Arizona’s state law prohibiting government agencies from requiring employees to participate in training that imposes racial, ethnic, or sex-based blame or judgment has been put to the ultimate test. Now, the Arizona Supreme Court must decide whether employees protected by that statute can actually enforce it against unlawful mandates.
The case centers on Arizona State University’s mandatory “Inclusive Communities” training program. ASU required employees to complete instruction covering topics such as “whiteness,” “heteronormativity,” and “transformative justice.” Early versions included quizzes demanding employees select approved answers, including that land acknowledgments are important tools of accountability and that diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) must permeate every aspect of the university.
The training materials addressed concepts like “white privilege,” “white supremacy,” and claims that American institutions normalize racial oppression. One segment featured a Starbucks employee describing an “existential crisis” when Americans could not pronounce her name.
Arizona’s law explicitly states state agencies “may not require an employee” to participate in training presenting “any form of blame or judgment on the basis of race, ethnicity, or sex.” It also prohibits using public funds for such training. This statute is clear and direct—no legal expertise is needed to understand its purpose.
Owen Anderson, a professor of philosophy and religion at Arizona State University and author of The Declaration of Independence and God, has alleged that ASU violated this law. While the merits of his claim remain untested, the Arizona Board of Regents initially argued he could not sue under the statute. A trial court ruled he could bring the case, but the Arizona Court of Appeals reversed that decision. The state Supreme Court has now agreed to hear the matter and framed the question: whether the court of appeals improperly applied Arizona precedent when determining if a statute implies an “implied private right of action.”
The law does not expressly state that employees may sue their employers for violating it. The Board of Regents argues no private cause of action exists, a position adopted by the Court of Appeals. Anderson’s attorneys counter that Arizona law does not end the inquiry there. Under established precedent, statutory silence “begins, rather than ends” the analysis—courts must consider a law’s language, context, purpose, and consequences to determine if an implied private right is created.
The statute was designed to protect state employees from unlawful training mandates. If the very individuals the legislature intended to shield cannot enforce this protection through courts, what has the law actually accomplished? The lawmakers who sponsored the statute supported Anderson’s case in an amicus brief, affirming that employees like him are precisely whom the law was meant to protect.
This case transcends DEI and individual professors. It asks whether a government constrained by law can be trusted when its institutions—like ASU—are empowered to circumvent those very laws without accountability. If Arizona’s future legislature mandates training violating this statute, should employees simply accept that they cannot legally challenge it?
A government bound by law is safer than one that decides for itself whether laws restraining it will ever be enforced. This case forces a fundamental question: When the state violates a law enacted to protect citizens, can those citizens demand courts make it stop? Arizona has already told its agencies, “You may not.” Now we must determine if an employee is allowed to answer, “Then prove it in court.”
