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 that they would not give in to political pressure and that the revisions were long-planned. But the changes released Wednesday, at the start of Black History Month, appear to make concessions that directly address conservatives’ concerns.
In the revised syllabus for the course, the College Board, a nonprofit 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 it had rejected the course due 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 sections on intersectionality. And gone is a section on the Movement for Black Lives.
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 is formally adopted by states” — there are suggestions on reparations, the Black Lives Matter movement and, in a new addition, Black conservatism.
The content of the revised syllabus were described in detail to NBC News by David Blight, a professor of history and African American studies at Yale University. Blight was among the many academics to whom The College Board sent the the revised syllabus.
“I am now disappointed to learn that a major section on the end of this curriculum 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 simply cancel it and stand in the way.”
The New York Times first reported on the revised framework.
This month, DeSantis’ administration announced that the new AP course would not be taught 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 last year that effectively curtails conversations about race in schools.
The College Board subsequently announced it would release a new, updated framework for the course, saying that the revised material had been under development since March 2022. The timing of the College Board’s announcement and response has prompted questions whether the organization was bowing to the pressures created by the DeSantis decision; the ordeal elicited an outcry among academics and Democrats, many of whom urged the organization to not appease DeSantis.
