College Board's new AP African American studies curriculum criticized by some as appeasing conservatives
NEW YORK -- The College Board on Wednesday released its official new Advanced Placement African American studies curriculum.
The AP course was being offered as a pilot program at 60 schools across the country, including a high school in Brooklyn.
Students are familiar with AP courses that allow them to take undergraduate university level classes in high school.
Now, for the first time in history, they'll be able to take an AP course in African American studies, but not everyone is praising the curriculum.
Some college professors are angry the course syllabus was stripped down and references to Black feminism, Black Lives Matter and critical race theory were taken out.
"The truth is what the truth is, and it will not be buried by Ron DeSantis, and it will not be buried by anybody else who's out there who somehow thinks that critical race theory is this mumbo jumbo kind of language that will somehow skew the minds of white children," said Dr. Wallace I. Ford II, a professor at Medgar Evers College.
On CBS This Morning, the College Board's president defended the new curriculum and responded to a question about DeSantis' influence.
"We at the College Board don't really look to the statements of politicians, but we do look to the record of history," President David Coleman said.
READ MORE: Head of the College Board says new AP curriculum for African American Studies "hides from nothing"
Brandi Waters, an educator who helped devise the AP program, said the curriculum material was also based on feedback.
"We put out a number of different sources for the first pilot and immediately started talking with students and teachers where the course was living and just asked them which sources are interesting," she said.
"When we revised the course, there were only two things we went to. We went to what Brandi described, which is feedback from teachers and students, as well as 300 professors who've been involved in building the course," Coleman said.
But Ford doesn't buy it, saying the changes are insulting, especially coming on the first day of Black History Month.
"Some of the items that Ron DeSantis is, like, doing his tantrum dance on were items that were optional. These are things that students might want to look into, whether it's Black feminism or reparations," Ford said.
He says other western nations don't sanitize history in schools.
"In Germany, they teach the Holocaust, they teach World War II to their children, and it is not to their detriment. It is saying that we can be a better people," he said.
DeSantis told Politico said he stands by banning the AP course in Florida because it delves too deeply into political agendas.
