Ron DeSantis is the governor of Florida, who may possibly be in the running for the 2024 presidential election. 

Currently, DeSantis is aligning his policies with that of Republicans and is moving forward with his “Stop Woke Act.” What’s highlighted mostly in this act is the stopping of indoctrinating children as well as making children feel as though they should feel guilty of what happened in the past. What falls into these guidelines is “Black Queer Studies” along with most of Black history. 

The College Board, which is responsible for implementing AP courses for students, is relatively against what DeSantis is trying to do. Both College Board and DeSantis are going head-to-head over an AP African American studies course. 

The course would have students analyzing Black scholars including Angela Davis, as well as writings like poetry.

When deciding to implement African studies as an AP course, College Board had to do a lot of “clean ups” to get the course approved, which means some Black writers associated with critical race theory, the queer experience, and Black feminism were removed from being taught in the course. Once the course was “cleaned up” and ready to be brought to high schools, DeSantis was prepared to put a stop to the course which he successfully did. 

DeSantis believes that the course lacks “educational value” while College Board believes the course would add much needed insight into Black history.

This decision follows conservative trends of censoring literature and teaching, claiming things like critical race theory are unnecessary and dangerous for children.

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