House Bill 1012 creates more questions than answers and leaves South Dakota educators and administrators with the burden of navigating exactly what it means to comply with this law. It opens the door for a wide range of interpretations that could be used to chill free speech and academic freedom.

The ACLU of South Dakota opposed House Bill 1337. The First Amendment protects academic freedom and the right to share ideas, including the right of individuals to receive information and knowledge.

House Bill 1012 is poorly written and lacks clarity, opening the door for a wide range of interpretations that could be used to chill free speech and academic freedom, discouraging open and honest discussions about systemic racism in classrooms and in school communities.

House Bill 1012 and House Bill 1337 would censor academic discussions in classrooms on South Dakota college campuses and K-12 public schools.

Lawmakers shouldn’t attempt to censor South Dakota classrooms. But that’s exactly what’s happening with House Bill 1012 and House Bill 1337, both of which were advanced by the House Education Committee today.

The ACLU of South Dakota will be monitoring a wide variety of bills and will focus on three main issue areas: abortion access and reproductive freedom, defending free speech and opposing classroom censorship, and LGBTQ+ and Two Spirit equality.

Whether you’re for a specific bill or against it, there’s plenty of work to do, calls to make, letters to write, legislative coffees and cracker barrels to attend.

Instead of encouraging learning, Gov. Noem’s proposed legislation effectively gags educators and students from talking about issues of the most profound national importance, such as the impact of systemic racism and sexism in our society.

The removal of recommended OSEU and Native American topics from the content standards deprives students of their right to receive information and ideas and racially discriminates or has the effect of racially discriminating against Native Americans in South Dakota.