The AP African American Studies Course and the Changes Made to it
By: Laila Kirkpatrick
When the College Board announced its courses for the 2022-2023 school year many were excited at the addition of an AP African American studies class that would be piloted during the school year and become available in 2025 for schools across the country. For many, the summer of 2020 was the first time that they were exposed to the brutality and daily prejudice faced by black people in America every day. However, the renewing of interest in the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement led to less bipartisanship and the political tension in the country became worse as racial inequality became the major topic of discussion for any political conversation.
So, with tensions mounting and people seeing BLM as an issue or a radical subject when the College Board announced an AP class about African American history and culture, there was much uproar as people believed that this was the College Board showing favoritism towards a certain political agenda.
The week of February 12th included multiple reports coming out of Florida urging the College Board to change the curriculum or stop the class altogether. Many Right wing administrators, parents, and government officials believed that the class was based solely on critical race theory which has been known to spur debate and garner intense opinions. This revelation suddenly made the class less acceptable and many right winged politicians in Florida called for it to be banned, or modified to remove parts about critical race theory or the BLM movement from the course even though both are essential to learning about when studying African American history and culture. In response to the outrage in Florida, the College Board obliged and removed sections of the curriculum that focused on Critical race theory and the BLM movement.
In a statement from the College Board, they attempted to make it seem like the changes came up from within the organization and that Florida had nothing to do with what was going on. The lack of support from the College Board shows a blatant disregard for an accurate representation of the black experience in America. Additionally, the College Board's willingness to change the curriculum of the course only stands to support what some were saying at first, which is that the College Board was only introducing the class in order to appease the left and liberals as performative activism. The introduction of African American studies to high school curriculums would have been a way to begin healing the country, but by omitting prominent movements like BLM, and not allowing critical race theory to be a part of the curriculum the history and culture can not be accurately portrayed and continues to set the country back.
Sources:
https://www.wbur.org/hereandnow/2023/02/14/black-history-ap-class-florida
https://www.wbur.org/hereandnow/2023/02/15/black-lives-matter-ap-history
https://www.npr.org/2023/02/12/1156409108/college-board-african-american-studies-florida-desantis
https://www.npr.org/2023/02/01/1153364556/ap-african-american-studies-black-history-florida-desantis