Georgia Superintendent Richard Woods has now reversed course on a controversial decision to halt state funding for the Advanced Placement class in African American Studies, but the debacle has revealed important implications of the “divisive concepts” law.
Gov. Brian Kemp signed the law, House Bill 1084, on April 28, 2022. It prevents schools from relying on materials advocating for “divisive concepts,” which include ideas that the U.S. “is fundamentally racist,” one race is “inherently or consciously racist” toward people of other races and people, by virtue of their race, “should feel anguish, guilt, or any other form of psychological distress.”
On July 23, 2024, Woods decided not to approve the AP African American Studies course for the state catalog and denied state funding for it.
The “divisive concepts” law is at the center of the recent controversy surrounding the AP African American Studies course.
The decision received widespread backlash. The next day, Georgia Democratic state Sen. Nikki Merritt, Democratic Leader Gloria Butler and state Rep. Jasmine Clark held a press conference protesting the decision, which drew a slew of speakers.
After Woods received pushback for his decision, he explained that he believed the course violated the “divisive concepts” law.
“As with most states with laws like Georgia on this issue that have raised concerns, the most glaring violation is on the topic of intersectionality,” he wrote in a July 31 statement.
Then, about a week later, he issued another statement saying that AP, International Baccalaureate and dual enrollment classes were not subject to the restrictions imposed by the divisive concepts law, according to the Georgia attorney general’s office.
According to Matt Cardoza, who is the director of external affairs at the Georgia Department of Education, the reason why the AP African American Studies course specifically was under scrutiny was because it was simply one of the first new AP classes since the divisive concepts law took effect.
One of the bill’s initial sponsors, Republican state Rep. Will Wade, declined an interview with WABE but pointed to a previous statement he made saying that the carve-out in the divisive concepts law for college-level courses was meant to allow students to take higher-level classes.
Now, even though Georgia’s educators can teach the AP African American Studies course, some are concerned about the implications of the divisive concepts law, especially when it comes to teaching about historical and current systemic racism.
Some progressive advocates say that ambiguities in the law and its application will cause teachers to avoid more sensitive topics.
Tracey Nance, who is a Voices for Honest Education fellow with the National Network of State Teachers of the Year, said the confusion around the law means it needs to be overturned.
“When we have a superintendent who doesn’t understand it, a state governor who proposed to throw the decision back to local districts — he clearly doesn’t understand it — a school board that doesn’t understand it, and it takes the bill’s author three weeks to speak up, it is very clear that that law is vague and it needs to go,” Nance said.
Sarah Hunt-Blackwell, First Amendment policy advocate at the American Civil Liberties Union of Georgia, said educators are already seeing the ripple effects of the law.
“We’ve been seeing these situations kind of cropping up in book bans that have just been growing throughout the state within different districts,” she said. “I think that we saw this when the educator in Cobb County was removed from her position.”
Hunt-Blackwell is referring to Katie Rinderle, a former Due West Elementary School teacher whom the Cobb County School Board fired last year for reading “My Shadow is Purple” by Scott Stuart to her fifth-grade class. The book is about not conforming to the gender binary.
“Having a chilling effect on your speech is a natural result of something being vague,” she said. “More than likely, you’re going to err on the side of, ‘Well, I just won’t say it at all… we won’t even go there.’”
Mallory Fannin, who is teaching the AP African American Studies course at Central Gwinnett High School, said the state law forces teachers to exclude important aspects of history and society.
“Me personally, I’ve never been super afraid of the divisive concept law because I’m here to teach the truth,” she said. “It’s horrible to me that we are teaching history courses, but leaving out main perspectives in the name of the divisive concept law.”
Still, she said the course is worth teaching. For many students, she said, this is their first AP course because the topic genuinely interests them.
“We’ve had a chance to have these conversations with students from everywhere in my classroom,” Fannin said. “So that diversity in my classroom also helps them see that although this is an African American class, teaching about African American history is also allowing other students to feel that their history is just as important.”
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