Attorneys argued whether South Carolina students have the constitutional right to any classes they want during a hearing in federal court on July 30, 2025. (File photo by Abraham Kenmore/South Carolina Daily Gazette)
This story first appeared on the South Carolina Daily Gazette.
COLUMBIA, S.C. — Whether South Carolina high school students have a constitutional right to take an advanced course on Black history was the central question in federal court Wednesday.
It was the first hearing on a lawsuit filed in January on behalf of students, educators, an author and the state NAACP that challenges a state law banning eight concepts from classroom lessons. The list of what can’t be taught includes that any race is inherently superior or automatically racist, that anyone is responsible for past atrocities because of their race, that someone’s worth is determined by race, and that traits such as hard work are oppressive and racist.
The concepts have been banned since 2021, when legislators inserted a directive titled “partisanship curriculum” into the state budget. While technically a one-year law, the clause has carried over to every budget since.
Education department officials pointed to the law last summer as among the reasons African American Studies wasn’t included on the state’s roster of Advanced Placement courses for the 2024-25 school year — the course’s inaugural year following a two-year pilot.
The lawsuit doesn’t directly challenge the omission of AP African American Studies, but the class was central to attorneys’ arguments.
NAACP attorney Charles McLaurin asked U.S. District Judge Sherri Lydon to strike the clause from the state budget while the lawsuit plays out. Education department attorney Miles Coleman asked Lydon to dismiss the case entirely, arguing students’ rights aren’t being violated.
Lydon made no decision Wednesday. She said she would decide as soon as possible whether to let the case continue and, if she does, whether to temporarily strike the budget clause.
AP African American Studies
McLaurin argued the state’s decision discriminated against Black students by removing a course showcasing their history.
Attorneys for the state noted some schools still offer an honors course in African American history, and students can still take the end-of-course AP exam to potentially earn college credit.
“There is nothing preventing districts from continuing to offer AP African American Studies as a locally-approved honors course should they choose to do so, in addition to continuing to offer other approved African American courses as districts have already done for a number of years,” reads a June 2024 memo written by Matthew Ferguson, then a deputy state superintendent, to local superintendents.
For students, the differences include dollars and GPA weightings.
The state doesn’t cover AP tests’ $98 cost for courses not on the Department of Education’s roster, meaning either students or their district must pay if they want to pursue college credit. And AP is a step above honors courses in GPA weightings, which matters for students competing for class rank and scholarships.
While AP African American Studies was open to any student in the pilot schools that offered it, the course was especially popular among Black students, NAACP attorney Maia Cole said. Because the classes focused on Black history, removing that option was a form of discrimination against Black students, she said.
In 2022-23, the first year the College Board tested its new AP course, one high school in South Carolina was picked for the pilot. As part of the pilot’s national expansion in 2023-24, 244 students in South Carolina took the AP African American Studies test, according to data from the education agency.
Not giving that option to students statewide once the College Board officially launched the course for 2024-25 violated students’ due process and equal protection rights in the Constitution’s 14th Amendment, according to the lawsuit.
But students don’t necessarily have a constitutional right to learn about specific topics in schools, Coleman said.
Lydon seemed to agree. For instance, if a school decided not to teach students about Martin Luther King Jr.’s famous “I Have a Dream” speech, that would be within the school’s rights, she said.
“That’s a knuckleheaded idea,” Lydon said. “It’s not smart. But they can do it.”
Coleman called the honors course an acceptable alternative for interested students. But McLaurin said the two are “dramatically different,” arguing the AP version is “far more in-depth and far more interdisciplinary.”
Some students also don’t have access to the honors course, which isn’t offered in every district, McLaurin said.
Not all AP courses on the state’s roster are available in every district either. Since 1984, state law has required high schools to offer the college-level courses, which can provide college credit for students who pass the end-of-course test. But which courses are available differs by high school, largely depending on the school’s population and number of teachers. Ten are available online through the state’s Virtual SC program, aimed at providing the opportunity for students in schools where those aren’t offered.
Since the state’s decision on AP African American Studies applied to all students, no single group lost out more than others, Coleman argued.
How much of a role the law actually played in that decision remains unclear, attorneys said.
Other factors, including a scheduled review of the state’s social studies standards, were also part of the considerations last year, Coleman said. He noted President Donald Trump’s executive order in January with similar requirements could affect decisions going forward.
Lydon said striking the budget clause wouldn’t guarantee students the right to enroll in the class.
If she instructed the education department to offer the course code again, school districts would not be obliged to offer the class, and some may decide to wait until the social studies review is complete anyway, she said.
To attorneys on both sides, Lydon asked what the limits might look like: Could schools remove any class with a semblance of controversy around it? Could students indefinitely sue their districts to add whatever classes they wanted to take?
For instance, the same June 2024 memo explaining the state’s decision on AP African American Studies noted the AP pre-calculus course didn’t make the state list either.
Lydon questioned whether siding with the NAACP’s arguments meant she might have to later rule that schools must offer AP pre-calculus as well.
“I may have a lot of cases before me,” Lydon said. “Forever and ever, am I going to have to approve the department’s decisions on social studies?”
The law’s line on students’ feelings
The lawsuit also claimed the budget clause led to the removal of books from lesson plans and school libraries.
Specifically, “Between the World and Me,” by Ta-Nehisi Coates, was removed from a teacher’s curriculum in the Lexington-Richland 5 School District in 2023, and “Stamped: Racism, Antiracism, and You,” by Ibram X. Kendi, was removed from school libraries across the state, the lawsuit claimed.
Coleman argued Kendi, who is named as a plaintiff, had no constitutional right guaranteeing all of his books would be available in public school libraries. A review board cited factual errors as the reason to remove “Stamped,” while allowing other books by Kendi to stay, Coleman said.
Kendi didn’t lose out on money or have his reputation damaged because his book was no longer offered in the libraries, McLaurin said. Instead, his argument was based entirely on his First Amendment right to not have his books removed because of the viewpoint expressed in them, McLaurin said.
Teacher Mary Wood, one of the plaintiffs in the case, faced no real repercussions from the district after being asked to remove “Between the World and Me” from her curriculum, said Edward Bradley, an attorney representing the school district where she teaches. The district has renewed her contract every year since, and while she sat down with administrators to review her lesson plan, she has not faced any formal disciplinary action, he said.
The harm to Wood is primarily to her credibility as a teacher, McLaurin said. The debacle undermined her professional standing to colleagues, students and teachers, and she faced anxiety and fear over whether she might lose her job for breaking state law, he said.
The clause is too vague to actually enforce, McLaurin said.
Of the eight banned concepts, the one cited as the most troublesome says lessons can’t make anyone “feel discomfort, guilt, anguish, or any other form of psychological distress on account of his race or sex.”
Teachers don’t know what lessons may get them in trouble based on students’ feelings, McLaurin said.
Legislators of both parties agreed that line in the budget clause could stifle instruction.
That’s why it was purposefully excluded from legislation that sought to clean up the law while creating a uniform complaint process.
As passed by the Senate in May 2023, the bill specifically protected “historically accurate” discussions on slavery, Reconstruction, the Jim Crow era, segregation, racial lynchings, and any “historical oppression of a particular group of people based on race, sex, ethnicity, class, nationality, religion, or geographic region.”
If the measure had passed, it would have superseded the budget clause.
But opponents who packed hearings argued it would create fear among teachers about what they could teach, censor lessons, and discriminate. They succeeded in killing the bill, which officially died with the end of the 2024 session.
Many perhaps did not realize that what they fought was already state law through the budget. And the bill’s defeat kept that directive intact — with the line on students’ feelings and without clarifications for teachers on what’s allowed.
South Carolina Daily Gazette is part of States Newsroom, a national nonprofit news organization.
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