Another Crusade Against "Diversity" in Education

A bill that can't even define basic terms moves forward in the SC House.

Yesterday, the South Carolina House passed the anti- “diversity, equity, and inclusion” bill H. 4289 to second reading. (Update: it was subsequently sent to the Senate.)

But the bill never defines what it is banning, and proponents seemed unable to agree on exactly what it is supposed to accomplish.

Based on multiple comments by legislators throughout the meeting, H. 4289 seems to have been shaped heavily by South Carolina “Freedom Caucus” members Adam Morgan and Josiah Magnuson, along with Rep. Tim McGinnis. Its language hews close to a few paragraphs in Section 2 of a model bill from the far-right Manhattan Institute, entitled “Abolish DEI Bureaucracies and Restore Colorblind Equality in Public Universities,” which, according to the endnotes, was “developed in close cooperation with the National Association of Scholars,” another far-right organization, and the source of much of South Carolina’s previous censorship legislation. (I wrote about this in more detail here.) Like many of …