AAUP-SC supports AP African American Studies in the Palmetto State
Ellen Weaver wants to axe African American Studies. We won’t sit silently.
Today AAUP-SC joins civil rights leaders, teachers, students, and other concerned citizens to condemn the decision by Superintendent Ellen Weaver’s S.C. Department of Education to deny academic credit for Advanced Placement African American Studies programs beginning this fall.
Joining together is AAUP-SC and ACLU of South Carolina, Avery Institute, E3 Foundation, Gullah Geechee Chamber of Commerce, National Action Network of Columbia, South Carolina State Conference of the NAACP, The SCEA, and others.
The decision by the S.C. Department of Education to deny credit for AP African American Studies courses will affect students in school districts including Charleston County, Berkeley County, Richland 1, and Richland 2, according to reporting in The Post and Courier. Students in those districts will no longer have the opportunity to earn college credit for AP African American Studies.
“Black history is South Carolina history. By their actions, leaders in the South Carolina Department of Education are sending a message that the state does not want students learning their own history, with all its tragedies and triumphs,” said Josh Malkin, Advocacy Director of the ACLU of South Carolina. “African American studies help us understand our past and our present more clearly, and the attacks we have seen on these fields of study will impoverish the education of the next generation. We cannot allow these attacks to stand.”
A press conference was held June 11 on the State House grounds.