Florida Governor Ron DeSantis is moving forward with his “Stop W.O.K.E.” initiative and as part of that motion, blocked Florida and the College Board from pilot testing Advanced Placement African American Studies (APAAS) curriculum.
The National Review obtained a letter that explained Florida’s Department of Education’s Office of Articulation’s decision. “The APAAS curriculum ‘is inexplicably contrary to Florida law and significantly lacks educational value,'” it read. The letter later mentioned, “in the future, should College Board be willing to come back to the table with lawful, historically accurate content, FDOE will always be willing to reopen the discussion.”
The “Stop W.O.K.E.” Act—which was signed into law by DeSantis in 2022—prohibits instruction on race relations or diversity that indicates a person’s “status as either privileged or oppressed is necessarily determined by his or her race, color, national origin, or sex.” The bill also prohibits schools and workplaces from “subjecting any student or employee to training or instruction that espouses, promotes, advances, inculcates, or compels such individuals to believe specified concepts constitutes discrimination based on race, color, sex, or national origin.”
Though there are minimal public details about the curriculum, Floridian educator Marlon Williams-Clark explained to NPR last August that it centered around the introduction of Black studies and the vast backgrounds and cultures that comprise Black identity in the United States. The program’s goal was to study the African diaspora in America, in the midst of the widespread ban of critical race theory (CRT) in grades K-12.
In regards to abiding by the state’s ban on race in classrooms, Williams-Clark added, “Well, the law is the law. And it’s not really my place to give my opinion on it, as far as when I’m dealing with the students. I let them know, point-blank, there may be some topics in which it is a thin line and that we’ll just have to be careful how we talk about some things and how we approach some subjects.”