Columbia, South Carolina – South Carolina Attorney General Alan Wilson is pointing to a federal appeals court ruling from Oklahoma as a victory in a wider fight over what states can restrict in public-school classrooms.
Wilson’s office announced Sept. 16 that the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals had sided with Oklahoma in litigation involving a law that bars K-12 school employees from teaching several race- and s*x-related concepts as correct principles. The Attorney General’s Office characterized the decision as a victory over what Wilson calls “woke ideology” in education.
The case centers on Oklahoma H.B. 1775, which became law in 2021. Among eight listed concepts, the statute says school employees may not make part of a course the idea that one race or s*x is inherently superior to another, that a person’s moral character is necessarily determined by race or s*x, or that someone bears responsibility for past actions committed by other members of the same race or s*x.
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A lower court had temporarily blocked enforcement of several portions of the law after finding that challengers were likely to succeed on some claims that the language was unconstitutionally vague. The 10th Circuit disagreed with that conclusion, vacated the preliminary injunction and sent the case back for further proceedings.
The appeals court said the statute should be read as prohibiting educators from teaching the listed concepts as correct principles, rather than preventing discussion of them in historical or other contexts. The court did not decide the challengers’ separate First Amendment claim because it found that it lacked appellate jurisdiction over that portion of the dispute.
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Wilson led an 18-state friend-of-the-court brief supporting Oklahoma. South Carolina was joined by Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Louisiana, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, North Dakota, Ohio, South Dakota, Tennessee and Texas.
“Our schools are supposed to be places of learning and collaboration, not indoctrination into woke ideologies that assign blame or condemnation based on race or s*x,” Wilson stated.
His office said the Oklahoma dispute follows a similar legal battle in South Carolina involving restrictions on using state education funds for instructional materials teaching comparable race- and s*x-based concepts. Wilson has previously defended that South Carolina provision in federal court.
The South Carolina Attorney General’s Office has published additional information about the multistate brief and the Oklahoma case.
