Ron DeSantis tried to get the AP test to drop LGBTQ+ questions. The College Board was not having it.

The administration of Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) tried to get the College Board, which runs the Advanced Placement (AP) curricula and tests, to remove topics about LGBTQ+ people in its AP Psychology exam, citing the state’s Don’t Say Gay law.

But the College Board called DeSantis’s bluff and refused to remove those topics.

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“The learning objective within AP Psychology that covers gender and sexual orientation has specifically been raised by some Florida districts relative to these recent regulations,” the College Board wrote in a letter on Thursday. “That learning objective must remain a required topic, just as it has been in Florida since the launch of AP Psychology more than 30 years ago.”

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“Please know that we will not modify our courses to accommodate restrictions on teaching essential, college-level topics,” the letter continued. “Doing so would break the fundamental promise of AP: colleges wouldn’t broadly accept that course for credit and that course wouldn’t prepare students for success in the discipline.”

The Don’t Say Gay law – officially called the “Parental Rights in Education” Act – was passed in 2022 and prohibited discussions of sexual orientation and gender identity up to the third grade and severely restricted those discussions in higher grades. The measure was expanded in April 2023 to ban mentions of sexual orientation and gender identity in all grades.

On May 19, the Florida Department of Education sent a letter to the College Board citing the expansion of the law and asking for the Board to review the content of AP classes to see if they “need modification to ensure compliance” with the Florida law.

“Some courses may contain content or topics prohibited by State Board of Education rule and Florida law,” the letter stated.

The College Board refused, saying that LGBTQ+ topics have been a part of the AP Psychology class for 30 years. AP Psychology is generally offered for high school juniors and seniors, many of whom are already over the age of 18, and students are generally aware of what sexual attraction is by the time they’re in high school.

“We don’t know if the state of Florida will ban this course,” the College Board said in a message to teachers. “To AP teachers in Florida, we are heartbroken by the possibility of Florida students being denied the opportunity to participate in this or any other AP course.”

“Please know we will not modify any of the 40 AP courses — from art to history to science — in response to regulations that would censor college-level standards for credit, placement, and career readiness.”

“We applaud the College Board for standing up to the state of Florida and its unconscionable demand to censor an educational curriculum and test that were designed by college faculty and experienced AP teachers who ensure that the course and exam reflect the state of the science and college-level expectations,” said American Psychological Association CEO Arthur Evans Jr.

The College Board also said that it “learned from our mistakes in the recent rollout of AP African American Studies,” referring to how it stripped down its curriculum for its new AP course on African American studies earlier this year due to pressure from the DeSantis administration.

In January, the Florida Department of Education rejected parts of the African American Studies curriculum, saying that they didn’t have educational value. The Florida Commissioner of Education tweeted an infographic listing the parts of the curriculum that he believed were “woke indoctrination masquerading as education,” including discussions of the intersections of feminism, queer identity, and Black civil rights struggles; discussions of the Movement for Black Lives; and discussions of reparations.

This came after DeSantis signed his “Stop WOKE Act” last year, which restricts discussions on racism in schools and workplaces, which DeSantis called “indoctrination.” Part of the Stop WOKE Act has already been struck down by a federal judge who called it “positively dystopian.”

The College Board responded by saying that the development phase of the curriculum wasn’t finished and would be updated later. In February, it released an updated version of the curriculum where some of the offending topics were omitted, and many believed that the College Board had capitulated. The College Board said that the changes were already in the works before the feud with DeSantis. The Florida Department of Education, though, claimed it as a victory.

In April, the College Board said that it would reexamine the curriculum again. If the battle over AP Psychology is an indication, the College Board appears to be taking a less conciliatory approach to DeSantis’s demands that educational standards be watered down and weakened for Florida students.