Inside the Virginia Education Department’s Review of African American History Course

In its review of an African American history class last year, the Virginia Department of Education proposed dozens of revisions to the curriculum — including recommendations to remove references to racism and white supremacy and lessons on implicit bias and equity — according to records obtained by American Oversight and reported on by the Washington Post.

The department’s review, which it told the Post was still ongoing, was undertaken in 2023 to determine whether it complies with Gov. Glenn Youngkin’s controversial 2022 executive order banning the teaching of “inherently divisive concepts” in public schools. American Oversight obtained the records after requesting all assessments or guidance related to identifying prohibited curriculum.

While the proposed changes have not been implemented, many of the suggestions would significantly sanitize the state’s history of racism against Black people. In several learning objectives, state officials suggested replacing terms like “racist” and “white supremacist” with “discriminatory practices.”

One revision suggested changing a learning objective from “Investigate and understand that the University of Virginia was an institution on the forefront of the Eugenics movement and that the Commonwealth used this pseudo-science to control African Americans” to “Investigate and describe the Eugenics movement and that the Commonwealth used it.”

A revision to a lesson on the “Lost Cause” narrative — which mischaracterized the motivations and values of Confederate soldiers and decentralized slavery as a cause of the U.S. Civil War — suggested removing instruction on how the ideology “continues to influence American society.”

Another edit suggested paraphrasing a Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. quotation that called “white moderates” the “great stumbling block” to Black people’s freedom, instead referring to them as “those moderates.”

Records previously obtained by American Oversight revealed confusion within the Virginia Department of Education brought on by the executive order’s broad and ill-defined mandate, and included the résumé of a former Trump administration Department of Education official who was hired by the department as a consultant shortly after Youngkin’s inauguration.

In 2023, Youngkin cited his “inherently divisive concepts” order in calling for a review of the Advanced Placement African American Studies course, weeks after Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis rejected it in his state. After a six-month investigation, Virginia’s education department ruled that the AP course did not violate Youngkin’s executive order.

In August 2023, American Oversight obtained records from Florida’s review of the AP course. Internal comments included objections to lessons about slavery or racial disparities that reviewers claimed were “one-sided” or lacking in “opposing viewpoints” — another glaring example of how conservative state efforts to minimize and whitewash U.S. history serve to distort facts and threaten the health of an informed democracy.