The College Board Removes Kimberlé W. Crenshaw, bell hooks, Ta-Nehisi Coates and Several Other Thinkers From Curriculum for African American Studies

The College Board has released its official curriculum for its new Advanced Placement (AP) course in African American studies following criticism from Gov. Ron DeSantis and the Florida Department of Education that it “lacked educational value.”

According to the New York Times, the 234-page curriculum framework was unveiled on Wednesday with many of the topics previously subjected to criticism from the governor and other conservatives stripped from the course.

College Board ushered out a number of Black writers and scholars associated with critical race theory, queer studies, and Black feminism, which were found in the pilot curriculum tested out in schools across the country this year. Black Lives Matter was also stripped as a required topic of the course, while “Black conservatism” was added.

Content covering Africa, slavery, Reconstruction, and the civil rights movement was seemingly untouched and is still included in the updated curriculum. However, contemporary topics like affirmative action, queer life, the debate over reparations, and the aforementioned Black Lives Matters will no longer be a part of the AP exam and are only presented in a list of options for a required research project.

The revised curriculum comes after DeSantis announced that he would block the AP African American Studies course based on its draft version. Florida education officials said its contents wasn’t historically accurate and violated state law.

The expelled educators include Kimberlé W. Crenshaw, a law professor at Columbia, Roderick Ferguson, a Yale professor who has written about queer social movements; and Ta-Nehisi Coates, the author who has made the case for reparations for slavery. Also, bell hooks, whose work is centered on race, feminism and class.

David Coleman, the head of the College Board, denied that the course was watered down due to political pressure.

“At the College Board, we can’t look to statements of political leaders,” Coleman added. The changes, he said, came from “the input of professors” and “longstanding A.P. principles.”

In a letter published on Tuesday (Jan. 31), more than 200 faculty members accused DeSantis of trying “to intimidate the College Board into appeasement” with his public condemnation of the course.

Crenshaw added that she was disappointed that the Florida Department of Education targeted topics related to intersectionality, Black feminism, and queer theory. “African American history is not just male. It’s not just straight. It’s not just middle class,” she said. “It has to tell the story of all of us.”