COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) — The South Carolina House has passed a bill to restrict diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives at public colleges and universities over the objections of Black lawmakers who said they weren’t included in crafting the proposal.
The House’s most conservative wing celebrated the bill passing 84-30 on Wednesday after Republicans voted to limit debate and prevent lawmakers from proposing any more changes.
Democrats said the initiatives commonly called DEI are necessary to make sure schools meet the needs of increasingly diverse student populations — and they called the bill another stand-in for fears of a woke bogeyman. Republicans said DEI programs try to solve problems caused by discrimination with more discrimination.
“Everyone can be treated equally regardless of their background or their beliefs in the state of South Carolina,” said the primary sponsor of the bill Republican Rep. Tim McGinnis of Myrtle Beach.
But Black House members like Rep. Leon Howard said it’s absurd to develop a bill that says everyone will be treated equally without including representation from the people it targets.
“We had no Black people involved in crafting this legislation so y’all don’t know how we feel today. We feel some kind of way about that. We feel offended about that,” said Howard, who has been in the House since 1995.
The Democrat owns his family’s 70-year-old towing business and said he knows racism firsthand as bankers didn’t mind financing a car but balked at signing loans for tow trucks because that could take money out of white businessmen’s pockets.
Howard rose to speak after a speech from Republican Rep. Adam Morgan of Taylors, whose highly conservative Freedom Caucus of about 16 members pushed for the bill after failing to remove state funding for what his group said were DEI projects.
“Discrimination was wrong in the past and it’s wrong in the present,” said…
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