South Carolinians may see new restrictions on how teachers can talk about race in the classroom, as the Republican-controlled state Senate passed a bill late Wednesday night that would allow parents to “challenge any educational materials they say violate banned teachings around white privilege and implicit bias.”
The bill is now back in the hands of the state House, which also has a Republican majority. Although there is no CRT-specific language, it does prevent teachers from instructing that someone “bears responsibility for actions committed in the past” and that an individual “is inherently privileged or should receive ‘adverse or favorable treatment’ due to their race.”
Shane Massey, the South Carolina Senate Majority Leader, “said the bill encourages educators to teach students about slavery and Jim Crow, but within the historical facts,” expounding in a statement that “H.3728 keeps the subjective opinion of those who want to rewrite American History from creeping into South Carolina’s schools.”
Whereas opponents of this bill, such as Democratic state senator Dick Harpootlian question who is the determiner of these “facts.” The 74-year-old white senator recognizes that he and his Black contemporaries who grew up and saw segregation, might not have the same shared experience or “facts,” stating “When I think back on the 50s and 60s, and my history of growing up in Charlotte, North Carolina, the facts I know are not necessarily the facts you know.”
This bill, which also would “ban any mandated gender or sexuality trainings and require that materials be ‘age appropriate’” was debated for almost six hours.
Ironically, the bill passed the Senate on the same date that South Carolina’s Negro Act of 1740 passed, which made it illegal for enslaved African people to learn to read, move freely, assemble in groups, earn money, and grow their own food.
The bill’s proponents argue that this bill increases transparency and gives parents better insight into what their children are being taught and learning while at school; however, their adversaries contend that it “amounts to burdensome surveillance that would increase the stressors on a profession already experiencing record vacancies.”
“We ought not give those who would weaponize legislation like this the power and authority,” said Democratic state senator Ronnie Sabb.
This is yet the latest development within the Republican Party as they prepare for the presidential primary next year. One only has to look at the bills advancing through GOP controlled state legislatures to see that education issues, and specifically critical race theory (CRT) in schools, has vaulted to the top.
This “messaging casts Republicans as defenders of parents who feel that schools have run amok with ‘wokeness.’” Former South Carolina governor Nikki Haley, who already announced her bid for the nominee even tweeted out in advance of her announcement, that “CRT is un-American.”