Arkansas cuts support for AP African American Studies class at the last minute

This past Saturday morning, just days before the school year was set to start in the state, Arkansas’s Department of Education told teachers that students would not get full credit for the new AP African American Studies class. The announcement came after Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders (R) promised to remove “critical race theory” (CRT) from schools in the state, and other Republicans — including Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis — complained about the course’s inclusion of Black queer people.

The Arkansas Department of Education confirmed that the course wouldn’t be eligible for college credit, that students would have to pay the $90 fee for the AP test themselves if they want to take it, and that the course wouldn’t be weighed more in their grade point averages the way other AP classes are in order to encourage students to take them. Teachers may still offer the curriculum in schools, though.

Related:

Florida caves & allows AP Psychology class in humiliating defeat for DeSantis administration

Florida tried to get LGBTQ+ topics removed from AP Psychology but the testing company stood strong.

The Department of Education didn’t specify why exactly they took this stance on the class or why they waited until the last minute to tell teachers.

Insights for the LGBTQ+ community

Subscribe to our briefing for insights into how politics impacts the LGBTQ+ community and more.

Daily

Weekly

Good News

“The department encourages the teaching of all American history and supports rigorous courses not based on opinions or indoctrination,” the department said in a statement.

“Arkansas law contains provisions regarding prohibited topics,” Kimberly Mundell, a department spokesperson, told KHBS-TV. “Without clarity, we cannot approve a pilot that may unintentionally put a teacher at risk of violating Arkansas law.”

The AP class came under fire earlier this year when the curriculum was originally announced. Florida Gov. DeSantis called it “indoctrination.”

“It’s way more than that,” DeSantis said in January. “This course on Black history, what’s one of the lessons about? Queer theory. Now, who would say that an important part of Black history is ‘queer theory?’ That is someone pushing an agenda on our kids.”

The College Board, which creates and operates AP classes and tests, 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.

The College Board later said that it made a mistake in the way it rolled out the class and accused DeSantis of spreading “misinformation” about it.

“We deeply regret not immediately denouncing the Florida Department of Education’s slander, magnified by the DeSantis administration’s subsequent comments, that African American Studies ‘lacks educational value,'” the organization said. “Our failure to raise our voice betrayed Black scholars everywhere and those who have long toiled to build this remarkable field.”

This past January, Huckabee Sanders signed an executive order banning teachers from talking about race in a way that encourages “students to discriminate against someone” and ordering the Department of Education to search curricula for any signs of “prohibited indoctrination, including CRT.” Conservatives argue that learning key facts about U.S. history — like that white people enslaved Black people and that anti-Black racism played a major role in structuring American society — leads white students to feel ashamed and can cause further discrimination.

In a statement, Huckabee Sanders’s office accused journalists of “false media coverage” about the course and noted that it’s still the pilot year for the class.

“The department encourages the teaching of all American history and supports rigorous courses not based on opinions or indoctrination,” the statement said.

The African American Studies class was set to be taught at 60 schools across the country, including six in the state of Arkansas, as part of a pilot program.