In what appears as a concession to pressure from Florida Governor Ron DeSantis and other Republicans, the College Board, the organization that creates standardized tests such as the SAT and AP exams, released a curriculum for its new Advanced Placement course in African American Studies on Wednesday that was stripped of major names and events in contemporary U.S. history.
As reported in the New York Times, the course guidelines contain no mention of the Black Lives Matter movement, and topics such as Black feminism and Black queer theory are similarly sidelined. The names of scholars who have worked on such topics or are generally connected to the concept of “critical race theory” were also stricken from the curriculum, including bell hooks, Ta-Nehisi Coates, Roderick Ferguson, and Kimberlé Crenshaw, who coined the term “intersectionality” in 1989.
Speaking out against the changes, which she said “stunned” her, Crenshaw told the Times that the course “is a corrective, it is an intervention, it is an expansion [...] And for it to be true to the mission of telling the true history, it cannot exclude intersectionality, it cannot exclude critical thinking about race.”
The College Board first announced the A.P. course last August, and was later met with backlash when a draft of the curriculum was leaked to right-wing publications. Last month, DeSantis banned the original version of the course from Florida schools, claiming the materials were “indoctrination” and that queer theory was not relevant to Black history.
The governor has pushed for laws that bar discussion of racism and LGBTQ+ topics in Florida schools, and frequently pressured educational and medical institutions over the past several years to adopt positions favorable to conservatives. Last year, the Florida Board of Medicine, whose current members have donated at least $80,000 to DeSantis’s campaigns, voted to ban gender-affirming care for transgender minors in the state. DeSantis won his bid for reelection in November on the back of anti-trans and anti-"critical race theory” sentiment, and is reportedly eyeing a run for president in 2024.
The College Board, however, insists that no political gamesmanship took place in changing the course outline. “To be clear, no states or districts have seen the official framework that will be released on February 1, much less provided feedback on it,” College Board leadership wrote in a letter to members last week. College Board president David Coleman told the Times that some “theoretical” sources were found to be “quite dense” and excised for that reason, and that the changes came from “the input of professors” and “longstanding A.P. principles.”
But those longstanding principles already include bending to conservative pressure campaigns. In 2015, the College Board released a new framework for its A.P. United States History course that implemented several changes demanded by the Republican National Committee and other right-wing critics. The changes included greater emphasis on “American exceptionalism” over the harm settlers inflicted on Indigenous peoples; increased focus on U.S. “founding fathers” and their religious influences; and even the specific removal of the word “bellicose” to describe Ronald Reagan’s stance towards the Soviet Union.
“African American history is not just male. It’s not just straight. It’s not just middle class,” Crenshaw told the Times. “It has to tell the story of all of us.” Real history will still tell that tale — but it won’t be taught, at least for now, in the Sunshine State.
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