On the first day of Black History Month, the College Board unveiled its new AP African American course and was immediately met with outrage as many accused the organization of caving to hardline conservatives by watering down the course.
The details of the Advanced Placement course come just after Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis said late last month that he would ban the class, citing the draft version.
A decade in the making, the new course “examines the diversity of African American experiences” and explores key topics from early African kingdoms to ongoing challenges and achievements of the contemporary moment,” according to the course’s outline released Wednesday.
But the College Board removed the names of many Black writers and scholars associated with fraught topics likely to inflame conservatives, such as critical race theory, the queer experience, Black feminism and the Black Lives Matter movement, The New York Times reported.
Sample project ideas include more controversial topics like affirmative action, the AIDS crisis and African American health, gay life and expression, and “the complexities of Afrocentricity and Black Nationalism.”
But even those topics — more likely to raise concern in states where conservatives want to restrict what is taught in the classroom — “can be refined by states and districts.”
Three Texas schools, including two in the Dallas area, are piloting the course this school year before it is launched on a broader scale nationwide, according to the Texas Education Agency.
Texas offers its own state-level version of an African American history course, though students do not get the chance to earn college credit studying for it as they can in Advanced Placement classes.
In 2020, the State Board of Education approved a high school-level African American studies elective course — the state’s second statewide ethnic studies course.
Last school year, 7,637 students were enrolled in the course in 64 districts across the state, according to the TEA.
The fight over what students learn in school about history, racism and sexuality has led to conservatives pushing for limits on lessons. In 2021, Texas banned critical race theory from public schools. The academic theory probes the way policies and laws uphold systemic racism — such as in education, housing or criminal justice.
Last year, the State Board of Education delayed action on revamping the state’s social studies lessons after conservative backlash and pushed back a decision on adopting a Native American course. Meanwhile, advocates also had urged the board to create an Asian American course.
The state’s African American course was first piloted in Dallas ISD and garnered widespread support. Texas’ first ethnic studies course, focusing on Mexican American studies, gained statewide approval in 2018 after four years of controversy over its creation, textbook material and naming.
Students in Texas’ African American course are to develop “an understanding of the historical roots of African American culture, especially as it pertains to social, economic, and political interactions within the broader context of United States history.”
They won’t find topics like critical race theory or Black Lives Matter in the state class, either. But students are expected to analyze the causes and effects of new laws and policy developments like voting rights, civil rights, fair housing and affirmative action.
They also read selected works of storied Black authors such as The Souls of Black Folk by W.E.B. Du Bois, Native Son by Richard Wright and Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston.
Other writers or storytellers featured in the course for study around self-identity include Maya Angelou, Lorraine Hansberry, Spike Lee, Oprah Winfrey and even writer bell hooks, who the College Board removed from the AP lessons.
Despite fights in recent years over how the history of race is taught in America, the majority of Texans support requiring school districts to offer ethnic studies — including Mexican American or African American studies — as required curriculum.
Requiring such courses is favored by 90% of Democrats, compared to roughly four in 10 Republicans. Black and Latino Texans offer strong support — 86% and 79%, respectively — compared to just over half of white respondents, according to a new poll from the University of Houston.
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