On January 12, College Board received a letter from the Florida Department of Education’s Office of Articulation. It said that the AP course that teaches African American history is “inexplicably contrary to Florida law and significantly lacks educational value.” The letter said that the board oversees (banned) the course and also say that “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 AP course teaches students about the struggles of African American history and highlights the parts that are never said, like slavery and the suffering they had to go throughout history.  During the Summer of 2022, College Board said that there was going to be a new pilot program that will “offer high school students an evidence-based introduction to African American studies,” and will be launching in 60 high schools across the country. It will be set in 2022-2023 and will expand to other schools in the future.

“Like all new AP courses, AP African American Studies is undergoing a rigorous, multiyear pilot phase, collecting feedback from teachers, students, scholars and policymakers,” College Board said in a statement. “The process of piloting and revising course frameworks is a standard part of any new AP course and frameworks often change significantly as a result.”

DeSantis, who signed the ‘Stop Woke Act’ in April 2022, an act that represses race, sexuality, and gender identity in schools, played an active role in this situation. “We want to do history, and that’s what our standards for Black history are. It’s just cut-and-dried history,” DeSantis stated in an interview according to CNN. “You learn all the basics. You learn about the great figures, and you know, I view it as American history. I don’t view it as separate history. You know, we have history in lots of different shapes and sizes, people that have participated to make the country great, people that have stood up when it wasn’t easy, and they all deserve to be taught. But abolishing prisons being taught to high school kids as if that’s somehow a fact? No, no, that’s not appropriate.”

College Board is now working on changing the course so that it fits DeSantis’ ideals and criticisms. “Thanks to @GovRonDeSantis’ principled stand for education over identity politics, the College Board will be revising the course for the entire nation,” said DeSantis’s press secretary Bryan Griffin on Twitter on January 24.