Lawmakers debate law that could restrict what can be taught in SC classrooms
COLUMBIA, S.C. (WCSC) - Now that the state legislative session is over, lawmakers are meeting this week to work on a bill that could restrict what can and cannot be taught in schools across South Carolina.
While state law required the state’s General Assembly to end is legislative session for the year by 5 p.m. Thursday, all of the work wasn’t done. That includes a bill called the Transparency and Integrity in Education Act, which was passed in both the House and the Senate last year, but in different versions.
The bill sat inactive for nearly a year waiting for negotiators to take it up to determine what will be in the final version of the bill they send to the governor. They finally met this week.
“A lot of work has taken place on both sides to try to get us this far,” Senate Education Committee Chair Greg Hembree, R-Horry, said.
The two chambers agree about most of the legislation. Among its provisions, it would ban teaching concepts including one race, sex, ethnicity, color, or national origin is inherently superior to another; and that people are responsible for other actions committed in the past by members of their same race or sex.
“We don’t need overt politics and ideological indoctrination on students, especially when we’re undermining a parent’s worldview and beliefs,” Rep. Adam Morgan, R-Greenville, said. “We don’t need that in our schools.”
The bill states it does not ban the fact-based discussion or instruction of controversial aspects of history or current events or about the historical oppression of a particular group of people based on race, ethnicity, religion, sex, et cetera.
“Opinion is not the place to go in a classroom,” House Education and Public Works Chair Shannon Erickson, R-Beaufort, said. ”If they take that to heart and they really teach facts, then this law will never affect anything they do.”
But Democrats uniformly opposed the bill and reiterated they’re concerned this could lead to censorship in the classroom and a chilling effect on teachers.
“History is sometimes a matter of who’s telling the story,” Sen. Darrell Jackson, D-Richland, said.
There are still a few disagreements that need to be settled, among them, deciding *who can bring about a lawsuit if they disagree with a ruling about appropriate materials and curricula and when they could do that.
The conference committee hasn’t quite wrapped up its negotiations yet.
So despite Thursday being the last day of the regular legislative session they will continue their work when lawmakers return here next month for the start of a special session.
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