South Carolina Abruptly Stops Offering AP African American Studies Course

In today’s episode of South Carolina Wants To Be Florida So Bad, the South Carolina Department of Education has decided that AP African American studies will no longer be offered in the state’s schools. Just like Florida—SC’s brother from another white supremacist mother—the state that has only had one Black U.S. senator in its entire history (I guess Tim Scott counts) has rejected the Black studies course, which was developed by College Board, a nonprofit that creates Advanced Placement courses of all kinds taught across the country.

Now, according to WSAV 3, the official reason the course was cut was due to a state budget deficit, or at least that’s what board members decided on Wednesday in Columbia when they discussed an “education transparency bill” that would end funding for certain classes. But let’s be real about this: South Carolina is just as much a critical race theory propagandizing, DEI-bemoaning, “woke” averse state as the rest of the Republican-run states are, and none of them accept any Black history that isn’t colonizer-approved.

Also—and I hate to keep doubling back to this—South Carolina is only following the Florida playbook for using policy to reinforce white nationalism and then pretending that’s not what’s happening. Last year, right ahead of Juneteenth, Gov. Ron DeSantis slashed funding for Black history projects from Florida’s budget despite the fact that the budget was approved unanimously by the state Legislature. That budget cut was also supposedly about saving money and had nothing to do with DeSantis’ seething hatred for any Black studies that make white people uncomfortable (*gestures widely toward all lessons that don’t lie about slaves benefitting from slavery*). But people who see right through veiled white nationalism (not to mention comically obvious white fragility) knew better, and we should know better now that SC is following suit after the state also followed Florida (and Louisiana) in successfully redistricting its congressional map to intentionally dilute Black voting power. 

“Students are aware of the implication of decisions like this,” Dr. Jim Neighbors, a Wofford College professor, told WSAV. “They understand that when a state makes a decision like this, it’s establishing a priority, a kind of hierarchy of what’s important. So when they see that African American studies are not part of the AP curriculum then they think it’s just not important.”

Dr. Jerret Fite, a Clinton College professor, said SC officials were also robbing high school students of opportunities to receive college-level education and earn college credits that will advance them when they actually get to college.

“They are getting hands-on college experience while still in high school so the transition from high school to college is not that hard for them,”

“It seems to me they have a solution without a problem,” he continued. “The issue you have with removing the AP-level courses and giving those communities an opportunity is number one, you rob this intellectual student that at a high school level, can reach potential to help them with their future. If they are on their way or on track to go to college, these courses on a high school level give them college credit so that it expedites their education in college. If they come from an impoverished family it cuts the time down that they’re in school which also cuts the potential debt down.”

Perhaps the truth is SC “education” officials have found a true “solution,” it’s just meant to solve a different “problem”—one that has nothing to do with education and everything to do with limiting access to Black studies. 

SEE ALSO:

Mississippi State Auditor Wants To Cut Funding For ‘Garbage Fields’ Like African American Studies

Arkansas Moves To Confiscate All African American Studies Materials Over Critical Race Theory Fears

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