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, appear to 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.
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 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 College Board’s response has raised questions about whether the organization was giving to pressures. created by the DeSantis decision; the ordeal sparked an outcry among academics and Democrats, many of whom urged the organization not to appease DeSantis.
