AHA Announcements

Keep up with the latest AHA activity supporting history and historical thinking in all fields and professions.

  • AHA Releases Statement Opposing Exclusion of LGBTQ+ History in Florida (May 2023)

    May 16, 2023 - 

    The AHA has released a statement condemning the Florida Department of Education (FLDOE)’s recent ruling banning educators from “provid[ing] classroom instruction to students in grades 4 through 12 on sexual orientation or gender identity unless such instruction is . . . expressly required by state academic standards.” “This erasure flattens the story of America’s long Civil Rights Movement…[and] bars students from examining cultures, religions, and societies—including Indigenous nations within Florida—that have embraced traditions of gender fluidity and homosexuality as meaningful categories of social identity and organization,” the AHA wrote. “We ask that the FLDOE reconsider its vague and destructive policy of censorship, and instead encourage the teaching of accurate and inclusive histories of the United States and the world.” To date, 50 organizations have signed on to the statement.

  • AHA Sends Letter to Alabama Senate Opposing “Divisive Concepts” Bill (May 2023)

    May 16, 2023 - 

    The AHA has sent a letter to the Alabama Senate opposing Senate Bill 247, which would “make it virtually impossible for history educators to help students thoughtfully consider the continuing impacts of slavery and racism in American history.” By requiring public schools, colleges, and universities to teach that slavery and racism are solely “deviations from, betrayals of, and failures to live up to the founding principles of the United States,” SB 247 “would therefore prohibit teachers from asking students to consider a diverse set of primary sources and wrestle with one of the central academic issues in historical scholarship for more than 50 years: the historical relationship between slavery and freedom. . . . If passed, this bill would result in ignorance of basic facts about American history and undermine the education of Alabama’s students, including their ability to perform effectively in advanced coursework, whether in high school or college.”

  • Action Alert: Ohio Senate Hearing on SB 83

    May 15, 2023 - 

    In April, the AHA sent a letter to members of the Ohio Senate registering “strong objection” to Ohio Senate Bill 83, which would “undermine the integrity of education in Ohio’s public universities.” The AHA urges members in Ohio to submit testimony to the Senate Workforce and Higher Education committee opposing SB 83. The bill will be heard, with a possible vote, on May 17 at 9:30 AM. 

  • AHA Signs On to CIE Letter Urging Title VI Funding for FY 2024 (May 2023)

    May 12, 2023 - 

    The AHA signed on to letters from the Coalition for International Education asking leaders in the US Senate and House of Representatives to approve “robust funding” for HEA-Title VI, International Education, and Fulbright-Hays programs. With this funding, the letter states, “Students from all racial and socio-economic backgrounds would have more opportunities to obtain the international experience and skills in growing demand across a wide range of professional and technical fields impacting our global engagement, security and competitiveness.”

  • AHA and SAA Webinar on Presidential Records Act to Re-Air on C-SPAN (May 2023)

    May 11, 2023 - 

    The April 4 webinar, “History Behind the Headlines: Presidential Records Act” will re-air on Saturday, May 13, at 7:30 p.m. ET on C-SPAN2. This event, organized by the AHA and the Society of American Archivists, brought together four leading scholars to put recent events surrounding presidential records in historical context. The webinar was moderated by Peniel E. Joseph (Univ. of Texas, Austin) and included panelists Nicole Hemmer (Vanderbilt Univ.), Timothy Naftali (New York Univ.), and Trudy Huskamp Peterson (former acting archivist of the United States).

  • AHA Congratulates Dr. Colleen Shogan on Confirmation as the Archivist of the United States (May 2023)

    May 10, 2023 - 

    The AHA congratulates Dr. Colleen Shogan on her confirmation as the Archivist of the United States. We look forward to collaborating with Dr. Shogan and her colleagues at the National Archives and Records Administration. In September 2022, the AHA wrote a letter enthusiastically supporting Dr. Shogan's nomination.

  • AHA Submits Testimony Opposing Ohio Learning Standards Legislation (May 2023)

    May 09, 2023 - 

    The AHA has submitted testimony to the Ohio House Primary and Secondary Education Committee expressing “grave concern” about House Bill 103, which would create a new, politically appointed task force to produce state social studies standards. The legislation, the AHA wrote, “would create an entirely new bureaucratic apparatus as a strategy for overruling an open, democratic, and professional process.” Additionally, HB 103 singles out the American Birthright model standards, which emphasize “content in place of critical thinking … focus[ing] narrowly on lessons about how students should feel about the United States,” as the basis for “a radical overhaul of history and social studies education in Ohio.”

  • AHA Sends Letter to North Carolina House of Representatives Opposing Bill to Eliminate Tenure (May 2023)

    May 03, 2023 - 

    The AHA has sent a letter to members of the North Carolina House of Representatives: the Education—Community Colleges Committee, and the Education—Universities Committee. The letter opposes HB 715, which would eliminate tenure for new hires at state universities beginning in July 2024.  This, the AHA wrote, is “a short-sighted and ill-conceived policy that would significantly undercut what has been accomplished over decades by the thousands of individuals responsible for building a university system that ranks among the best in the world. . . . . Tenure helps to protect university classrooms and laboratories as spaces where learning is advanced and new knowledge is created, rather than any given political platform promoted.”

  • AHA Sends Letter to Florida Senate Opposing Restrictive Education Bill (May 2023)

    May 02, 2023 - 

    The AHA has sent a letter to the Florida Senate registering “strong objection” to SB 266, legislation which “proposes to allow the study of the past only through an exceedingly narrow and tendentious frame.” As an amended version of HB 999, about which the AHA “expressed horror” in March, “the new provisions would serve only to restrict the extent to which history faculty are allowed to introduce Florida students to non-Western civilizations. . . . [T]he bill’s repeated emphasis on teaching only a thin slice of history to all students in required courses would hobble students and deprive them of the chance to become global leaders.”

  • American Historical Review Selected for Inclusion in 2023 Association of University Presses Book, Jacket, and Journal Show (April 2023)

    Apr 28, 2023 - 

    The American Historical Review was selected for inclusion in the 2023 Association of University Presses Book, Jacket, and Journal Show in the journals category. This year, AUP member presses submitted 488 publications in a variety of design categories, with 83 selected for inclusion. The AHA submitted the September 2022 issue of the AHR, which is the third issue incorporating the journal's first major redesign in 50 years. 

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