Partisan Bills Cannot Prevent Partisanship in Education

Written Testimony for the South Carolina Education and Public Works Committee, March 1, 2022

I am cognizant of the interrelatedness of all communities and states. I cannot sit idly by in Atlanta and not be concerned about what happens in Birmingham. Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly. Never again can we afford to live with the narrow, provincial "outside agitator" idea. Anyone who lives inside the United States can never be considered an outsider anywhere within its bounds.

-“Letter from Birmingham Jail,” Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

(King’s “Letter from Birmingham Jail” is a piece of writing that, under the current language in some of the bills discussed below, would be difficult to legally teach in South Carolina, interested as it is in causing discomfort in order to push for change.)

The following is closely adapted from written testimony provided to the South Carolina Education and Public Works Committee, which is…