Student Rights

While the situation is still developing, we are highly concerned that police, many in riot gear, appear to have moved quickly and forcefully into protests at the University of New Hampshire and Dartmouth College campuses. Use of police force against protestors should never be a first resort.

On August 7, 2025, a diverse group of educators and advocacy groups filed a federal lawsuit challenging a new anti-equity, anti-inclusion, and anti-diversity law in New Hampshire, which became effective on July 1, 2025, after being signed into law by Governor Ayotte in late June. The law, contained within House Bill 2’s budget provisions, seeks to ban diversity, equity, and inclusion programs pertaining to race, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity, and disability in New Hampshire schools (including both K-12 public schools as well as both public and private colleges and universities) and public entities like police departments and libraries. This law radically contradicts federal civil rights laws that protect the rights of students with disabilities, violates the First Amendment rights of educators and students, and is vague and ambiguous under the United States and New Hampshire Constitutions. The lawsuit was brought by the state’s largest educator union, National Education Association – New Hampshire (NEA-NH), four school districts (Oyster River Cooperative School District, the Dover School District, the Somersworth School District, and the Grantham School District), trainer and consultant for diversity, equity, and inclusion James M. McKim, Jr., diversity, equity, and inclusion administrator and psychology professor Dottie Morris, and New Hampshire Outright, a nonprofit that provides training in public schools and entities on creating environments of inclusion and belonging for LGBTQ+ students. They are represented by lawyers from a broad coalition of organizations and law firms, including the ACLU of New Hampshire, the national ACLU’s Disability Rights Program and Racial Justice Program, National Education Association-New Hampshire (NEA-NH), GLBTQ Legal Advocates & Defenders (GLAD Law), and Drummond Woodsum & MacMahon. The law does not just seek to prohibit diversity, equity, and inclusion in public entities and public schools, but it also seeks to strip away millions of dollars in critical state (and possibly federal) public funding if K-12 public school districts guess wrong as to how the New Hampshire Department of Education interprets the vague law’s provisions. According to one estimate, state aid to school districts could amount to more than $1 billion annually. The law is already arbitrarily and selectively being enforced by the state Department of Education, which is aggressively applying it to private (including religious) colleges and universities that receive student scholarship funds through state grant aid programs (like UNIQUE Program state grants and the Governor’s Scholarship), but apparently not private K-12 schools (including religious schools) that receive public funds through Education Freedom Accounts. The law also applies to private colleges and universities (for example, Dartmouth College, Southern New Hampshire University, and Saint Anselm College) that receive any form of state funding, including those that receive state scholarship grants that help New Hampshire residents attend these colleges. The lawsuit also raises concerns about how this law could impact school districts’ federally-mandated collection of demographic data, including racial and ethnic groups, in New Hampshire. As the law was still making its way through the legislative process, disability rights advocates expressed clear concerns that essential services, programs, and trainings aimed at helping the lives of people with disabilities could be dismantled by the law. The legislature failed to address these concerns in the final bill language that was ultimately signed into law. This lawsuit follows several others filed in New Hampshire challenging anti-equity practices in education, including a 2021 lawsuit against a classroom censorship law that was struck down in federal court in May 2024, and one lawsuit filed on March 5, 2025 in New Hampshire by the ACLU of New Hampshire, national ACLU, NEA, and NEA-NH against the U.S. Department of Education. These practices were halted by the court in April 2024. On September 4, 2025, the Court issued a temporary restraining order enjoining enforcement of the law until September 18. The temporary restraining order covers the four plaintiff school districts (Oyster River Cooperative School District, Dover School District, Somersworth School District, and the Grantham School District), as well as any other “public school” defined under the law (which includes colleges and universities) that employs, contracts with, or works with plaintiffs NEA-NH or its members, consultant and trainer James T. McKim, educator Dottie Morris, or New Hampshire Outright. The order also covers any other public school district that provides services to a student of the four plaintiff school districts under civil rights laws protecting students with disabilities.