LETTER FROM THE EDITOR The banning of Advanced Placement African American Studies serves as a form of censorship in schools and takes away students’ academic freedom.
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t’s no secret that the history of the United States is complicated. As much as it’s built upon the ideals of liberty and justice, it has also been built upon racism, division and hatred. Fortunately, students have long had the access to learn about the complexity of the country. In present day, however, lawmakers are trying to limit that access. In January, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and BY MOLLY HARWELL Editor-in-Chief his administration rejected the College Board’s newest Advanced Placement pilot program, AP African American Studies, a course that “reaches into a variety of fields—literature, the arts and humanities, political science, geography and science—to explore the vital contributions and experiences of African Americans,” according to the College Board. However, DeSantis stated that the course violates Florida state law and isn’t historically accurate, according to a Jan. 19 article published by the New York Times. This decision came shortly after DeSantis signed the Individual Freedom Act, also known as the Stop WOKE Act, in April 2022 to restrict how the topic of race could be discussed in Florida’s schools and workplaces. These two instances are major examples of an elected official trying to censor history for students and limit their cademic freedom.
While it’s easy to label these issues as only Florida problems, the Georgia State Senate already enacted anti-Critical Race Theory legislation in April 2022, as evident in Georgia House Bill 1084. The bill, also known as the Protect Students First Act, will “prohibit the use of curricula that addresses the topics of slavery, racial oppression, racial segregation or racial discrimination,” without influence of personal beliefs, as outlined in Section 1, Article 6. Sound familiar? In the Clarke County School District, however, the course is being embraced, as many see the ban as an unfair burden on students. “I view (the ban) as a form of censorship, and usually when society takes those action steps to mute people, it only motivates those who have a passion for the subject matter to see their voices, let their voices be heard,” Clarke Central High School Principal Dr. Swade Huff said. “As a minority, I feel like it’s a form of whitewashing. It doesn’t work because the history is the history and the bottom line is, the story will get told.” The AP African American Studies course at Cedar Shoals High School, taught by CSHS social studies department teacher Montu Miller, is open to students in 9-12 grades and counts as a social studies elective credit. Courses like this are vital for students, as they allow students to see themselves represented in a curriculum outside of a standard social studies class that only touches on Black history at the surface level. “AP African American Studies is filling in a lot of the gaps that (a) U.S. history (class) doesn’t, so I think it impacts students because it just gives them a (greater) depth of knowledge, especially with most of my classes being African American,” Miller said. While the implementation of AP African American Studies at CSHS feels like a win, the fact remains that many legislators’ priorities were to ensure students are kept in safe, sheltered bubbles instead of providing them with a comprehensive education. “(Some legislators) don’t want this knowledge to be taught to kids because it opens up to the kids to understand their legacy, and if they understand their legacy, then I feel like they push harder forward,” Miller said. Trying to cover up and “protect” the complex history of the country is just giving way for issues like racism, homophobia and xenophobia to persist, especially within our own schools. As a young American, I, along with my peers, deserve the right to learn about the history of our country, even if it may be uncomfortable at times. We should have access to a complete education, one that teaches us how to never forget how we got to where we are today. Lawmakers must realize is that if we forget our history, we are doomed to repeat it.
One thing that lawmakers must realize is that if we forget our history, we are doomed to repeat it.
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Left: ILLUMINATED BY TRUTH: A group of students stand in the darkness, separated from a classroom illuminated in the light of knowledge. The Florida Board of Education moved to ban the College Board’s Advanced Placement African American Studies course, which Editor-in-Chief Molly Harwell feels was an unfair censorship of American history. “While the implementation of the AP African American Studies course at Cedar Shoals feels like a win, the fact remains that many legislators’ priorities were to ensure students are kept in safe, sheltered bubbles instead of providing them with a comprehensive education,” Harwell wrote. Illustration by Sam Harwell
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