\n<\/p>\n
The rejection of the proposed class is \u201canother racist act that limits education for students,\u201d one critic noted.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
The administration of Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) has rejected a request from the nonprofit organization that manages Advanced Placement (AP) high school classes to expand a course on Black studies in the state.<\/p>\n
The College Board, which runs various AP programs and the SAT test, has run a pilot program of an AP standard African American studies course<\/a> in 60 schools across the country. Details of the curriculum have not yet been made public, though topics within the coursework<\/a> include speeches by Malcolm X, the Black Panther Party\u2019s free breakfast and medical programs, and the history of Juneteenth, the national holiday commemorating the end of slavery after the Civil War.<\/p>\n \u201cDrawing from the expertise and experience of college faculty and teachers across the country, the course is designed to offer high school students an evidence-based introduction to African American studies,\u201d a description of the class reads<\/a>. \u201cThe interdisciplinary course reaches into a variety of fields \u2014 literature, the arts and humanities, political science, geography, and science \u2014 to explore the vital contributions and experiences of African Americans.\u201d<\/p>\n While several states have banned or sought to restrict the teaching of critical race theory<\/a> (or rather, officials\u2019 errant interpretations of it<\/a>), academics have made it clear that the AP course does not violate those statutes.<\/p>\n \u201cAP African American Studies is not CRT. It\u2019s not the 1619 Project. It is a mainstream, rigorously vetted, academic approach to a vibrant field of study, one half a century old in the American academy, and much older, of course, in historically Black colleges and universities,\u201d Henry Louis Gates Jr., one of the country\u2019s foremost experts in Black history, told TIME <\/em>in August<\/a>. <\/p>\n