By rssfeeds-admin South Carolina Attorney General Alan Wilson (R-South Carolina) is asking a federal judge to dismiss a lawsuit filed by the South Carolina NAACP, which challenges a one-year budget proviso passed by the state legislature.
The proviso, added by the General Assembly in the state’s budget, limits how race and sex can be addressed in public school classrooms.
“This case is about protecting students from being exposed to divisive or politically driven material,” Wilson explained. “My job is to represent parents and children and protect them from having this type of curriculum taught in public schools.”
The lawsuit, filed by the NAACP, a teacher, two authors, and several students, said the proviso violates First Amendment rights. They said that it specifically targets the rule that bans the use of state funds to teach that one race or sex is inherently superior to another, or that someone is inherently oppressive based on their race or sex.
In a statement earlier this year, Brenda Murphy, president of the South Carolina State Conference of the NAACP, said the policy is a “grave disservice to South Carolina students… an attempt to erase history, heritage, and the lived experiences of Black communities.”
House Minority Leader Todd Rutherford (D-74), who is also representing the NAACP in the lawsuit, voted for the overall state budget, even with the proviso included.
He said it’s common for lawmakers to support the budget as a whole, despite disagreeing with certain provisions.
“There’s a lot in the budget, you can’t just vote against the whole thing for one little item. Well, you could, but those are ideologues, and that never goes anywhere,” he said.
Both Rutherford and Wilson said they’re standing firm, though for very different reasons.
“We need to get out of this woke, leftist ideological indoctrination that so many people are trying to push on our children,” Wilson said.
“To suggest that whitewashing history is the way we should go has to be stopped, and if a lawsuit is the way to do it, then so be it,” said Rutherford.
Wilson was joined by Attorneys General from 16 other states in defending the proviso through a joint legal brief.
A federal judge is scheduled to hear arguments in the case July 31 in Columbia.
Discover more from RSS Feeds Cloud
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.