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The South Carolina Legislature has approved a measure -- signed into law by Governor Nikki Haley, a Republican -- that will require the College of Charleston and the University of South Carolina Upstate to spend $70,000 teaching works related to the founding of the United States. The measure is designed to punish the colleges for assigning gay-themed books last year. The measure is being called a "compromise" because initial versions of the legislation simply stripped the $70,000 (the cost of the gay-themed books used for first year programs) from the budgets of the colleges.
But a coalition of academic and civil liberties groups -- including the American Association of University Professors and the Modern Language Association -- issued a statement on Saturday denouncing the measure. "The provision is ostensibly a compromise, replacing a previous version in the House to cut funding in amounts to reflect the cost of the books," the statement says. "The version enacted poses exactly the same concerns as the initially proposed cuts: it represents unwarranted political interference with academic freedom and undermines the integrity of the higher education system in South Carolina. The history of the legislative debate makes it 100 percent clear that the legislature’s primary concern is to force schools to eliminate educational content that some legislators dislike, or risk financial penalties."
