Governor Murphy they're making those comments today during a Newark Press Conference about a new class that'll help future college students his administration is welcoming and expanding the new advanced placement African-American studies course to dozens of schools around the state the decision comes after a Florida Republican Governor Ron desantis's move to ban the course in his State the two potential presidential candidates at odds once again senior correspondent Brenda Flanagan has the latest Brenda what can you tell us Brianna the new African-American studies AP course ignited fireworks in Florida which banned it this weekend conservative critics called it woke indoctrination but here in New Jersey governor Murphy is not only praising the new course he's promoting it and he made that clear during a visit here at newark's Science Park High School it's Black History Month and Governor Murphy joined New York mayor Ross Baraka to visit a history class at Newark Science Park High School where the governor announced New Jersey will increase the number of schools teaching AP African-American studies from just one currently Union County votech to 27 in the next academic year enough already of all this nonsense coming out of Florida we want to expand the story and tell the whole truth nothing but the truth even when it hurts I think it's important for every voice to be heard al-azir Blackman will teach the new AP course at Science Park he says a lot of the new curriculum came from resources developed for the history course here and it talks a lot about the African-American experience and the nuances of it and it gets really in-depth more than I believe um any other history the non-profit College Board took almost a decade to design this new AP course and piloted it in 60 schools last year it includes four basic units with subtopics like early African societies slavery abolition reconstruction civil rights and black power but the board downgraded controversial topics including black lives matter queer studies and reparations making them optional and it deleted works by several modern activist authors including mayor baraka's father poet Amiri Baraka the whole gamut of what America is is expressed and studied intellectually at the University level in the College Board is where that begins particularly at high school and it just doesn't make sense that the College Board would limit the universal ideas that are available in this country so our Department of Education looked at that and said in Florida we do education not indoctrination and so that runs a foul of our standards and you know many people agree with that in other states we were just the only ones that had you know the backbone to stand up and do it because they call you names and they demagogue you when you do it Florida governor and expected GOP Presidential candidate Ron DeSantis has made School curricula a political wedge issue Florida officials claim the College Board buckled under conservative pushback which the board denies calling it quote slander arising from a political agenda meanwhile New Jersey's already witnessed its own raucous battles over sex ed and banned books in conservative Jersey towns school boards and politicians have denounced critical race Theory Murphy blames DeSantis for Fanning the Flames I'm happy to call them out by name this is begins with Governor Ron DeSantis in Florida and it's unacceptable and frankly shameful but we're not the political ones here we're Americans standing up we got to tell the whole story of our country what they have done is politicized it such a way that people are afraid to say that we should study African-American history that we should allow LGBT community to have rights that that they're more cultures in this country that make America what it is seven schools in Newark including here at Science Park High will teach the course starting in the new school year at Science Park hi I'm Brenda Flanagan for NJ Spotlight news back to you Bree okay thanks for that reporting Brenda [Music]