CHARLESTON, S.C. (WCIV) — South Carolina’s Superintendent Ellen Weaver is facing a lawsuit challenging Regulation 43-170, which has led to the banning of 22 books from public schools across the Lowcountry.
The regulation prohibits any book containing sexual conduct from being allowed in classrooms, making South Carolina the state with the highest number of banned books.
Sam Kennedy, a staff attorney for the ACLU of South Carolina, represents the teachers and students who filed the lawsuit.
“This regulation is difficult to interpret, which is why our librarian plaintiffs are challenging it,” Kennedy said.
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He argues that the regulation infringes on students’ constitutional rights, particularly their First Amendment right to receive information.
“They want to read certain books, and those books are either banned or being removed from their schools before being challenged,” Kennedy added.
According to Paul Bowers, the director of communications for the ACLU of South Carolina, these bans are not helping students.
“I think there’s a sweeping irony in the notion that these regulations are about protecting kids,” Bowers said. “Students have been some of the most vocal opponents of this regulation. They’ve gone directly to the state superintendent and told her, ‘we don’t want this regulation.'”
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Shortly after the release of Regulation 43-170, a memorandum was published which added topics that will not be discussed in any book or piece of educational literacy, including “discriminatory equity ideology, social transition (gender identity), Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI), and critical race theory.
The South Carolina Department of Education has stated it will “vigorously defend these commonsense policies.”
However, students and educators express frustration. Jamie Gregory, a librarian, noted, “They don’t understand the motivation behind it, because they are students.”
Moms for Liberty supports the restrictions, calling them “common sense” and describing the push for these topics in schools as “vile.”
The consequences for educators or librarians who do not comply with the regulation remain unclear, but the Department of Education warns that schools teaching these topics could risk losing federal funding. Weaver’s office did not respond to requests for comment in time for this report.
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