Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall joined a 17-state amicus brief written in support of South Carolina’s Department of Education as the state takes on a civil rights lawsuit concerning how topics involving race and sex are taught.
The case was filed in January against South Carolina’s Superintendent of Education Ellen Weaver and two local school districts. Plaintiffs include the South Carolina Conference of the NAACP, several South Carolina students, as well as, a teacher, and a school librarian from the state and author Dr. Ibram X. Kendi.
Those leading the lawsuit have argued a one-year budget proviso, passed by the state’s legislature last year, which limits how race and sex may be addressed in public school classrooms violates the First Amendment.
Among other requirements, the proviso provides that no funds allocated to schools by the state’s department of education shall be used to teach that “meritocracy or traits such as hard work ethic are racist or sexist, or were created by members of a particular race to oppress members of another race” or that, “an individual, by virtue of his race or sex, is inherently racist, sexist, or oppressive, whether consciously or unconsciously.”
Marshall’s office described the proviso, in a Friday press release, as an attempt “to bar public schools from indoctrinating children into racially or sexually divisive ideologies.”
“Public schools are funded by the public to serve the public’s interest. But as elected officials in Alabama, South Carolina, and elsewhere have recognized, many of these schools have been using taxpayer dollars to indoctrinate children in divisive and destructive radical ideologies,” Marshall said. “States have the constitutional authority to put a stop to that sort of indoctrination.”
Alongside Marshall, attorneys general from South Carolina, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Iowa, Kansas, Louisiana, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Texas, Utah and West Virginia have signed the brief to the U.S. District Court for the District of South Carolina’s Columbia Division.
In their letter to the court, the attorneys general argued the state’s budgetary provision does not ban access to contested materials altogether, simply the material’s presence in public schools.
“A citizen’s right to receive information under the First Amendment is not a right to compel or extract information from the government at the taxpayers’ expense,” the attorneys general wrote. “Accordingly, there is no First Amendment right to compel state-funded schools to implement certain course curricula or require public school libraries to stock their bookshelves with inflammatory and prejudicial materials.”
The attorneys general asked the court to deny the plaintiff’s motion for a preliminary injunction and dismiss the case.
In a January statement announcing the case, President of the South Carolina State Conference of the NAACP Brenda Murphy argued the proviso would discourage discussion and teaching in the classroom on the history of racism.
“The State’s Budget Proviso 1.79 is a grave disservice to South Carolina students—an egregious attempt to erase the history, heritage, and lived experiences of Black communities from classrooms, despite their overwhelming role in shaping the very fabric of our state,” Murphy said.
“Let’s be clear: political attempts to distort history and truth only perpetuate ignorance, division, and hate,” she continued. “This censorship measure poses a significant, chilling threat to comprehensive education for all students at a time where the teaching of cultural understanding and inclusivity in our classrooms is needed more than ever.”
Kendi similarly argued the budget item would have a chilling effect on public school educators teaching their students about institutional racism.
“It is my duty to join this lawsuit as a voracious reader who believes in the freedom to read, as an antiracist author who believes we should all be learning about the history of racism not banning books about it, and as a historian who has documented when South Carolina enslavers and segregationists banned books about abolition and civil rights,” the author said.
A court hearing to decide whether plaintiffs will be granted a preliminary injunction is set for July 30 at Matthew J. Perry, Jr. Courthouse in Columbia, South Carolina.
