The AHA submitted a comment in support of a campaign to enable commenting on footnotes in Microsoft Word using the Review function. “Adding the ability to comment on footnotes,” explained AHA executive director James Grossman, “would be of tremendous benefit to historians across the world.” Vote here to encourage Microsoft to add this function.
The AHA has joined the National Security Archive, the Society for Historians of American Foreign Relations, and Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington as plaintiffs in a lawsuit intended to prevent valuable historical records from being irretrievably lost. The plaintiffs seek to ensure that the current administration complies with, and the National Archives provides oversight for, the charge of the Presidential Records Act to preserve “complete copies” of presidential records, including relevant metadata of digital materials.
In solidarity with the French Association of Archivists, the AHA issued a statement urging reconsideration of a policy change by the Secrétariat général de la défense et de la sécurité nationale that renders “some well-known sources, and many others yet to be analyzed, practically inaccessible, even to professional researchers.” The AHA stressed that “reading and interpreting these sources will be critical to the production of new historical scholarship in the future,” and noted that “Article L. 213-2 of the Code du patrimoine states that, after 50 years, almost all archival documents pertaining to the French state enter the public domain and should be made available without any conditions.” The AHA previously wrote to the French government about this issue in February 2020.
The AHA has endorsed the Educating for Democracy Act of 2020, which would provide $1 billion per year for the next five fiscal years to improve the teaching of history and civics in our nation's schools. This bipartisan bill “dramatically increases federal support for civics and history,” according to the CivXNow coalition, and “would ensure an investment required to give youth in our country the civic education they need to become knowledgeable and skilled protectors of our constitutional democracy.”
The AHA has endorsed the Promoting Accountability and Security in Transition (PAST) Act, which would clarify and enhance existing law with regards to presidential transition and presidential records.“This vital legislation adds much-needed teeth to the Presidential Records Act,” said AHA executive director Jim Grossman. “Presidential records are the most important and widely-used source for studying how the executive branch of our federal government works, how it has changed over time, and how it might evolve to serve the needs of a new era. Many records of the current administration, however, are currently at grave risk. The Presidential Records Act lacks essential protections for preserving complete electronic records and affords Congress and the Archivist inadequate oversight over presidential transitions, when important records are most at risk. A legislative solution is imperative: the courts have made clear that they cannot act to force compliance until changes are made to the law. The AHA applauds this legislation for guaranteeing the preservation and accessibility of presidential records and furthering the transparency of our federal government—a requirement for a functioning, accountable constitutional republic and the protection of liberty.”
The AHA recently sent a letter to the president and trustees of Guilford College, noting with alarm “the dramatic restructuring of academic units and program prioritization announced by Guilford College on November 6, 2020, including the elimination of the history program.” The college plans to terminate one tenure-track and two tenured history faculty members “without adhering to its own contractual Faculty Handbook, not to mention generally accepted ethical guidelines.” The AHA urged administrators to reconsider these changes, which are “likely to have serious and deleterious consequences for the practice of historical work and hence the quality of undergraduate education at Guilford College.”
The AHA sent a letter to the Arkansas Division of Higher Education (ADHE) expressing “grave concern about a legislative request that has been circulated to academic units in the Arkansas university system.” The request sought to collect “data on the teaching of ‘The 1619 Project’ and ‘Critical Race Theory’ at public higher education institutions in Arkansas.” “Neither the legislature nor the ADHE,” writes the AHA, “should be monitoring what qualified scholars are assigning to their students, except as part of a bona fide review and assessment.”
The AHA sent a letter to the chancellor and provost of the University of Mississippi expressing concern about the university’s decision not to renew the contract of Garrett Felber, assistant professor of history, and the possibility that Professor Felber’s activism relating to racism and incarceration might have affected a decision on his employment status. The letter also raised questions of procedure regarding this disciplinary action, citing the AHA’s Statement on Standards of Professional Conduct.
The AHA sent a letter to the US Senate Subcommittee on Financial Services and General Government requesting that the subcommittee “reconsider its vote to eliminate funding for the National Historical Publications and Records Commission.” The AHA noted that “the NHPRC provides millions of Americans with ready digital access to materials essential to civic education and an understanding of the documentary basis of American history” and urged a funding level that will “enable the agency to sustain its work on behalf of the nation’s history and heritage.”
The AHA has submitted a comment on a proposed revision to Department of Education rules governing student and visiting scholar visas. The proposal would limit the length of such visas for both undergraduate and graduate students to a maximum of four years. The revision, writes the AHA, “will likely result in a larger proportion of international students who never graduate“ from undergraduate programs and “would undermine the globally dominant position that American PhD programs have earned in the past century—indeed enfeebling American PhD programs in history and rendering their graduates uncompetitive for employment against PhD graduates trained in other countries.”
The AHA recently sent a letter to the chairman of the Supreme Court of Karelia expressing “grave concern” for Yuri Dmitriev, a Russian historian sentenced for 13 years by the Karelian Supreme Court for what the Delegation of the European Union to Russia has referred to as “unsubstantiated” charges “triggered by his human rights work and his research on political repression in the Soviet period.” The AHA wrote to “respectfully urge the Supreme Court of Karelia to order the release of Mr. Dmitriev.”
The AHA recently wrote to the president of Collin College on behalf of AHA member Dr. Lora Burnett, requesting that the college respect "the right of historians to express their opinions as private citizens without fear of institutional discipline."
In response to the president’s recent executive order prohibiting the inclusion of “divisive concepts” in employee training sessions, the AHA has issued a statement urging the retraction of the order because it is “neither necessary nor useful.” “Rather than banning ‘divisive concepts’ from any educational venue,” the statement explains, “historians seek to draw public attention to these concepts so that they can be discussed, debated, and ultimately challenged.” As of November 2, 31 organizations signed onto the statement.
Along with the Association of Research Libraries and other partners, the AHA has signed on to an amicus curiae brief in the Michigan Supreme Court case Ahmad v. University of Michigan concerning “the use of a public records request to circumvent a deed of gift” of private papers to the University of Michigan Library. The brief asserts that an early release of the papers, which would violate the deed of gift, would set a dangerous precedent resulting in individuals destroying their personal papers rather than making them available to historians and other researchers.
The AHA has recently signed onto two comments posted to the National Archives and Records Administration website in response to a proposed records schedule that would classify a set of Customs and Border Patrol records as "temporary," which would allow their destruction in as quickly as four years.As proposed, the Department of Homeland Security would be permitted to destroy "records developed to track and monitor complaints that are or will be investigated by DHS Civil Rights and Civil Liberties regarding alleged violations of civil rights and civil liberties." The proposal also includes only 25 year retention for additional records that include documents related to sexual assaults in prison. These records are comparable to the schedules identified in a lawsuit filed in March by the AHA along with the Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington and the Society for Historians of American Foreign Relations. As is often the case with records schedule retention policies the issues are complex, even arcane. Historians have the professional authority to argue for longer retention because of the value of such records for historical research.
The AHA has issued a statement on last week's “White House Conference on American History” deploring the tendentious use of history and history education to stoke politically motivated culture wars. As of October 14, 46 organizations signed onto the statement.
The AHA has signed a joint statement authored by the American Council of Learned Societies on the key role of the humanities during the COVID-19 crisis. Offering “an urgent reminder of the vital contribution made by the humanities and social sciences to the public good,” the statement, signed by many societies as well as the leaders of academic organizations, libraries, and research centers across the country, urges universities to avoid making devastating cuts to humanities programs. Instead it calls on leaders of all institutions of higher education “to uphold the central importance of the humanities and the social sciences as you make important decisions that will shape the institutions under your stewardship for years and perhaps generations to come.”
The AHA recently sent a letter to the Québec Ministry of Culture in regards to the Séminaire de Saint-Sulpice archive and library in Montréal. The AHA expressed “grave concern for the future preservation, maintenance, and accessibility” of the historically significant archives and collections at Saint-Sulpice, following the recent firing of the professional staff charged with overseeing these collections.
The AHA has sent a letter to Senators Susan Collins (R-ME) and Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) expressing support of S.959, the Smithsonian Women’s Museum Act, which would authorize the creation of a National Women’s History Museum as part of the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, DC. “The AHA is proud to support this bill,” the letter states, “and in the process affirm the central role women have played in the shaping of American history.”
The AHA issued the Statement on Department Closures and Faculty Firings urging administrators to “respect the established principles and procedures of faculty governance and consult with faculty from all disciplines at their institution” before making budgetary decisions. The AHA emphasized that “history education must retain its vibrancy and institutional integrity” and that closing or decimating history departments “comes at immense cost to students and to colleges and universities themselves, and to society as a whole.”26 scholarly societies have cosigned this statement.
In July 2020, the AHA endorsed a Senate resolution introduced by Sen. Elizabeth Warren recognizing the forthcoming centennial of the Tulsa Race Massacre of 1921. Senator Warren and Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee reintroduced this bill on March 10, 2021, and the AHA once again endorsed it. “Everything has a history, including white supremacy and the many forms of violence, coercion, and cultural practices that have legitimated and enforced it,” said AHA executive director Jim Grossman. “What happened in Tulsa was extreme, but not unusual. It is part of our nation's heritage. We must acknowledge that heritage, learn from it, and do whatever each of us can to ensure that it is just that—heritage, rather than continuing practice.”
The AHA has issued a statement urging universities to make a series of specific accommodations for faculty and students whose research has been interrupted by the COVID-19 pandemic. “Sustaining historical research during the COVID-19 crisis,” the statement argues, “requires flexible and innovative approaches to the conduct of research itself as well as to how we gauge productivity.” Recommendations include deferral and extension of research funding awards, increased access to online databases, support for research that does not require on-site research, and incorporation of virtual scholarship in professional evaluations.46 scholarly organizations have co-signed this statement to date.
The AHA has issued a resolution acknowledging credible allegations of serious and systematic violation of human rights committed by the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement and US Border Patrol and encouraging higher education institutions to consult with historians and our colleagues in other relevant disciplines before entering into arrangements with both agencies.
The AHA sent a letter to the president and members of the board of trustees of Canisius College expressing grave concern about the college’s dramatic restructuring of academic departments, drastic reduction of the curriculum in history, and termination of three tenured faculty members. The AHA urged the college to reconsider its course of action, asserting that the college’s plan “diminishes the quality of a Canisius degree” and “identifies the college with employment practices that have no place in American higher education.”
The AHA has joined several scholarly societies in signing the Association for Asian Studies’ Statement on the 2020 Hong Kong National Security Law. The statement expresses concern over the People’s Republic of China’s curtailment of Hong Kong’s freedom and expresses concern that such a law would inhibit academic exchange.
The AHA has written a letter to the deputy director and senior official performing the duties of the director of US Immigration and Customs Enforcement strongly objecting to "modifications" declaring that foreign "students attending schools operating entirely online may not take a full online course load and remain in the United States." Whether driven by nativism or an agenda to pressure higher education to reopen campuses, this ruling is likely to have a devastating effect on hundreds of thousands of foreign students and the colleges and universities they attend.
The AHA has issued a statement urging a reckoning with the United States’ deplorable record of violence against African Americans, a record that stretches back centuries. The killing of George Floyd at the hands of Minneapolis police officers stands within this sordid national tradition of racist violence. It is past time for Americans to confront our nation’s past, using insights from history to inform our actions as we work to create a more just society. 97 scholarly organizations have co-signed this statement to date.
The AHA has joined 33 other societies in a letter to Congress requesting additional relief for higher education hit hard by challenges from the COVID-19 pandemic. The letter outlined the struggles that universities, especially HBCUs; community colleges; underfunded public institutions; and tuition-dependent nonprofit private colleges have faced in the wake of this crisis, and asked for greater investments in higher education to provide for the common good.
The etiology of the novel coronavirus is at once scientific and historical. In a statement endorsed by several peer organizations, the AHA emphasizes the importance of historical thinking in understanding the current crisis and urges all institutions that employ historians to be flexible and humane in considering the needs of their employees and constituencies.
In a letter to Dr. Tristan Denley, executive vice chancellor and chief academic officer for the University System of Georgia and chair of the General Education Redesign Implementation Committee, the AHA opposed proposed changes to the general education curriculum. The letter from the AHA asserts that the legislative requirement for instruction in the history and government of the United States and Georgia cannot be fulfilled by taking only one course, either in history or political science, and that proper instruction in history can be fulfilled only by trained historians.
The AHA signed onto a statement from the American Sociological Association regarding faculty review and reappointment processes during the COVID-19 crisis. The statement encourages institutions of higher education to consider appropriate temporary adjustments to their review and reappointment processes for tenured and contingent faculty, including adjusting expectations for faculty scholarship, limiting the use of student evaluations of teaching, and extending tenure timelines. The AHA also urges all higher education institutions that employ contract and/or part-time faculty to compensate fully for courses already contracted for summer and fall offerings.
On March 19, AHA executive director Jim Grossman co-signed a letter to the chairs and ranking members of the House and Senate Appropriations Committees requesting emergency funding for the National Endowment for the Humanities that would include support for historians whose income is imperiled by current conditions in higher education and other history-focused institutions, professional development relating to classroom and other historical work, and other needs relevant to the COVID-19 crisis.
The AHA has joined the Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington and the Society for Historians of American Foreign Relations in a lawsuit against the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) and US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) challenging NARA’s approval of ICE’s records disposition, which authorizes ICE to destroy several categories of records documenting mistreatment of immigrants detained in ICE custody.
In connection with the amicus brief in Pitch v. United States, which was filed in September 2019, the AHA signed onto a letter to the Committee on Rules of Practice and Procedure of the United States Courts proposing a revision to Rule 6(e) to specify that the courts can release grand jury records based on historical significance. The proposed amendment would make clear that district courts have authority to order disclosure, in appropriate circumstances, of grand-jury materials of historical significance, and it would provide a temporal limit for secrecy regarding grand-jury materials that are stored as archival records at the National Archives.
In a letter to the Executive Office of Immigration Review (EOIR) on February 27, 2020, the AHA expressed concern over reports that EOIR had omitted close to 1,000,000 records from its September 2019 anonymized data release. The missing records include more than 1000 applications for relief filed by immigrants in the course of Immigration Court proceedings, which are not exempt from disclosure under the Freedom of Information Act.
In a letter to French President Emmanuel Macron, the AHA expressed concern that the change in policy to declassify documents at Vincennes and other repositories in France has rendered many documents inaccessible. The AHA encouraged the development of a clear, efficient, and effective procedure for declassification so that historians and other researchers can access materials of ongoing public importance.
David Ferriero, the Archivist of the United States, sent this response to the AHA's letter objecting to the alteration of a photograph on exhibition and praising NARA staff for acknowledging this serious lapse in judgement.
In a letter to David Ferriero, Archivist of the United States, the AHA voiced concern about the NARA policy that directs all agencies to manage all permanent records electronically by December 2022. The AHA argued that hasty implementation of the policy, with a lack of dedicated funding, will impair NARA's mission and have dire consequences for researchers.
In a letter to Russell Vought, acting director of the Office of Management and Budget, and members of the Public Buildings Reform Board, the AHA expressed concern about the recommendation for the closure and sale of the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) facility in Seattle.
The American Historical Association condemns the use of historical sites anywhere in the world as targets for destruction and as shields for protection. The use of historical sites in warfare is a violation of international law.
The AHA sent the following letter to the Archivist of the United States objecting to the alteration of a photograph on exhibition and praising NARA staff for acknowledging this serious lapse in judgement.
