Following the wake of the black history education standard changes in the state of Florida, the course AP Psychology has now been banned as well. This has occurred due to similar reasons: legislation put forward and enforced once again by Governor DeSantis, who’s also running for the upcoming presidential election.
In July, a new law came into effect in Florida, banning the teachings of sexual orientation and gender diversity in schools, and over the last year, Florida officials have essentially amended state standards to ban all students from learning about these crucial concepts.
This has been perpetuated by Governor DeSantis, who has taken a solemn vow to eradicate what he calls “woke” gender ideology from classrooms.
This has been dubbed by multiple critics as the “Don’t Say Gay” law, and they have repeatedly emphasized that it will just further marginalize and harm gay students, placing them in environments where they don’t feel safe to be themselves.
AP Psychology, however, has these concepts well integrated into their curriculum, and asks students to “describe how sex and gender influence socialization and other aspects of development.” After prompting Collegeboard to remove this from the Florida curriculum, they flat-out refused, saying that it would be equivalent to censorship.
As these teaching are currently illegal in Florida, the course of AP Psychology has been banned from schools altogether.
However, this is not the first time that Florida has waged a war with Collegeboard. Earlier in the year, Governor DeSantis rejected the course AP African American Studies, as it included lessons on reparations, Black queer studies, and the Movement for Black Lives.
Upon hearing this, Collegeboard initially tried to alter its curriculum, but was immediately faced with numerous objections among academics and activists alike, who said that students should learn the entire history of black experiences in the USA.
It seems that this time around, Collegeboard has learned from its previous mistake, and has refused to back down from its clear standing on the AP Psychology course curriculum, and rightfully so.
With all these consecutive, drastic changes in the education standards in Florida, we can only wait and hope that the outrage is enough to put it to a stop before it corrupts future generations.
