South Carolina Independent School Association Explained

The South Carolina Independent School Association (SCISA) is a school accrediting organization. It was founded in South Carolina in 1965 to legitimize segregation academies.^[1] ^[2]

History

SCISA was founded on August 10, 1965 with seven member schools^[3] and provided organizational support to new segregation academies similar to that provided by White Citizens Councils in Mississippi, and had already founded 26 segregation academies by the spring of 1966. Its first executive director was Tom Turnipseed.^[4] Turnipseed admitted that SCISA was founded to support a white-only education system. "We denied it had anything to do with integration, but it did. It was fear. It was racism."^[5] SCISA was founded as a "haven for segregation academies" but by 1990, according to then executive director Larry Watt, the "great majority" of SCISA's then 70 member schools were no longer segregated by race.^[6] Another founder, T.E. Wannamaker also stated that the organization was a response to mass integration and that "Many (Negroes) are little more than field hands."^[7]

Athletics

SCISA governs student athletics for its member institutions.

Structure

SCISA is structured into 3 divisions, based on school population and size of teams. The levels, from smallest population to largest, are A, AA, and AAA. A and AA sports are further split into 2 regions each, while AAA competes without region differences. As recently as 2022, some have described the structure as continuing to perpetuating racial segregation.^[8]

External links

SCISA official website

Notes and References

News: King Day at the Dome: Cotton is King no more. The State. January 18, 2009. Tom Turnipseed. I was the first executive director of the S.C. Independent School Association, formed in 1965 by seven private schools that wanted to share resources, establish more private schools and avoid public-school desegregation. My job was to help local groups of white parents organize private schools so their children would not attend schools desegregated by federal courts. I was a grassroots organizer and helped establish 30 private, segregated academies from 1965 to 1967, mostly in the area now known as the Corridor of Shame..
https://getd.libs.uga.edu/pdfs/blair_monica_k_201505_ma.pdf
Landing on the Wrong Note: The Price We Paid for Brown. Gloria Ladson-Billings. 3–13. 3700092. Educational Researcher. 33. 7. October 2004. 10.3102/0013189x033007003. 144660677.
Book: Winfred B. Moore, Jr.. Orville Vernon Burton. Toward the Meeting of the Waters: Currents in the Civil Rights Movement of South Carolina During the Twentieth Century. 6 January 2013. 15 September 2008. Univ of South Carolina Press. 978-1-57003-755-9. 412.
Web site: Opinion | Deja Vu: Parents in Charge, Tuition Grants, and Choice in Education.
Book: John Egerton. Shades of Gray: Dispatches from the Modern South. 6 January 2013. 1991. LSU Press. 978-0-8071-1705-7. 245–6.
News: Matthews . Jay . A provocative argument on segregation, school choice and shared language . 11 October 2020 . Washington Post . January 24, 2020.
News: Jarrett . Justin . It’s time for SCISA to step into the present . 9 November 2023 . Island News . February 23, 2022 . https://web.archive.org/web/20230329125946/https://yourislandnews.com/its-time-for-scisa-to-step-into-the-present/ . March 29, 2023 . English . Even at schools like Thomas Heyward Academy — which is nicknamed the Rebels and until the mid- 2000s had a mascot who dressed as a Confederate soldier on the sidelines at football games and fired a musket at the opening kickoff — diversity among the student body and on sports rosters increases annually, which can only help to create a more welcoming environment as students interact with more of their peers who come from different backgrounds and have different lived experiences. There are still pockets of the state, though, where SCISA sporting events are disturbingly monochromatic, and that isn’t likely to change soon..