New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy Plans to Expand AP African American Studies Courses

Gov. Phil Murphy plans to expand AP African American Studies courses in New Jersey. According to the Associated Press, Murphy’s administration will expand African American Studies courses to 26 schools.

Currently, only one New Jersey school has an advanced placement course. 

“New Jersey will proudly teach our kids that Black History is American History,” Murphy said in a statement. “While the DeSantis Administration stated that AP African American Studies ‘significantly lacks educational value’, New Jersey will stand on the side of teaching our full history.”

According to the AP, New Jersey schools currently require diversity classes. A 2021 state law required schools to include courses on diversity and inclusion.

Roger Leon, Newark Schools superintendent, praised the expansion of African American studies courses.  

“The study of African American History, as a discrete field, is important to gaining a deeper, fuller understanding of United States History,” Leon told the Associated Press. 

Gov. Ron DeSantis and his crew of Republicans have been waging a culture war against Black scholarship, literature, and intellectuality. In 2022, DeSantis unfurled the Stop Woke Act, which regulates how the history of racism can be taught inside public schools. DeSantis, who majored in history at Yale University, stirred emotions after he rejected African American Studies AP classes. His excuse: African American studies lack educational value and push an agenda.

On February 1, the College Board released the curriculum for the advanced placement courses. The College Board gutted prominent Black thinkers and scholars whose work center on critical race theory, queer studies, and Black feminism. 

Authors stripped from the new curriculum include Ta-Nehisi Coates, Kimberle Crenshaw, and bell hooks.

In a letter, more than 200 university faculty members accused DeSantis of trying to intimidate the College Board with his public condemnation of the course.

Crenshaw, who believes DeSantis is targeting topics related to intersectionality, added: “African American history is not just male. It’s not just straight. It’s not just middle class. It has to tell the story of all of us.”