$52,000 is being withdrawn from the College of Charleston for the book Fun Home, a New York Times bestseller by Alison Bechdel, which looks at her coming out as lesbian and growing up with a closeted gay father. The book was selected as part of the College Reads! program, a campus-wide reading program.

Legislators said they were concerned that students reading the books were being subjected to only one view. One of the lawmakers who voted to remove the money, State Rep. Garry Smith, a Republican, told the Columbia State that to make a point to the colleges he had to "make it hurt."

Smith told The Post and Courier that Fun Home "graphically shows lesbian acts" and that the college was "promoting the gay and lesbian lifestyle" by choosing the book.

"I understand academic freedom, but this is not academic freedom... This was about promoting one side with no academic debate involved," Smith said.

Smith's fellow budget committee panel member, State Rep. Gilda Cobb-Hunter, did not support the budget cuts and accused her colleagues of micromanaging students. “[We] need to stop running a dictatorship forcing people to believe what we believe. This is a wide, wide world,” Cobb-Hunter said. USC Upstate officials said the decision was "disheartening," according to the Spartanburg Herald-Journal.

The withdrawal of state funds actually punishes students the lawmakers are trying to protect, said Tammy Whaley, assistant vice chancellor for university communications at USC Upstate, which has seen a near 50 percent reduction in state funding since 2008. The College of Charleston has also responded to the controversy and say they plan to look at a much larger number of books for their next reading lists.

South Carolina universities have had a rough week. Apart from the book debacle, a University of South Carolina student piqued the interest of conservative commentators after taking offense at a social work textbook that criticized Ronald Reagan's presidency, and that says conservatives have "a basically pessimistic view of human nature."

This article is from the archive of our partner The Wire.