Looks like psychology is canceled in Florida, and
that's too bad, because Ron DeSantis really needs to see a therapist.
But no, it turns out that the College Board,
which oversees AP classes as well as SAT college admissions tests,
is advising Florida schools to not offer AP Psychology to students in
schools in fear that that would violate the state's Stop Woke Act.
Why? Well,
because curriculum talks about gender and sexuality.
It's just that.
And that apparently is now illegal.
So, the College Board has this statement on AP Psychology in Florida, saying,
we're sad to have learned today that the Florida Department of Education has
effectively banned AP Psychology in the state by instructing Florida
superintendents that teaching foundational content on sexual orientation and
gender identity is illegal under state law.
The state has said that districts are free to teach AP Psychology only if it
excludes any mention of these essential topics.
The AP course asks students to, quote, describe how sex and
gender influence socialization and other aspects of development.
This element of the framework is not new, gender and sexuality orientation
have been a part of AP Psychology since the course launched 30 years ago.
In other words, it's foundational.
And it has everything to do with when you're learning about childhood trauma,
or becoming an adult, family dynamics.
And the College Board is now saying that they're not gonna modify their courses in
order to meet DeSantis's draconian laws,
they're just recommending that they're not taught at all.
So they say, any course that censors required course content that cannot be
labeled AP or Advanced placement, and
the AP Psychology designation cannot be utilized on student transcripts.
To be clear, any AP Psychology course taught in Florida will violate either
Florida law or college requirements.
Therefore, we advise Florida districts to not offer AP Psychology until
Florida reverses their decision and allows parents and
students to choose to take the full course.
Now, this is important because before there was a mandate to
basically not teach anything about gender and sexuality and
sexual identity until third grade, that was then increased in March.
This is back to graphic 5.
In March, the Florida Department of Education approved a proposed rule by
the DeSantis administration to extend the ban on classroom instruction related to
sexual orientation and gender identity to all grades.
After reviewing a proposed rule, the following month,
florida's Education Board voted to ban teaching students about sexual
orientation and gender identity throughout high school.
Ergo AP classes in psychology, done.
Ergo, college preparation, completely done.
So, that's the state that is stopping Woke.
It's also stopping freedom of thought and something as basic as psychology,
which honestly, and we'll talk about this, I think,
kind of checks out with a fascistic and fundamentalist worldview.
Why do you have to do any kind of introspection, any kind of reflection?
Why do you got to talk about feelings?
Feelings are gay and feelings are Woke.
Anyway, guys.
>> Speaker 2: Yeah.
So first, Republicans, tell us who you are.
So here's a law that has nothing to do, in this particular case,
with inappropriate sexual material in the classroom.
Doesn't have anything to do with kids.
All it is is, hey,
there's a discussion of different gender identities in an AP class.
An AP class is college-level class.
So we're not talking about little kids, we're not talking about elementary school.
It just acknowledges that LGBTQ people exist in the world.
And you're saying that your kid, that is a senior in high school,
that is taking a college-level class,
if he finds out that gay people exist in the world, that's it.
His head's gonna explode.
So, okay, just so admit it.
You're bigots.
You hate people who are gay.
But by the way, if that's not true, then you should say to DeSantis,
take away this law, or refine the law or amend the law.
Are any of you going to do that?
No. None of you are gonna do that,
because this isn't about groomers, this isn't about kids,
this isn't about inappropriate sexual content, this is about hating LGBTQ folks.
And it's the oldest trick in the book.
The others, the others all black people, Latinos, immigrants,
Muslims, gay people, trans people.
Hate them, hate them, hate them.
That's what it is.
Admit it. It's an AP class.
Are you saying college classes should not even discuss the fact that gay people
exist in the world?
If that's your position, and that is the current position of the Republican Party
in Florida, admit that you're a bigot, and let's move on with our lives.
>> Speaker 3: Think about how they framed their initial attacks and
their initial attempts to censor school curriculums.
This is just for elementary classrooms.
We're only doing this for K-5.
When everyone with the right mind knew that was bogus.
And then you have this mission creep.
Well, now it's Black history.
Now we're gonna talk about how slaves benefited from slavery.
Now it's college prep classes.
And it's not just in what you can teach in schools, it's also with book bans.
First it was, it's just elementary school libraries.
We're just taking some things out.
And then ,not just in Florida,
throughout the south you have conservatives trying to restrict or
ban what books could even be sold in bookstores to adults, adult consumers.
So, this type of censorship isn't even going to stop here.
They're going to keep going.
And that's why people need to fight back, that's why people need to support efforts
to fight these book bans, support a robust curriculum in schools across the board.
Never believe them when they tell you, it's just for this, and it's just for
the kids protection.
Hey, you said you wanted parents to have a say,
now parents don't even have a say in what AP classes their kids could take.
It's ridiculous.
>> Speaker 1: Also, I just really quickly wanna say that the more kids under third
grade and throughout high school,
the more they understand about human sexuality, gender identity, their own,
others, the more they actually, contrary to what Republicans think,
which is, if you say the word sex, that means you're doing sex to kids.
No.
In fact, studies show that it better equips children and
young adults to be defensive and to be aware of their own bodily autonomy,
it better equips them to talk when someone has harmed them.
If they've been assaulted, they feel more comfortable talking about it to teachers,
to parents, to anyone.
It equips them, when they talk about gender and sexuality,
their own self-expression, or, again, any kind of gender-based violence.
It equips them for the future.
So that's what they want. Republicans want them to be completely
defenseless against predators,
which there's a lot of them who've caped as Republicans before.
>> Speaker 2: Yeah, let me say last two things here from my perspective.
Number one is, let me be fair to Republicans.
Because I was on a right wing show the other day, and they made it seem like this
very graphic book showing oral sex was being put in elementary schools, and
that's the only thing that they were opposed to.
So now, if you're a Republican, you watch this, and you're in Florida,
you know that's not the only thing they're opposed to, yes,
that's what you've heard in right wing media 24/7, but it isn't true.
Now they're saying these AP classes should be banned because it mentions
gender identity issues.
So, are you gonna do anything about it?
Are you going to be principled?
I'm being generous to you, maybe you didn't hear the correct news.
Now you have and you could check it out on your own.
No, but my guess is you're not gonna do anything, but here, now you know.
Because right wing media, I'm sorry, but they mislead you 24/7 nonstop.
And last thing is, I love psychology.
In the psychology class that I took senior year of high school made me love education
for the first time in my life.
And maybe I should have loved it earlier, but I learned so many amazing things.
And I say that coz I think Franny's right.
That love of learning things and learning about yourself and learning about others,
maybe that's what they're trying to stop.
Because it might get you to empathize with other human beings,
which would definitely hurt the Republican Party.