“This decision totally illustrates just how far this administration is willing to weaponize policies under the guise of individual freedom,” state Sen. Shevrin Jones (D-Miami-Dade) told NPR, “when in fact we are taking away rights from our students and, truthfully, from their parents.”

And there was this from White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre:

“It is incomprehensible to see that this is what this ban – or this block, to be more specific – that DeSantis has put forward. If you think about the study of Black Americans, that is what he wants to block and, again, these types of actions aren’t new, especially from what we’re seeing from Florida, sadly.” 

What the White House spokeswoman asserts (DeSantis wants to ban/block the study of Black Americans) would be important if accurate. (Which, come to that, is the correct test for anything that passes KJP’s lips.)

But if it were true, the governor would be violating not only the very Stop WOKE Act he championed and signed last spring, but other longstanding Florida statutes (since 1994, revised in 2002) that require the teaching of African and African American history in K-12 public schools. Florida Commissioner of Education Manny Diaz Jr. isn’t having it.

“Despite the lies from the Biden White House, Florida rejected an AP course filled with Critical Race Theory and other obvious violations of Florida law,” Diaz tweeted. “We proudly require the teaching of African American history. We do not accept woke indoctrination masquerading as education.”

This overview from the St. Lucie Public School District provides a thoroughgoing review of the African and African American experience as the Florida curriculum currently exists. In short, it’s all there: slavery, the Middle Passage, slave revolts, Juneteenth, segregation, Jim Crow, the struggle for civil rights, the Harlem Renaissance, and more.

The objectives of the curriculum also seem rather comprehensive:

1. To provide a chronological framework for teaching African and African American History.

2. To provide a model curriculum for infusing and teaching the African and African American History and culture beginning with Ancient Africa and continuing through African American History.

3. To provide information about the contributions and inventions of people of African descent in the United States, Central America, the Caribbean, South America, and to the rest of the world.

4. To the knowledge and skills of students with respect to the history of Ancient Africa, slavery, post slavery, and the Civil Rights Movement and contributions.

5. To infuse African and African American History as an integral part of American History, including such periods as the Reconstruction, Harlem Renaissance, World Wars I and II, as well as other national and global events.

While not accounting for some of the more nuanced definitions that may be known to a savvy communicator such as Ms. Jean-Pierre, what’s in store for St. Lucie public school students under the state’s current guidelines seems contrary to the more commonplace understandings of “block” and “ban.”

But there’s so much in the APAAS curriculum that the left glosses over, doesn’t want you to know, or, worse, is perfectly OK with. Stanley Kurtz, a senior fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center, reviewed the more problematic content of the curriculum for National Review.

[T]he final quarter of APAAS conveys and promotes a story of leftist political radicalism as a model for student activism. That radicalism is grounded in Marxist socialism, is far from averse to violence, and is consistent with the core assumptions of CRT. Virtually no conventional liberal or conservative voices emerge in the final quarter of the course to contradict this narrative. So the additional information provided by the still-secret APAAS teacher’s guide, a copy of which I have now obtained, confirms what we already knew. DeSantis was right to block this course. Indoctrination in socialism and CRT have no place in Florida schools. Both are rightly prohibited by law and policy.

The latest development, a lawsuit threatened by civil rights lawyer Ben Crump, sounds like fun. Accompanied by Jones, honchos from the American Federation of Teachers, and a trio of AP honors students, Crump demanded action from DeSantis.

“We are here to give notice to Governor DeSantis that if he does not negotiate with the College Board to allow AP African-American studies to be taught in the classrooms across the state of Florida, that these three young people will be the lead plaintiffs in a historic lawsuit,” Crump said.

One guesses Crump’s threat depends on the definition of “negotiate.” At the time the rejection was announced, Commissioner Diaz said the door remained open: “As we’ve said all along, if College Board decides to revise its course to comply with Florida law, we will come back to the table.”

Again, you know how quickly (and radically) words morph meanings these days, but, at least a day or so ago, what Diaz proposed sounds like a willingness to negotiate. So what was up with Crump?

Meanwhile, the College Board reports it is readying an update to the framework for APAAS, and expects to release the revisions Feb. 1, the launch of Black History Month.

This news finds us on the very edges of our seats. Can the College Board’s pursuit of African American studies satisfy Woke World without critical race theory, intersectionality, Black queer studies, and other topics that run afoul of Florida law? And if it can, how will it look any different than what they’re already learning in, for instance, St. Lucie County?

We expect more tumult ahead, with Ron DeSantis, like some Brooks Bros.-wearing Pecos Bill, hooting and hollering atop the whirlwind. Other red state governors should take note.