South Carolina public school librarians and students initiated a legal challenge on October 7 against the state’s policy on banned books and a memorandum regarding classroom materials.

The lawsuit is directed at Regulation 43-170, which prohibits materials depicting sexual conduct from being present in public schools from kindergarten through 12th grade, and a memorandum issued by Superintendent Ellen Weaver that limits specific educational topics.

Filed by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of South Carolina, the lawsuit is brought forth in the U.S. District Court for the District of South Carolina representing the South Carolina Association of School Librarians and three minor public school students.

According to ACLU attorney Sam Kennedy, “Books containing descriptions of sexual conduct are automatically removed from schools. This subject endangers two librarians to potential punishment from a due process perspective. It’s challenging to define what exactly constitutes a description of sexual conduct. Does merely mentioning an occurrence of sex qualify? What level of detail is obligatory? At which point does the regulation get breached?”

ACLU attorney Sam Kennedy said the librarians felt something needed to be done to protect their ability to their jobs without fear of repercussions.

Sam Kennedy further clarified, “The perception that librarians or schools are distributing pornography is misguided. The reality is that all library books undergo rigorous evaluation by highly educated professionals dedicated to determining suitable library materials. While parental concerns about children’s reading material are valid, the solution is not to blanket-ban books for every student in South Carolina. Instead, it involves parents discussing content with their children.”

Implemented by Weaver in June 2024, Regulation 43-170 has led to the banning or restriction of 22 books throughout the state, as reported by PEN America.

In addition to the 22 books removed or restricted statewide, the ACLU says in a release: “Local interpretations of Regulation 43-170 have sown chaos and confusion among school employees. The regulation has also been cited as the justification for the following restrictions on students’ freedom to receive information: 

• Some teachers across the state have stopped keeping classroom libraries after a clause in Regulation 43-170 required them to catalog all books held in their classrooms. 
• Under what the lawsuit describes as “a culture of fear among school librarians,” some school librarians have stopped purchasing fiction books for their collections and have begun preemptively removing books that they worry might be challenged. 
• The Berkeley County School District blocked student access to Discus, a free online education and research collection provided by the State Library. After public outcry, the district restored access for high school students only at the start of the 2025-2026 school year. 
• The Beaufort County School District has restricted access to nine additional books that now require parental permission for a student to access them, including The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison, The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini, and The Freedom Writers Diary by Erin Gruwell. Some of these books are routinely assigned in Advanced Placement courses. 
• Districts including the Fort Mill School District have removed or restricted student access to county libraries’ digital collections via the Sora application rather than risk the possibility that students might access materials that describe “sexual conduct.” 

The lawsuit also challenges a memorandum issued by the Superintendent back in March 14 that requires state employees to “indoctrinate students according to the superintendent’s views on sex, gender, race, and American exceptionalism.”

The memo prohibits 14 ideas and concepts from S.C. Department of Education materials, including “implicit bias,” “restorative justice,” “cisgender,” and “social-emotional learning,”.

“(The memo) Provides this non-exhaustive list of concepts that can’t be in any SCDE materials anymore,” Kennedy said. “It’s hard to get vaguer than an exhaustive list, so educators don’t know where to draw the line. It seems like anything that contradicts Superintendent Weaver’s views about sex or race could be added to that list. And as a result, they’re worried they’re going to be punished if they don’t comply.”

The lawsuit argues that the superintendent’s actions violate the First and Fourteenth Amendments to the U.S. Constitution.

7NEWS reached out to the SC Department of Education for a response to the lawsuit, but has not received a statement at this time.