{{Use American English|date=November 2023}} {{Use mdy dates|date=November 2023}} The '''South Carolina Independent School Association''' (SCISA) is a school accrediting organization. It was founded in South Carolina in 1965 to legitimize segregation academies.<ref name=kingday>{{cite news|url=http://infoweb.newsbank.com/iw-search/we/InfoWeb?p_action=doc&p_topdoc=1&p_docnum=1&p_sort=YMD_date:D&p_product=AWNB&p_text_direct-0=document_id=%28%20125D2FB6EEF05B80%20%29&p_docid=125D2FB6EEF05B80&p_theme=aggdocs&p_queryname=125D2FB6EEF05B80&f_openurl=yes&p_nbid=P57H59VPMTM0Njk5OTMyOC4xMTgzNzg6MToxMzoxOTIuMTYwLjIxNi4w&&p_multi=COSB|title=King Day at the Dome: Cotton is King no more|publisher=The State|date=January 18, 2009|author=Tom Turnipseed|quote=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.}}{{subscription required}}</ref><ref name=blair>{{Cite web| title=A private history of school segregation in Georgia | first=Monica Kristin | last=Blair | url=https://getd.libs.uga.edu/pdfs/blair_monica_k_201505_ma.pdf | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171110005208/https://getd.libs.uga.edu/pdfs/blair_monica_k_201505_ma.pdf | archive-date=2017-11-10}}</ref>

==History== SCISA was founded on August 10, 1965 with seven member schools<ref>{{cite journal|title=Landing on the Wrong Note: The Price We Paid for Brown|author=Gloria Ladson-Billings|pages=3–13|jstor=3700092|journal=Educational Researcher|volume=33|number=7|date=October 2004|doi=10.3102/0013189x033007003|s2cid=144660677}}{{subscription required}}</ref> 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.<ref name="blair" /> Its first executive director was Tom Turnipseed.<ref name="Jr.Burton2008">{{cite book|author1=Winfred B. Moore, Jr.|author2=Orville Vernon Burton|title=Toward the Meeting of the Waters: Currents in the Civil Rights Movement of South Carolina During the Twentieth Century|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=co2TNDqaDjwC&pg=PA412|accessdate=6 January 2013|date=15 September 2008|publisher=Univ of South Carolina Press|isbn=978-1-57003-755-9|page=412}}</ref> 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."<ref name="blair" /><ref name=DejaVu>{{Cite web|url=https://www.commondreams.org/views/2005/03/21/deja-vu-parents-charge-tuition-grants-and-choice-education|title = Opinion &#124; Deja Vu: Parents in Charge, Tuition Grants, and Choice in Education}}</ref> 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.<ref name="Egerton1991">{{cite book|author=John Egerton|title=Shades of Gray: Dispatches from the Modern South|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=O6YFLYjAgcQC&pg=PA245|accessdate=6 January 2013|year=1991|publisher=LSU Press|isbn=978-0-8071-1705-7|pages=245–6}}</ref> 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."<ref name="WaPo2020">{{cite news |last1=Matthews |first1=Jay |title=A provocative argument on segregation, school choice and shared language |url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/education/a-provocative-argument-on-segregation-school-choice-and-shared-language/2020/01/24/b602691a-3d36-11ea-baca-eb7ace0a3455_story.html |accessdate=11 October 2020 |newspaper=Washington Post |date=January 24, 2020}}</ref>

==Athletics== SCISA governs student athletics for its member institutions. Fall sports include Cheerleading, Cross Country, Football, Swimming, Volleyball, Girls Golf, and Girls Tennis. Winter sports include, Archery, Basketball, Bowling, Scholastic Shooting Sports, and Wrestling. Spring sports include, Baseball, Chess, Equestrian, Golf, Lacrosse, Sailing, Soccer, Softball, Speed and Strength, Track, and Boys Tennis.<ref>{{Cite web |date=2024-11-18 |title=Athletics - South Carolina Independent School Association (SCISA) |url=https://www.scisa.org/athletics.html |access-date=2024-12-10 |website=www.scisa.org |language=en-gb}}</ref>

== Quiz Bowl == SCISA runs a prestigious quiz bowl competition every fall. The 2023 Middle School Quiz Bowl competition, for example, was held in Orangeburg, South Carolina and won by Pinewood Preparatory School.

==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.<ref name="Jarrett">{{cite news |last1=Jarrett |first1=Justin |title=It's time for SCISA to step into the present |url=https://yourislandnews.com/its-time-for-scisa-to-step-into-the-present/ |access-date=9 November 2023 |publisher=Island News |date=February 23, 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230329125946/https://yourislandnews.com/its-time-for-scisa-to-step-into-the-present/ |archive-date=March 29, 2023 |language=English |quote=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.}}</ref>

==References== {{reflist}}

==Further reading== *[https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=rnRJAAAAIBAJ&sjid=RQsNAAAAIBAJ&pg=684,2270549& ''Independent Schools''] Letter to the editor of the News and Courier by Tom Turnipseed, April 11, 1966

==External links== *[http://scisa.org/ SCISA official website]

{{coord missing|South Carolina}}

Category:Private and independent school organizations in the United States Category:Segregation academies in South Carolina Category:Organizations established in 1965