The College Board is caving to pressure from Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis to water down an Advanced Placement high school course on African American studies.
DeSantis dug in his heels, banning the class from all Florida high schools -- and Wednesday, the College Board, which oversees the AP program nationwide, announced several changes to the new course's curriculum ... and it appears concessions were made to DeSantis.
The Governor and others in the GOP, were pissed the course included topics like the Black Lives Matter movement, affirmative action, reparations, critical race theory and queer theory.
The official curriculum, released on the first day of Black History Month, removed those hot button topics ... while content on slavery, abolition, reconstruction, the Civil Rights movement and the Black power movement remains.
Christopher Tinson, the chair of the African American Studies department at Saint Louis University, joined us this week on "TMZ Live," and told us the College Board would be open to compromise, even though it now opens the door for other states to demand specific changes.
DeSantis also made a fuss about several Black authors who were included in the course ... and the College Board's final draft also removed them from the material.
The new AP course is still a landmark opportunity for high school students to get educated on material usually reserved for college classrooms -- it's just a much more watered down version now.