New Delhi, July 17 -- A federal appeals court ruled Wednesday that Arkansas can enforce its ban on critical race theory in classrooms, ruling the First Amendment doesn't give students the right to compel the state to offer its instruction in public schools.

A three-judge panel of the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals vacated a preliminary injunction issued against the ban, one of several changes adopted under an education overhaul that Republican Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders signed in 2023.

The prohibition is being challenged by two teachers and two students at Little Rock Central High School, site of the 1957 desegregation crisis. A federal judge had granted the injunction to the students but not the teachers.

"Just as ordinary citizen...