The decision by Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL) to prohibit the College Board from piloting its new AP African American studies course in Florida ignited another firestorm for the broadly popular governor in his war on woke education.
On Wednesday, prominent civil rights attorney Ben Crump said that if DeSantis and the state of Florida did not negotiate with the College Board to allow the course, then he would file a lawsuit against the governor and the state on behalf of three AP high school students.
BEN CRUMP SAYS DESANTIS NEEDS TO NEGOTIATE ON AP COURSE OR FACE LAWSUIT
“You cannot exterminate us, you cannot exterminate our culture, and you can never exterminate the value our children [have] to this world,” Crump said at the press conference.
The legal threat represents the latest escalation in a war of the words that began when the DeSantis administration informed the College Board on Jan. 12 that the course would not be permitted in the state’s high schools unless significant changes were made to the curriculum plan.
The College Board’s preliminary course framework, dated February 2022, outlines a number of topics that the course would cover, including the African slave trade, segregation, and the civil rights movement.
But the course also outlines lesson plans on topics such as “Black Queer Studies,” “‘postracial’ racism and colorblindness,” and support for slavery reparations, including a Democratic Party congressional proposal to establish a committee to study reparations. “Afrofuturism” was also an included topic where students could watch the Marvel Studios film Black Panther to study “the cultural aesthetics and practices of Afrofuturism.”
A large crowd gathers on the fourth floor rotunda of the Florida State Capitol in Tallahassee, Fla., for the “Stop the Black Attack” rally, on Jan. 25, 2023. Attorney Ben Crump threatened to file a lawsuit against Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, his administration and the ban of a proposed Advanced Placement course on African America Studies in Florida high schools on behalf of three Leon County, Fla., school students.
(Alicia Devine/Tallahassee Democrat via AP)
When the College Board unveiled the course last year, it specifically cited the 2020 Black Lives Matter protests and the death of Minneapolis resident George Floyd following a struggle with a white police officer as the impetus for the creation of the course.
Former police officer Derek Chauvin was convicted on murder charges in Floyd’s death in 2021.
“The events surrounding George Floyd and the increased awareness and attention paid towards issues of inequity and unfairness and brutality directed towards African Americans caused me to wonder, ‘Would colleges be more receptive to an AP course in this discipline than they were 10 years ago?’” the College Board’s head of the AP program Trevor Packer said last year
.
While the course is still under development, the College Board began piloting the course at a handful of high schools nationwide this year, with more to be added next school year. The final version of the course is set to be unveiled next month, but the pilot curriculum has already raised alarm bells for the DeSantis administration.
“As presented, the content of this course is inexplicably contrary to Florida law and significantly lacks educational value,” the Florida Department of Education told the board in a letter earlier this month. “In the future, should College Board be willing to come back to the table with lawful, historically accurate content, FDOE will always be willing to reopen the discussion.”
Florida law requires African American history to be included in K-12 education and says that such curriculum should “include the roles and contributions of individuals from all walks of life.” However, the statute also says that “classroom instruction and curriculum may not be used to indoctrinate or persuade students to a particular point of view” inconsistent with state standards.
“The Florida Department of Education has rejected the College Board’s AP African American Studies course because it lacks educational value and historical accuracy,” DeSantis press secretary Bryan Griffin told the Washington Examiner in a statement earlier this month. “As submitted, the course is a vehicle for a political agenda and leaves large, ambiguous gaps that can be filled with additional ideological material, which we will not allow. As Gov. DeSantis has stated, our classrooms will be a place for education, not indoctrination.”
CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER
DeSantis, who is widely considered a potential front-runner for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination, has spearheaded a number of policies aimed at reining in progressive overreach in education, especially on matters of race and sexuality.
In 2022, DeSantis championed the Stop WOKE Act, which prohibited public schools, including state colleges, from incorporating aspects of critical race theory into classroom instruction. The law also prohibits businesses from subjecting employees to critical race theory-influenced training. The governor also signed into law the Parental Rights in Education Act, which prohibited classroom instruction on sexual orientation and gender identity before fourth grade.
