The College Board has revised its framework for an advanced placement African American studies course, cutting material that Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ administration said had a left-wing bias.
The College Board and many of the academic experts consulted on the framework insisted they would not cave to political pressure and that revisions were long overdue. But the changes released Wednesday, at the start of Black History Month, make concessions that directly address the concerns of conservatives.
In the course’s revised curriculum, the College Board, a nonprofit organization that oversees the AP program nationwide, removed the names of several black authors identified as problematic by Florida officials.
Earlier this month, state officials announced they had rejected the course due to the six areas of concern – “Black Queer Studies”, “Intersectionality”, “Movement for Black Lives”, “Black Feminist Literary Thought”, “The Reparations Movement” and “Black Struggle in the 21st Century”, and works by Kimberlé W. Crenshaw, bell hooks, Angela Davis and other black authors.
In the revised syllabus for the course, the College Board made substantial revisions to the sections on intersectionality. And a section on the Movement for Black Lives disappeared.
Instead, in a section for suggested research project topics, which contains the caveat that they are “not a required part of the course framework that states formally adopt,” there are suggestions about reparations, the Black Lives Matter movement, and, in a new addition, black conservatism.
The content of the revised syllabus was described in detail to NBC News by David Blight, a professor of history and African-American studies at Yale University. Blight was one of many academics to whom The College Board sent the revised curriculum.
“I am now disappointed to learn that a significant section at the end of this syllabus was removed from an earlier version,” Blight said.
“I support the course as a creation of academic freedom,” he added. “It took a lot of people to create this half-century tradition of African American studies and students in every state… No legislature, governor or school board has the right to just cancel it and get in the way.”
The New York Times first reported on the revised framework.
Throughout the revised syllabus, other changes were made to sections to which Florida officials called attention.
- In addition to the section on the Movement for Black Lives, a section on the “Black Struggle in the 21st Century” has been removed. The core reading suggested in that section, works by author Robin DG Kelley, does not appear at all in the updated version.
- The previous version included a weekly instructional focus on “The Black Feminist Movement, Feminism, and Intersectionality.” In the revised version, intersectionality is mentioned only in the sample project topics, a list the framework says is “for illustrative purposes only.”
- Similarly, the previous version included a topic section devoted to the reparations movement, but the revised version mentions “the reparations debate” only as a possible sample project topic. The revised version also removes all mentions of Ta-Nehisi Coates and his book “The Case for Reparations.” The previous version included that and other works by Coates as “considered reading.”
- The older version included a track titled “Queer Black Studies”, while the updated version does not include the word “queer” at all. It does feature an issue titled “Black Women and Movements in the 20th Century” which includes language saying that “many black lesbians, in particular, did not see or feel a space for themselves in the civil rights movement.” The revised syllabus in this section suggests reading Toni Morrison, while the previous version suggested multiple authors, including Cathy Cohen, Roderick Ferguson, and E. Patrick Johnson.
- The revised section on “Black Feminist Literary Thought” maintains many of the same guiding themes on various women’s movements as the original version, but removes all authors challenged by Florida officials and shifts the focus away from activist unity. modern.
- Any mention of the specific perpetrators named by Florida officials in the first version, including Crenshaw and Davis, also disappeared under the revised course.
In a statement to NBC News, DeSantis spokesman Bryan Griffin said the Florida Department of Education was reviewing the new course framework “for corrections and Florida law enforcement.”
This month, the DeSantis administration announced that the new AP course would not be offered in Florida high schools. The state education department claimed the material was not historically accurate and violated the state’s “Stop WOKE Act,” a law DeSantis signed into law last year that effectively restricts conversations about race in schools.
The College Board later announced that it would publish a new and updated framework for the course, saying the revised material had been in development since March 2022. The timing of the announcement and the College Board’s response raised questions about whether the organization was giving in to the pressures created. for the DeSantis decision; the ordeal sparked an outcry among academics and Democrats, many of whom urged the organization not to appease DeSantis.
The nonprofit organization maintains that the reviews were based entirely on input from educators and experts in the field, including 300 African American studies professors in the US.
“No state or district has seen the official framework being published, let alone provided comment on it. This course has been shaped only by expert input and longstanding AP principles and practices,” the College Board said. in a statement on Wednesday. announcing the revised curriculum.
The organization added that “this process was completed in December 2022,” before the DeSantis administration announced its actions against the course.
However, the organization’s statement acknowledged “an overall reduction in the breadth of the course.
In interviews with NBC News leading up to the release of the revised curriculum, many academic experts responsible for creating the framework adhered to the College Board’s explanation that the changes had been in progress long before Florida’s criticism.
However, some are now suggesting that the changes may have been the only way to continue teaching the course to students in Florida.
“Do we want a world with African American studies or a world without them?” said Teresa Reed, dean of the University of Louisville School of Music and a member of the AP course framework development committee.
“I unequivocally believe we want a world with that,” Reed added, though he continued to deny that the reviews were related to the Florida criticism.
“I understand why it would be effective to draw a cause-and-effect relationship, but I can tell you emphatically that there is no cause-and-effect relationship,” Reed said.
But when asked for examples of revisions made to the course that were unrelated to points of concern expressed by Florida officials, Reed said he couldn’t provide any.
