The White House made a target of Gov. Ron DeSantis again after his administration rejected a proposal to teach critical race theory in Florida high schools. On Sunday, Vice President Kamala Harris said, “Unfortunately, in Florida, extremist so-called leaders ban books, block history classes, and prevent teachers from freely discussing who they are and who they love. Anyone who bans teaching American history has no right to shape America’s future.”
On Friday, White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre claimed blocking the College Board’s Advanced Placement African-American history class “is incomprehensible. … If you think about the study of black Americans, that is what he [DeSantis] wants to block.”
In response, DeSantis Press Secretary Bryan Griffin noted that Florida public schools are required by law to teach African-American history as part of U.S. history. What Florida has banned, he pointed out, is teaching African-American history through a Marxist lens that pits racial groups against each other and assigns moral value to people’s God-given skin color.
New documents from the College Board class Florida rejected were published Monday by Ethics and Public Policy Center scholar Stanley Kurtz. They reinforce DeSantis’ argument, showing the AP African-American studies class is egregiously biased toward the extremist political left. It is written in such a way as to preach the racial division of critical race theory rather than enlighten students with the complex actual histories of African Americans.
In fact, as Kurtz writes:
Overwhelmingly, [the College Board class] APAAS’s approach is from the socialist Left, with very little in the way of even conventional liberal perspectives represented, not to mention conservative views. Most of the topics in the final quarter present controversial leftist authors as if their views were authoritative, with no critical or contrasting perspectives supplied. The scarcely disguised goal is to recruit students to various leftist political causes.
Kurtz obtained a teacher manual for the class that backs up these assertions. The draft teacher manual for this class Harris and Jean-Pierre described as “American history,” Kurtz says, includes a major section on Black Lives Matter, the massive Democrat-benefitting and riot-enabling activism organization started by two self-described Marxists.
