DeSantis Calls Out ‘Media Lies’ Over Banning AP Course on African American Studies

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis speaks at the Republican Jewish Coalition Annual Leadership Meeting in Las Vegas, Nev., on Nov. 19, 2022. Wade Vandervort/AFP via Getty Images

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis on Feb. 23 called out what he called “media lies” over the Sunshine State banning the Advanced Placement (AP) course for African American Studies.

DeSantis said that the media “tried to create in Florida a narrative.”

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“It’s basically a book ban hoax. It’s a hoax what they’re doing. And they’re trying to say that, because we have parental rights and because we have curriculum transparency, if you have a book that’s hardcore pornography in a library [that] 10-year-olds can access, a parent objects to that. That does not satisfy Florida [curriculum] standards. It should not be in the library with those young kids. And I think 99 percent of parents agree with that.”

DeSantis noted that Florida law requires the factual, unpoliticized teaching of African American history.

The governor accused critics of taking books off bookshelves to create a narrative to muddy the waters over the AP course ban, like one school taking a book about MLB Hall-of-Famer Hank Aaron “because it talks about he faced racial discrimination.”

“They’re doing that to try to create a narrative. They’re not doing that because Florida has a law like that or anything like that,” DeSantis said. “They know that’s not in the law, but they’re doing it because there’s enough people in corporate media who will just take that and will run with that.”

DeSantis last month blocked the teaching of the AP course that he said was politically biased and “pushing an agenda” on students. The course includes far-left content including Black liberation theology, the movement to abolish prisons, Black Lives Matter, a push for reparations, and queer studies. The College Board has since revised the curriculum.

Left-wing media has blasted the DeSantis administration for banning the AP course.

MSNBC’s Andrea Mitchell inaccurately claimed that DeSantis “says that slavery and the aftermath of slavery should not be taught to Florida schoolchildren.” She has since walked back her insinuation, though she took a shot at DeSantis and appeared to justify her premise.

“Governor DeSantis is not opposed to teaching the fact of slavery in schools, but he has opposed the teaching of an African American studies curriculum as well as the use of some authors and source materials that historians and teachers say makes it all but impossible for students to understand the broader historic and political context behind slavery and its aftermath in the years since,” she said on Feb. 22.

MSNBC contributor Jason Johnson also joined in the inaccurate media narrative, decrying that DeSantis is “happy with Black people being murdered on a regular basis.”

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NAACP Legal Defense Fund President and Director Janai Nelson wrote in The New York Times that what DeSantis has done was “an unrelenting assault on truth and freedom of expression in the form of laws that censor and suppress the viewpoints, histories and experiences of historically marginalized groups, especially Black and L.G.B.T.Q. communities.”

Last year, DeSantis signed two education-related bills into law that attracted controversy mainly from the left.

The Florida Parental Rights in Education Act prohibits teaching sexual orientation and gender ideology to students K-3 and below.

The Stop W.O.K.E. Act codified Florida’s prohibition on teaching critical race theory for students K-12 and below—in addition to not allowing the teaching of only left-wing narratives, including the notion that, as a pamphlet from DeSantis’ office put it, “a person’s moral character or status as either privileged or oppressed is necessarily determined by his or her race, color, national origin, or sex.”