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.

Speaking to The State, Hines said she had not been informed of a possible censure vote before Monday’s meeting, nor had anyone from the county GOP contacted her on Tuesday after the motion was passed.

The Lexington County Republicans responded that Hines was asked to answer a set of submitted questions with a deadline of Monday that “could have avoided a censure,” but that the executive committee had not received a response.

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.”

Hines said the board had reviewed its policies on controversial and outside materials this year, and she made a point in response to the recent controversy to ask Superintendent Akil Ross to present possible revisions to the district’s policies that board members could discuss at their next scheduled meeting on July 17.

“We have had these conversations,” Hines said. “To say we haven’t is just an untrue statement.”

She also said the school board does not initiate disciplinary action against teachers or other employees. Those are matters handled by school administration, and board members would only get involved in a “quasi-judicial” role if a case is referred to them by the superintendent, she said.

“That’s not my role as a trustee,” Hines said of the call to enact discipline against the teacher. “I think some people are uninformed on how this works, is the only way I can respond to that... Being invested in the process is not the same as how I personally feel about a subject, but if you try to get a particular outcome by going about it the wrong way, then it’s just going to be flawed from the start.”

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The Lexington-Richland 5 board was also somewhat hamstrung in reacting to any concerns about classroom instruction, Hines said, because the district was waiting to see what if any new legislation might be passed by the Legislature during this year’s session.

“A lot of it stems from the General Assembly trying to figure out what they’re going to do, and that makes it hard as a school board to govern on a local level.”

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.

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.

“It’s very disappointing to me, that something like this would happen without people actually having the true facts,” Hines said, but added the censure won’t affect how she does her job on the school board. “I try not to engage with folks who refuse to see reason or even engage in a conversation. Those aren’t the values that I stand for.”