AP African American Studies vs. DeSantis

A few months ago, the NGP Blog wrote an article on Florida Governor Ron DeSantis's feud with Disney. Last March, Gov. Desantis signed legislation prohibiting classroom instruction about sexual orientation and gender identity in certain elementary school grades. Because Disney openly opposed it, Gov. DeSantis attempted to revoke Disney World’s special tax status. This year, Gov. DeSantis has started another feud, but this time with the College Board’s AP African American Studies course.

The AP African American Studies course, written by college faculty and teachers, was made to explore the contributions of African Americans throughout American history. The class was in development for the past decade but was formally announced to the public in August 2022. The pilot program is to be launched in 60 high schools across the country, and all schools should be able to offer the course by the 2024-2025 school year.

When the original framework for the AP African American Studies course was released in January, the press secretary for Gov. DeSantis said the state education department reviewed it for “corrections and compliance with Florida law.” On January 12th, the Florida Department of Education sent a letter to the College Board, taking issue with six topics in the proposed readings and curriculum. Some of these topics included "Black Feminist Literary Thought," reparations, and "Black Study and the Black Struggle in the 21st Century."

One of the topics that troubled Gov. DeSantis the most was "Movements for Black Lives,” which included the movement to eliminate prisons and jails. "How is that being taught as fact?" DeSantis said to CBS News. "And I also think it's not fair to say that somehow abolishing prisons is somehow linked to, like, Black experience, that's what Black people want. I don't think that's true at all.  I think they want law and order just like anybody else wants law and order," he said. "That is more of ideology being used under the guise of history. That's what our standards for Black history are.” 

Gov. DeSantis has been known to combat what he believes is “indoctrination” in Florida public schools. His “Stop Woke” Act sets limits on how issues on race may be taught in the classroom, and the aforementioned “Don’t Say Gay” bill “bans any instruction involving sexual orientation or gender identity in the earliest grades and says beyond that it must be ‘age appropriate.’"

After heavy criticism from Gov. Ron DeSantis, the College Board released a new official curriculum– ridding much of the material that he spoke out against– on February 1st, the first day of Black History Month. According to the New York Times, “The College Board purged the names of many Black writers and scholars associated with critical race theory, the queer experience, and Black feminism.” 

Gov. DeSantis’ influence across the country is widespread. Since his banning of the course, 4 states are planning to review it as well.

Writers of the curriculum continue to argue many of the claims against the course are untrue. In an interview with NPR, Christopher Tinson, the chair of the African American Studies department at Saint Louis University, said, "There's nothing particularly ideological about the course except that we value the experiences of African people in the United States.”

In a guest essay by John McWhorter for The New York Times, he argued that Gov. DeSantis posed a valid argument against the course.  “This is not education but advocacy,” he wrote. “And in no sense does racism mean that the difference has no meaning. The key issue is the difference between opinions that are considered and debated and opinions that are mostly uncontested and perhaps considered uncontestable — essentially opinions that are treated as if they were facts.” He concluded by saying, “I hate having to say that in this case, DeSantis, of all people, was probably right.”

Kiran Yeh is a junior and Law and Society major at Brooklyn Technical High School and a Next Gen Civic Fellow. Kiran is the Managing Editor in her school’s newspaper, The Survey, and has written for other publications previously. She has been involved in political campaigns and is most interested in writing articles regarding politics.