Florida’s letter contradicts the College Board’s account of events. Florida publicly announced it was rejecting the AP course in January, a few weeks before the College Board released its final guidance — the board said there was too little time to make any changes. political motives. But according to the letter, the state informed the College Board months earlier, in September 2022, that it would not be adding the African American Studies class to the state’s course catalog without amendment.
Florida’s letter also outlines an important meeting on November 16 to resolve differences between the state and the College Board during the course. During the meeting, the state stated that the AP’s African American Studies course violated regulations that required “instruction on topics to be factual and objective, and not concealed.” or distort important historical events.”
According to the state, The College Board acknowledges that the course will be revised, and opposes the state’s request to remove concepts such as “systemic separation” and “interference,” which the College Board considers indispensable. for the classroom.
However, by the time the final framework of the course was released on February 1, those terms had largely been removed, with the exception of intersectionality which was listed as an optional topic for the final project. the same compulsory course of the course, in which the student can choose his or her area of focus.
In response to Florida’s letter, the College Board said, “We are confident in the historical accuracy of all topics included in the pilot framework, as well as those existing in the official framework.” The board has also said that students and teachers can still engage in ideas like intersectionality through optional lessons or projects, and through AP Classroom, a free website that will play a role. is an archive of important documents for the classroom.
Despite this, many scholars have noted the omission of terms that, according to the University Council’s own research papers, are considered central to African American Studies because it is taught within university member.
For example, intersectionality is an influential theory first put forward by legal scholar Kimberlé Crenshaw in 1989. It holds that race, class, gender, sexuality, and other forms of identity intersect in ways that shape individuals’ experiences of the world.
