DeSantis Admin Requests Additional Information On Now-Revised AP African American Studies Course

Republican Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ administration is requesting additional information about an AP African American Studies course after learning that it may still contain topics counter to state law prohibiting Critical Race Theory (CRT) from being taught in public schools, according to a Tuesday letter sent to College Board and obtained by the Daily Caller News Foundation.

The College Board issued a new framework for the advanced course on Feb. 1 which eliminated subjects such as “black queer studies” and specific readings that pushed tenets of CRT after the Florida Department of Education (DOE) rejected the course Jan. 12. College Board CEO David Coleman spoke with NPR’s Mary Louise Kelly on Feb. 3, however, and said that the students enrolled in the course would have access to a “free resource” that reportedly contains material that was removed from the original syllabus.

“But there’s a free resource called AP Classroom, and every teacher and student in AP African American studies is going to have access to it. And we have already bought the permissions for texts like Kimberle Crenshaw’s breakthrough piece on – ‘Mapping The Margins,’ on intersectionality,” Coleman said. “And they’re going to be freely available to students and teachers throughout the course. Audre Lorde’s poems – sources that people were worried are gone are actually going to be magnified and made more available than ever in the classroom and teaching resources, which is where secondary sources in AP always are.”