Another day, another state that doesn’t want to see students learn about history — this time it’s South Carolina. On Wednesday (May 10) evening, Senate members in the Republican-controlled state passed bill H. 3728. The new measure urges parents and legal guardians to “challenge any educational materials they say violate banned teachings around white privilege and implicit bias.”
According to an article updated by Essence today (May 12), the bill also prohibits instructors from teaching students that anyone “bears responsibility for actions committed in the past.” Students also shouldn’t learn that a person “is inherently privileged or should receive ‘adverse or favorable treatment’ due to their race.” Senate Majority Leader Shane Massey said, “H.3728 keeps the subjective opinion of those who want to rewrite American history from creeping into South Carolina’s schools,” per AP.
The outlet noted H.3728 was passed on the same day South Carolina passed the Negro Act of 1740 — a law that stated enslaved African people could not read, assemble in groups, earn money, and other day-to-day liberties. The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) slammed the new bill, saying it “contains harmful provisions that seek to prevent public educators from teaching the full truth of past and present race and gender inequalities in their classrooms, subject our public educators to undue surveillance of their instruction, burden our public educators with unnecessary complaint processes, and risk the loss of a significant amount of state funding for unjustified reasons.”
As previously reported by REVOLT, other states have recently passed similar legislation. Earlier this week, the Florida Department of Education removed teachings of Black Lives Matter and George Floyd from the state’s textbooks. “Social studies has always been the subject area in which students learn present and historical facts,” a Miami-Dade resident said, objecting to the amendment. While H.3728 makes no reference to critical race theory being taught in classrooms, earlier this year, Former South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley tweeted, “CRT is un-American.” She recently announced her bid to run in the 2024 presidential election.
CRT is un-American.
— Nikki Haley (@NikkiHaley) January 30, 2023