The South Carolina Department of Education announced changes to its course offerings in a memo released to district superintendents on Tuesday, June 4.
In the memo, district officials were told the AP African American Studies course would no longer be offered in state high schools for the upcoming 2024-25 school year. The move comes after the state had previously allowed the course to be piloted in some South Carolina school districts, including Richland County School District Two.
The course's subject matter had become increasingly controversial, the department wrote in the memo.
“In the years since this pilot began, there has been significant controversy surrounding the course concerning issues directly addressed by South Carolina's General Assembly in a budget proviso, as well as in pending permanent legislation," the department wrote in the released memo.
The department did not clarify what exactly was controversial about AP African American Studies in the memo.
Daniel Soderstrom, an African studies teacher at Ridge View High School in Richland Two, said the class' subject matter extends from ancient African history to the present day in the United States.
“We talk about ancient African empires, back to Egypt, the Kush Kingdom. We then go into a little more of the modern empires, the Kingdom of the Congo and Dongo and the Mataba and Grand Zimbabwe, places like that," Soderstrom said. "From there, in units two, three and four, we basically talk about the story of African American history through the progression of time."
The course also covers a wide range of influential African Americans and how they overcame obstacles and made history, Soderstrom said.
“We're teaching the story of African Americans, not as a group of helpless victims against oppression, but instead, as a group of people who, no matter the challenge, rose to do great and wonderful things,” Soderstrom said.
The move to not allow the AP class in schools attracted controversy, especially since South Carolina has many landmarks related to African American history, including the Gullah Geechee Cultural Heritage Corridor and the Charleston Slave Market.
“The State Department did not quite reveal what that controversy was. I do understand that a lot of people in the national media have talked about the course one way or another," Soderstrom said. "But, as educators, we don't make decisions based on what the national media is saying — we make decisions based on what is best for the students."
It also discourages potential students from seeing the subject as one they are able to study in the future, Todd Shaw, an associate professor of political science at USC, said.
“It at least narrows the possibilities of what is considered, at the state level, a viable course of study," Shaw said. "It also will discourage students from seeing African American studies as a possible major or minor when they get to come to the various colleges around the state."
Shaw said teaching African American Studies will help students learn about history that they are not normally taught and also aid in them in various fields where they have to engage with different people.
“Students need to be more aware, just as citizens. But there are also ways in which it can connect to people's career paths and better inform them about constituencies and communities and clients with which they will be engaging," Shaw said. "To know that experience is to be better at whatever you're doing as a professional."
Soderstrom said that even though students will not be able to get AP credit for their grade point average, they can still take the class for honors credit in some school districts, including Richland Two. Soderstrom stressed that students are still learning the same content that they would in an AP class.
“It's still a rigorous course. It's still challenging," Soderstrom said. "They still have to be able to think critically and create and defend an argument, but for many of them, it's content that they are willing to learn, and it's stuff that they've not learned before."
Both Soderstrom and Shaw agreed that having better-informed students makes for a better state.
“I think being better-informed about our experience as citizens across our various sorts of ethnic and racial backgrounds makes for a stronger South Carolina,” Shaw said.