South Carolina Attorney General Alan Wilson has announced his leadership in a 17-state effort to support state lawmakers in excluding racially or sexually divisive materials from public schools. This initiative follows the South Carolina legislature’s passage of a budget proviso, which restricts the use of state funds for instructional materials that promote racial or sexual superiority or inherent racism, sexism, or oppression.
“Our schools are supposed to be places of learning and collaboration, not indoctrination into woke ideologies that assign blame or condemnation based on race or sex,” stated Attorney General Wilson.
A lawsuit challenging this proviso was filed by the South Carolina NAACP, two authors, a teacher, and several students. They argue it infringes on their First Amendment rights. In response, attorneys general have submitted a friend-of-the-court brief supporting lawmakers’ discretion over educational content in public schools.
The brief argues that “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.” It further states there is no obligation for state-funded schools to adopt specific curricula or include certain books in libraries if deemed inflammatory and prejudicial.
The attorneys general maintain that while access to such information isn’t restricted outside public schools, it should not be provided at taxpayer expense within them. They urge the Court to reject the plaintiffs’ request for an injunction and dismiss their case due to unlikely success on First Amendment grounds.
Attorney General Wilson is joined by counterparts from Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Louisiana, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Texas, Utah, and West Virginia in this legal action.
