South Carolina Attorney General Alan Wilson is leading a coalition of 18 states in support of Oklahoma’s efforts to restrict certain racially or sexually divisive materials from public school curricula. The group has filed a friend-of-the-court brief with the 10th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals, where Black Emergency Response Team and the Oklahoma NAACP are challenging an Oklahoma law that bans the teaching of specific concepts related to race and sex in K-12 schools.
“I won a lawsuit against a similar law here in South Carolina, and I’m proud to lead this brief in support of Oklahoma’s law,” Attorney General Wilson said. “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 sex.”
The brief argues that the First Amendment protects citizens’ right to free speech but does not guarantee a right to compel others, including government entities, to provide information. The attorneys general reference a decision by the Eighth Circuit, which found that the Free Speech Clause does not require governments to include particular materials or instruction in public school curricula.
The coalition urges the court to uphold Oklahoma’s law. In addition to South Carolina, attorneys general from Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Louisiana, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, North Dakota, Ohio, South Dakota, Tennessee, and Texas have joined the brief.
