On Wednesday (Jan. 25), civil rights attorney Ben Crump threatened to file a lawsuit on behalf of three Florida high school students against Republican Governor Ron DeSantis over the state’s rejection of an Advanced Placement course on African American studies.

“If he does not negotiate with the College Board to allow AP African American studies to be taught in classrooms across the state of Florida, then these three young people will be the lead plaintiffs,” Crump said at a press conference in the Florida Senate Office Building in Tallahassee.

“Will we let Governor DeSantis or anybody exterminate Black history in the classrooms across America?” Crump asked. “What this really is about is saying you cannot exterminate us. You cannot exterminate our culture, and you can never exterminate the value of our children in this world.” One of the students Ben Crump plans to represent in the legal action added, “I realized that I have not learned much about the history or culture of my people outside of my parents and close relatives.”

As previously reported by REVOLT, in a letter from the state’s Department of Education, College Board claimed that the AP African American Studies course goes against DeSantis’ Stop W.O.K.E. Act and “significantly lacks educational value.” It also stated that “if the course comes into compliance and incorporates historically accurate content, the Department will reopen the discussion.”

According to Fox News, earlier this week, DeSantis said, “This course on Black history, what’s one of the lessons about? Queer theory. Now, who would say that an important part of Black history is queer theory? That is somebody pushing an agenda.” A section of the course, which is titled African American Studies: Movements and Methods, includes a lesson on Black Queer Studies that will teach students about “the concept of the queer of color critique, grounded in Black feminism and intersectionality, as a Black studies lens that shifts sexuality studies toward racial analysis,” according to the syllabus obtained by the media outlet.