s state government on students, educators, and families in addition to violating the First and Fourteenth Amendments. “We are fighting to protect the constitutional rights of teachers and students to share ideas and to receive and exchange knowledge,” a statement from the group’s legal representative, ACLU of Mississippi, read.

According to Mississippi Today, the plaintiffs’ attorneys argued HB 1193 violates the U.S. Constitution’s First and Fourteenth amendments by prohibiting discussions of race, sex, gender identity, and sexual orientation in classrooms. With the ban targeting talks and books about the Civil War, women’s rights, slavery, and other topics marked as essential to understanding the country’s history, the argument is that the law is dangerously vague and risks opening the doors to massive complaints against schools and their educators. 

A parent with a student who attends Jackson Public Schools said the law scared her, more so for her children. She was fearful that if her kids shared too much about their home life, they might be subjected to punishment. Teachers also pushed that, with just weeks before classes started, professors from the University of Mississippi said the policy prevented them from finalizing their syllabi. 

One of the case’s plaintiffs and University of Mississippi English professor Deanna Kreisel called the ruling an “enormous relief,” but knows there is more work to be done in the fight against anti-diversity rhetoric. “It is an enormous relief that the court has sided with academic freedom, free speech, and due process in its recent decision,” she said in a statement. 

“The fight is not over, but at least for the time being, the students of Mississippi can continue to learn in an environment free of ideological constraints and partisan censorship,” Kreisel said.

Joshua Tom, legal director at the American Civil Liberties Union of Mississippi and one of the lawyers in the case, called Wingate’s ruling pleasing and said, “the State’s attempt to impose its preferred views — and ban opposing views — on Mississippi’s public education system is not only bad policy, it’s illegal, as the court has preliminarily found today.” 

Wingate’s final ruling will come after he conducts the trial, but an aggrieved party has the option to appeal his ruling to the highly conservative U.S. 5th Circuit Court of Appeals, which tends to lean toward the conservative.

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