A Louisiana Republican Party committee voted unanimously on Saturday to ask the Legislature to ban diversity, equity and inclusion agencies and departments at schools—public and private—around the state.
The move comes at the heels of a nationwide culture war launched by Republicans against diversity efforts and teaching about systemic racism at schools.
And it isn’t the first effort of its kind in Louisiana.
A bill was brought in the Louisiana House in 2021 that would’ve banned elementary, secondary and post-secondary schools from teaching or training on topics related to systemic racism or sexism. The bill was withdrawn, but its creation showed a possible future for the Republican-dominated Louisiana Legislature.
And, not far from Louisiana, Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis banned AP African American Studies from Florida high schools in January, sparking nationwide backlash.
Now, some fear the same action could be coming to the Bayou State.
Sixty schools across the country were tasked with teaching the AP African American Studies pilot course for the 2022-2023 school year, which students could potentially receive college credit for, according to the College Board website. The AP exam is set to be made available to all students by 2025.
More than 300 African American Studies professors at over 200 universities across the country, including various historically Black universities, were consulted about the course, which covers “essential events, experiences, and individuals crucial to a study of African American history and culture,” according to the College Board.
Less than five miles from LSU’s campus, the course is being taught at Baton Rouge Magnet High School. More students at the school have become interested in taking the course amid the national pushback, according to The Advocate.
The College Board defended the course in a statement released Feb. 11, saying its commitment to AP African American Studies is “unwavering” and calling the governor’s decision an “effort to engineer a political win.” The statement also laid out the course framework and listed every interaction the organization had with the Florida Department of Education about the course.
“Our failure to raise our voice betrayed Black scholars everywhere and those who have toiled to build this remarkable field,” College Board said.
The College Board also said that much of what has been said by the Florida education department is untrue, such as the statement that the College Board had not been in contact with Florida about the content of the course.
“We had no negotiations about the content of this course with Florida or any other state, nor did we receive any requests, suggestions or feedback,” College Board said.
Push backs against diversity efforts and teaching about racism may be especially consequential in a state like Louisiana, where a third of the state population is Black or African American, according to the most recent census.
Stephen C. Finley, the inaugural chair of the department of African and African American Studies at LSU, co-authored the book “The Religion of White Rage: White Workers, Religious Fervor, and the Myth of Black Racial Progress.” The book aims to “[shed] light on the phenomenon of white rage, and maps out the uneasy relationship between white anxiety, religious fervor, American identity and perceived black racial progress,” according to its description.
Finley said LSU’s African American Studies department has been preparing for this type of attack on the curriculum for years.
“We have to deal with the politics that other departments don’t have to deal with,” he said.
Still, Finley said that this reaction isn’t new. Since starting at LSU in 2008, he said he has received hate and criticism for the work he does. African and African American Studies is one of the few specializations that receives such backlash, he said.
“I want to teach my classes on African American religion and culture, Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X, where I have to talk about slavery, lynching, Jim Crow and police violence. How do you do that when it’s illegal to talk about those kinds of things?” Finley said.
Two-hundred-and-fifty years of slavery and post-Reconstruction Anti-Black violence is not disconnected from the disparities that Black people face today, including the erasure of their history by eliminating African American studies courses, Finley said.
“America structures a forced forgetting,” Finley said. “As if this kind of white, anti-Black violence was ancient history that should be left in the past, when really, we can’t point to a time when unfettered violence ever ended.”
History graduate student Justin Martin said students who take AP African American Studies and related courses take them to broaden their understanding of injustices, struggle and Black resilience in the world around them.
“That’s what makes a broad range of materials necessary for students in the course,” Martin said. “Rather than these materials being indoctrination, as many have argued, they are different perspectives for students to engage within their search for understanding and growth.”
Martin serves as the president of the Society for African and African American Studies. The club promotes the courses in the department and campus events, like its poetry night, which represented a variety of diverse experiences among African American artists.
“That’s what African American studies is all about – that opportunity to critically reflect and the freedom to develop your own perspective.”
Leave a Reply