Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders signs an education overhaul bill into law on March 8, 2023, at the state Capitol in Little Rock, Ark. (AP Photo/Andrew DeMillo, File)

Several schools in Arkansas have announced they will continue to offer AP African American Studies classes after the state’s Department of Education planned to drop the class and implied that it supports “opinions” and “indoctrination.”

Last week, the Department of Education said that the course may violate the LEARNS Act, a new education reform law signed by Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders (R) in March. That law mostly deals with increasing the wages for teachers and providing financial incentives for charter and home schooling. But one provision deep in the 145-page-long law aims to outlaw alleged indoctrination and critical race theory, which the department says AP African American Studies violates.

In defiance to the Department’s action, all six schools in the state that offer the course — Little Rock School District’s Central High, North Little Rock High School, Jacksonville High, the Academies at Jonesboro, North Little Rock Center for Excellence and eStem Public Charter High School — announced they will continue to offer the course at its typical grading scale. Additionally, the charter school eStem announced that it would not only continue to offer the class, but also award an award called the Medal of Historical Pursuit to students who complete the class.

The Education Department responded on Friday by saying the course would not count toward graduation credit, just days before the school year starts. Sanders’ former Democratic gubernatorial opponent Chris Jones predicted that there will be lawsuits after the Education Department’s actions.

Prior to getting elected governor in 2022, Sanders served as then President Donald Trump’s press secretary from 2017 to 2019.