The Mali Empire, home to the richest man to ever live (Mansa Musa), could be removed from the AP World History exam.

Every May, nearly 5 million students take at least one Advanced Placement (AP) exam, administered by the College Board, in the hopes of earning college credit. AP World History is one of the only courses focused on breadth over depth. Since it covers content from 10,000 BCE to the present, students and teachers have learned to examine history by recognizing patterns rather than memorizing dates and names.

This past month, the College Board released a statement announcing changes to the exam that has ignited the AP and professional history community. The planned changes would effectively cut the AP World History course in half by only assessing content from after 1450 CE, thereby eliminating thousands of years of history from the test. With that start date, the exam would no longer assess any of the developments in Afro-Eurasia or the Americas before European colonization. College Board then announced a plan to embed the rest of history, from early humans to the Columbian Exchange, into a new pre-AP World History course that would not have an exam, but would cost schools between $1,500 and $6,500 to teach.

I’m infuriated by these proposed changes and you should be too.

I taught AP World History for five years in Oakland, CA to students from different racial, socioeconomic, religious, and academic backgrounds. Through the AP World History curriculum, I guided my students through the entire story of humans. Before AP World History, my students had never heard of the riches of post-classical West Africa, the influential technologies of the Tang and Song Chinese dynasties, or the scientific advancements of the Islamic Caliphates. The only people of color in their histories were civil rights leaders and other heroes against oppression. Highlighting these brave men and women is vital, but it is just as vital for young people to see themselves a part of a history of achievement before oppression. Because of AP World History, my students know that black history does not start at slavery, Native American history does not start at Columbus, and Asian history does not start at isolation, because we covered the whole story.

When the histories of achievements are omitted from the exam, teachers are disincentivized to teach them. A trickle-down effect of that is the mistreatment of people of color becomes normalized. The histories that minority students are taught are ones that reflect their ancestors as “savages” or slaves, while their triumphs are shuttered into a pre-AP World History course that many schools will be unwilling to pay to teach. By exclusively teaching a history that places Europe at the epicenter of innovation without highlighting the accomplishments of non-European civilizations prior to 1450, we are telling our minority students that their cultures don’t have equal value to the histories of their white peers. We tell them that when black and brown bodies are harmed today, it is reflective of how it has always been. AP World History, as it presently exists, empowers students to push back on oppressive norms with the knowledge that our world has not always been the way it is today, and that the status quo does not have to continue.

On June 5th, the Senior Vice President of AP and Instruction, Trevor Packer, hosted an open forum at the scoring of AP World exams in Salt Lake City. I decided to join the line of teachers at the microphones to elevate the voices of my students. Mr. Packer’s responses became defensive as he reacted to my impassioned statements. I urge you take 5 minutes to watch this moment play out because it truly highlights the power dynamics between College Board and the overworked-while-underpaid teachers who champion their courses.

On their own accord, students have been organizing against these changes through a circulated petition signed by over 8,000 supporters. They are outraged and so are their teachers. As one student posted, “Please don’t leave out the histories of the kids you are trying to include!” Students are well aware that College Board has pushed for a more inclusive testing pool and for schools to break down the barriers to allow all students access to advanced courses. However, as this student noted, it feels ironic to emphasize diversity in test-takers, but not on the test itself.

Activism has spread beyond the high school classroom and some of the top voices in the field of history — including textbook writers, professors, and the head humanities writer of the famed Crash Course Youtube series — have spoken out against the proposed changes to the exam. As the President of the American Historical Association, Mary Beth Norton, noted, “It risks creating a Western-centric perspective at a time when history as a discipline and world history as a field have sought to restore as many voices as possible to the historical record and the classroom.” Additionally, all of the former leaders of the AP World exam have published a joint statement against the announced changes.

College Board has provided their reasons for proposed the changes. Some of them hold water. Others don’t. The central idea put forth by College Board — that the content that will be removed from the exam can and should still be taught — represents a failure to understand the reality of the teachers and schools being asked to carry it out, as well a willful refusal to accept that what they test for on the exam dictates what is taught in the classroom.

AP World History should remain in its present state, with no changes to the content. While covering 10,000 years of history may overwhelm some, it excites many because it presents an opportunity to ask big questions and to draw connections across space and time. For students to begin their advanced studies in history through this scope, they will have far more context when they continue into the regional depth of AP US History or AP European History.

In a time of rising nationalism, resurgent racism, and revived religious tension, high school students need an expansive history course, not an abbreviated one, in order to understand that everyone’s story matters and that no one is irrelevant. If College Board decides to Save AP World History, it will be because enough of us choose to speak out.