How Florida’s School Censorship Spreads
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3.9 • 1.1K Ratings
🗓️ 9 February 2023
⏱️ 25 minutes
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Summary
Governor Ron DeSantis canceling the rollout of AP African-American Studies course in Florida is more than just another salvo in the culture war. It has implications across public education, across the country—and its chilling effect is already evident.
Guests: Jeremy Young, historian and Senior Manager of Free Expression and Education at PEN America.
Chyna-Lee Hunter, a 12th grade student at Robert Morgan Educational Center in Miami, Fla.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Chinalee Hunter is not used to thinking a lot about schoolwork when she's doing her retail job at the Adidas store. |
| 0:12.0 | But last month, she couldn't help it. |
| 0:14.9 | It's where she found out her AP African American Studies course was being banned. |
| 0:20.6 | I was at work, long story short, and I was being banned. |
| 0:26.2 | I was at work, long story short, and I was on break, and I was scrolling through Instagram, and I saw it on someone's story. |
| 0:32.1 | And I kind of just tapped through stories, but when I saw bands, I was like, whoa, let me go back. |
| 0:39.4 | China Lee is 17. |
| 0:41.3 | She lives in Miami, Florida. |
| 0:43.2 | It was Florida's governor, Ron DeSantis, who had decided to tinker with her course load. |
| 0:48.2 | His administration said the pilot class she and a few other kids were taking lacked educational value. |
| 0:54.7 | I was literally like, there's no way that I'm literally taking that class. |
| 0:59.0 | Like, there was so many thoughts I was going through my head. |
| 1:00.6 | Like, I'm taking this class. |
| 1:02.5 | What does this mean? |
| 1:03.8 | Why are we going back in history? |
| 1:05.9 | This African American studies class was a bit of an experiment. |
| 1:10.2 | The Advanced Placement Program, which offers college-level courses to high school kids all around the country. African American Studies class was a bit of an experiment. The advanced placement program, |
| 1:11.7 | which offers college level courses to high school kids all around the country, had asked a few |
| 1:16.1 | schools to try it out before they offered it nationwide. Although Florida's Department of |
| 1:20.8 | Education did not seem to like what it saw, China Lee points out, it's not like anyone asked |
| 1:26.2 | her about it. If they had, she would have told them how much she loved the class. |
| 1:31.1 | When I heard about this dust up, I had so many questions. |
... |
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