South Carolina school district ordered to slash CRT curriculum after GOP lawsuit

A South Carolina school district will remove unlawful critical race theory from its curriculum after a South Carolina Freedom Caucus lawsuit.

A Tuesday settlement agreement between the state Freedom Caucus and Lexington County School District One requires the district to terminate its contract with EL Education after an employee was caught describing how to circumvent South Carolina’s anti-CRT law, the Freedom Caucus said in a press release.

South Carolina has a budget stipulation which prohibits critical race theory-derived ideas through the school funding process.

The settlement in the Lexington Court of Common Pleas requires the Lexington district, which contains 31 schools and more than 28,000 students, to fully comply with all South Carolina laws prohibiting CRT instruction and training for students, teachers, and other staff. 

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“The terms of this settlement agreement show Lexington School District One was caught red-handed peddling the Left’s pernicious, racist nonsense,” South Carolina Freedom Caucus vice chairman RJ May said. “This is a win for the Freedom Caucus, for parents, but most importantly, this is a win for students who will no longer be subjected to radical, liberal indoctrination by the District.”

In October, the South Carolina Freedom Caucus obtained a five-minute recording of Tarika Sullivan, a professional development specialist for EL Education, saying the education non-profit has “allies” and “co-conspirators” who are willing to teach outlawed CRT concepts “even if [they] get in trouble.”

Sullivan touted the tenets of CRT, including “culturally relevant pedagogy” and considering what “parts of your identity are privileged.” EL Education works with a number of South Carolina schools in developing curriculum that “goes against mainstream teaching,” she said. 

“Antiracism” is “at the core” of EL Education’s curriculum, its website says. 

Freedom Caucus chairman Adam Morgan said the caucus will continue fighting for parents, teachers, and students. The Freedom Caucus is part of an ongoing lawsuit with the Charleston County School District for also teaching suspected CRT-derived ideas.

“Career politicians, afraid to take on the teacher unions and education establishment, gaslit parents across South Carolina when we filed this lawsuit by claiming CRT wasn’t in our classrooms,” Morgan said. 

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The Lexington County district’s curriculum includes several books which promote critical race theory, according to the Freedom Caucus’ 31-page complaint. 

Students read “This Book is Anti-Racist” by Tiffany Jewell, which teaches children that “if you are white,” one automatically has “internalized racial superiority,” and “The Black Friend: On Being a Better White Person,” which states, “We have a White people problem.” 

Teachers in the district have also conducted “privilege tests,” in which White students were separated across a room from “oppressed” minority students, the Freedom Caucus complaint says. 

“Despite the naysayers, the Freedom Caucus persevered, and won,” Morgan said. “It’s time for our moderate Republican colleagues to support the conservative values the SCFC is championing.”

Lexington County School District One released a statement claiming it conducted an internal review of the EL Education curriculum and found no violations of state law but pursued the settlement to avoid a lengthy legal battle.

EL Education did not respond to Fox Digital’s request for comment by time of publication. 

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