The College Board has broken its almost decade-long spell of denying students new course offerings with the introduction of Advanced Placement (AP) African American Studies. Following its unveiling, the College Board received criticism from both sides of the political party line, the loudest of which came from the right. This is the latest in the American culture war, with education as its critical battleground.
Ultimately, the College Board’s subsequent changes to the pilot curriculum were not intended to paint a more accurate picture of African Americans and their experience, but to preserve the economic viability of the new course. Meanwhile, the state of Florida banned the curriculum, with Governor Ron Desantis dismissing it as “woke indoctrination” and the Department of Education saying it “significantly lacking educational value”— claims which are not evidence-based.
The inception of AP African American Studies began in January 2020, when the College Board deemed it a necessary action in response to the calls for racial justice nationwide. The curriculum planning started in spring 2021, and was then piloted in schools across the country during the 2022–2023 school year. Students will be able to take the AP test for college credit starting in 2025, after an additional pilot year.
On Feb. 1, 2023, the College Board released the official curriculum for AP African American Studies, but it lacked some of the content included in the initial framework. The omitted material included work from professors and authors largely considered to be experts on African American studies. Those purged from the course include Kimberlé Crenshaw, a professor at Columbia Law School and the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) School of Law, renowned political activists and authors Angela Davis and Gloria Jean Watkins (commonly known by her pseudonym bell hooks) and Roderick Ferguson, a professor of Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies and American Studies at Yale University.
The curriculum also fails to acknowledge topics that are integral to the understanding of African American experience, including intersectionality, Black feminism and queer identity, which were removed by the College Board due to their “controversial” nature.
The cuts to the curriculum removed scholars who supported or contributed to areas of study often critiqued by right-wing politicians. In response to a letter from the Florida Department of Education (FDOE) on Feb. 9, the College Board vehemently denied that the changes to the course were a reaction to any statements from a political figure, namely Republican Florida Governor Ron DeSantis. DeSantis had been outspoken against AP African American Studies since its inception.
Instead, the College Board reframed the letter from the FDOE as a political move to paint Florida as the crusader against critical race theory-adjacent curricula. Regardless of whether or not the changes were directly in response to DeSantis, by removing these fraught topics, the College Board attempted to make their course more marketable to states where education is becoming increasingly regulated. This change is clearly not motivated by a desire to make the course a more accurate representation of African American culture, but rather driven purely by the College Board’s economic self-interest.
Despite the changes made to the course, DeSantis banned the curriculum and has been claiming its nature of “indoctrination” to justify the FDOE decisions. The FDOE rejected students’ access to the course on the premise that it violates the state’s Stop W.O.K.E Act, the anti-critical race theory legislation introduced in 2021. This legislation was followed by Florida HB 1557, the “Parental Rights in Education Act,” which took effect in July 2022 and limited the discussion of gender and sexual orientation-related topics within the classroom, continuing Florida’s repeated stabs at censoring classroom discussion.
The debate surrounding how “controversial” subjects should be discussed in classrooms, if at all, is nothing new. In the 2008 U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit case Parker v. Hurley, two groups of parents sued a school district over books that promoted tolerance of gay and lesbian relationships. Ultimately, the court found that the curriculum did not pose enough of a burden on the parents’ or children’s right to the Free Exercise Clause to necessitate modification. The introduction of information countering their beliefs did not constitute “state-sponsored indoctrination.” DeSantis used the same reasoning to justify banning AP African American Studies, which his administration followed by saying that the course “lacked educational value,” further invalidating the experiences of Black people.
This indoctrination that parents and politicians alike have been condemning is really just the suppression of new concepts and ideas being introduced in schools, whether they counter one’s personal belief system or not. Throughout one’s education, courses promoting critical thinking and new ideas are vital and the College Board proclaims that achieving this standard is one of their guiding principles: “AP students are expected to analyze different perspectives from their own.” Students who enroll in AP classes should expect that the ideas presented by the College Board are up for their own interpretation and may not always align with their preexisting beliefs.
It is important to note that AP classes are only available to high school students and are usually not compulsory. This is especially relevant when talking about courses such as AP African American Studies and other AP classes discussing nuanced theories, promoting critical thinking and debating sensitive topics. Not to mention, these principles are quite often applied in college-level courses, which the College Board proclaims APs to be. The very basis of advanced placement is at stake when valued information and opinions of professors at elite universities are omitted from the curricula.
The College Board emphasizes the importance of their exams and coursework in preparation for college, promising that higher scores on their tests will give students the extra boost they need to make their transcripts stand out. Despite their qualifications, the College Board is removing the works of some of the most qualified professors in the field of African American Studies from their curriculum. If their theories and teachings do not meet College Board standards, what does?
