Teaching BLM movement optional in updated AP African American studies class

• Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R), who is also now running for president, backed the state DOE's decision to reject the course. He has made cultural issues, especially related to education, a centerpiece of his campaign.
• The course will officially launch in the 2024-25 school year.

Details: The course includes Black scholars and authors, such as Kimberlé W. Crenshaw and Angela Davis, previously deemed inappropriate by Florida education officials, the Miami Herald reported.

• It also kept intersectionality and race-related concepts.
• The updated curriculum has more material on the Tulsa Race Massacre, Black culture's influence on film and sports and redlining, a discriminatory housing practice, the AP reported.

Yes, but: Material on the Black Lives Matter movement won't be included on the AP exam.

• The activist movement can be taught as part of the "further explorations week" during the final week of lessons that includes optional topics, per the Miami Herald.
• Other reported optional instructions for this week are reparations, incarceration and abolition, Black women writers and filmmakers, African American art and culinary traditions.

Of note: The organization said changes were based on feedbacks from students and teachers in the pilot run of the class, per the Miami Herald.

• "The course focuses on the topics — essential events, experiences, and individuals — that scholars, AP teachers, and subject-matter experts in AP find crucial to a study of African American history and culture and the African diaspora," the College Board said in a statement.

Flashback: The College Board earlier this year excluded concepts from the curriculum that were in the pilot run of the class.

Go deeper: Black Florida lawmakers blast DeSantis over AP African American studies