Lexington County GOP censures school board chair over racism lesson plan in school

The chair of the Lexington-Richland 5 school board has been censured by the Lexington County Republican Party over a lesson plan on racism at Chapin High School.

The party’s executive committee voted unanimously Monday to censure Rebecca Blackburn Hines after a Chapin High School teacher added the book “Between the World and Me” by Ta-Nehisi Coates to her advanced placement language arts course.

That lesson plan was halted by school administrators in February after some students complained the lesson plan violated a state ban on the teaching of divisive racial concepts. But the county GOP still censured Hines for “failing to uphold the County and State Republican Party policies opposing Critical Race Theory Instruction in schools,” the party said in a media release.

The State reached out to Hines for comment on the party’s action, but had not heard back before publication.

The school board is a non-partisan office, but the party release notes that Hines is a Republican precinct president. She also ran in the Republican primary for a seat in the State House last year.

The party said Hines “failed to attempt to enact policy or attempt to enact disciplinary actions” even as community members and other school board members called for action in response to the lesson plan.

“The amount of involved GOP members within District Five who wanted to take action with Chairwoman Blackburn Hines was enormous and the executive committee took action,” said party chairwoman Pamela Godwin in a statement. “Our county party doesn’t stand aside for long before they take action.”

Multiple speakers at a June 26 school board meeting spoke out against the lesson plan following a story in The State. Hines said at the time that that board members are tasked with setting overall policy for the district and are unable to publicly discuss the individual lesson plans of specific teachers.

But the board directed Superintendent Akil Ross to present possible revisions to the district’s policies around the use of controversial materials in the classroom that board members could discuss at their next scheduled meeting on July 17.

The S.C. Legislature passed a one-year budget proviso for the 2022-23 school year that prohibited state money from being spent to teach various ideas related to race. The ban included teachings that conveyed “an individual, by virtue of his race or sex, is inherently racist, sexist or oppressive,” “bears responsibility for actions committed in the past by other members of the same race or sex,” or that “an individual should feel discomfort, guilt, anguish, or any other form of psychological distress on account of his race or sex.”

The proviso was passed to combat supposed “critical race theory” in South Carolina schools. Critical race theory is an academic framework for studying how the development of laws and public policy contribute to racial inequity. The theory is normally used in high-level university courses, but critics have applied the term to almost any discussion of race or racism in K12 schools.