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COLUMBIA — The South Carolina Department of Education is discriminating against Black people’s viewpoints by enforcing a law that bars schools from teaching that any race is inherently superior or automatically racist, claims a federal lawsuit filed Monday.
The lawsuit, filed in Columbia on behalf of the state NAACP, teachers, students and librarians, claims the department and individual schools have removed curriculum and books out of fear of violating the clause that legislators first approved as part of the state budget in 2021. Schools that violate the law risk losing state funding.
Under the law, no state money can go toward the teaching or training of eight banned concepts, which include anyone being responsible for past atrocities because of their race, that someone’s worth is determined by race, and that traits such as hard work are oppressive and racist.
Of the eight, the concept cited as the most troublesome says lessons can’t make anyone “feel discomfort, guilt, anguish, or any other form of psychological distress on account of his race or sex.”
The wording is vague and discriminatory, leading schools and statewide officials to unnecessarily remove history lessons and books by Black authors from shelves, the lawsuit claims.
Legislators of both parties agreed that line in the law could stifle instruction. That’s why it was purposefully excluded from legislation that Republicans said would clean up the law while creating a uniform complaint process.
But that bill ultimately died last June after negotiations between the House and Senate stalled for a year. Then, on the final day of a special session, Senate Democrats refused to accept the compromise, which required supermajority approval, leaving the vague language in place.
Legislators would have to start over if they want to revive the proposal.
The education department remains dedicated to ensuring schools teach “both the tragedies and triumphs” of history, said spokesman Jason Raven.
“This meritless lawsuit does not diminish our dedication, nor does it identify any shortcomings or legal defects,” Raven said in a statement. “The South Carolina Department of Education will continue to seek meaningful opportunities to build bridges across divisions, honor the richness of our shared history, and teach it with integrity, all while ensuring full compliance with state law.”
Education department officials pointed to the law and controversy surrounding it in when it didn’t include African American Studies on the state’s roster of Advanced Placement courses for this school year — the course’s inaugural year following a two-year pilot.
Schools can still offer honors classes on African American history, with the option of taking the end-of-course Advanced Placement test for college credit. Instead of the state paying the $98 fee for the test, though, the cost would fall to the district or student.
It’s unclear why honors African American classes but not the standard Advanced Placement version would be allowed under the law, the lawsuit reads. Two students joined the lawsuit over the AP course.
“This lawsuit simply is to ask the courts to do what’s right to stop the censorship and allow students to hear from their teachers, to learn freely about things like race and gender,” said attorney Tyler Bailey.
School librarians, teachers and administrators have also removed books from classrooms and libraries for fear that they violate the law, the lawsuit claims.
Among those books are “Between the World and Me” by Ta-Nehisi Coates, which was removed from a teacher’s curriculum in the Lexington-Richland 5 School District in 2023, and “Stamped: Racism, Antiracism, and You” by Ibram X. Kendi, which has been removed from school libraries across the state, the lawsuit claims.
Kendi, who a GOP legislator repeatedly quoted during a House floor debate last year, is also a plaintiff in the lawsuit.
Those books and others contain valuable insights into Black culture and history, as well as important information for students to learn, attorneys said.
“We see this as an attack on Black people, history and culture,” said Santino Coleman, an attorney for the Legal Defense Fund, which is representing plaintiffs in the lawsuit.
Teachers and administrators may be overly cautious in enforcing the law because it’s so unclear what it covers, the lawsuit claims.
For instance, some teachers believe they can’t talk about events such as the Holocaust because that would cause students discomfort. Others questioned whether they would be able to talk about pay disparities between men and women because of the inclusion of sex discrimination in the law, the lawsuit reads.
Chapin High School librarian Ayanna Mayes, a plaintiff in the case, found herself unsure of what books might be allowed to remain in the school library, she told reporters Monday. School administrators began monitoring her work much more closely after the law went into effect, she said.
“There is no way to deny that our state and school districts have thwarted mine and my colleagues’ efforts to provide the highest quality education to our students without blatantly calling us liars,” Mayes said.
The lawsuit asks a federal judge to stop the enforcement of the state law, claiming it violates constitutional rights to freedom of speech and equal protection, as well as protections against viewpoint discrimination and selective enforcement of the law.