WASHINGTON, DC — NAACP President and CEO Derrick Johnson said in a statement that “failing to teach an accurate representation of the horrors and inequalities that Black Americans have faced and continue to face is a disservice to students and a dereliction of duty to all.”
Under DeSantis, “the state of Florida has become hostile to Black Americans and in direct conflict with the democratic ideals that our union was founded upon,” Johnson added.
The College Board, a nonprofit organization that oversees the AP program nationwide, moved to revise its framework for the curriculum after state officials said they rejected it because of six areas of concern — “Black Queer Studies,” “Intersectionality,” “Movement for Black Lives,” “Black Feminist Literary Thought,” “The Reparations Movement” and “Black Struggle in the 21st Century” — and for its including works by Kimberlé W. Crenshaw, bell hooks, Angela Davis and other Black authors.
Although the College Board and many of the academic experts consulted about the course framework insisted that they would not cave to political pressure and that the revisions had long been planned, the changes made concessions that directly address conservatives’ concerns. The revised syllabus removed the names of several Black authors identified as problematic by Florida officials, substantially revised sections about intersectionality and removed a section about the Movement for Black Lives.
