The company that governs the Advanced Placement tests released its final version of the curriculum for its new African American Studies program, and conservatives are crowing that the College Board caved to demands from Republican Florida Governor and guy you know who’s already planning the new curtains for the Oval Office Ron DeSantis.  But it all may have been political theatre.

According to the New York Times, the College Board claims it has time-stamped correspondence showing that the changes to earlier versions of the program were finalized in December, a month before DeSantis held a press conference decrying the “woke” agenda of the program and his Department of Education sent a defiant letter to the College Board declaring that it wouldn’t certify the program because it taught things like Critical Race Theory and white people’s role in the American slave trade and the Civil Rights Movement and stuff.

The College Board maintains that it had previously changed the curriculum, removing many of the most controversial aspects of the program and adding a suggestion that a project could be centered on Black conservatives.  From a business perspective, it makes sense:  removing controversial subject matter, regardless of its academic appropriateness, would smooth the adoption of the program in the 26 states that passed anti-CRT legislation in the Republican race panic.

Don’t be surprised to learn that DeSantis knew the earlier version of the African American Studies curriculum–the one that he complained about–was already outdated.  A calculating political animal, DeSantis would not have risked being defied by the College Board on the national stage when he so publicly called them out.  In the kabuki theatre of politics, this was likely a WWE match:  the outcome was predetermined; you just have to worry about the lights, camera and drama.