The AHA has sent a letter to members of the Oklahoma state legislature strongly opposing House Bill 2988, which would restrict the teaching of “certain concepts pertaining to America and slavery.” This “irresponsible legislation,” the AHA writes, would be “harmful to the youth of Oklahoma, leaving students ignorant of basic facts of American history and poorly prepared for the critical thinking and interpretive skills required for career and civic accomplishment.“
In a newly released statement, the AHA is “alarmed by news reports that Chinese authorities have escalated the censorship and prosecution of Chinese citizens who deviate from the Communist Party line of hero worship.” “Such efforts strike at the very heart of historical scholarship, which depends on open-ended inquiry and a free exchange of ideas, wherever that inquiry leads, and whether or not those ideas cast aspersions on historical actors,” the AHA states. “The AHA stands firmly against national laws and policies that in effect criminalize the historical enterprise.” To date, 20 organizations have signed onto this statement.
The AHA has sent a letter to Polish president Andrzej Duda expressing “dismay and continued concern about events taking place in Poland related to the study of history and especially regarding historical research on World War II and the Holocaust.” The AHA originally wrote to President Duda in 2016 regarding the treatment of Polish historians, issued a statement in 2018, and wrote again in February 2021; this most recent letter comes as “scholars continue to be harassed, threatened with dismissal, or forced to resign.” The AHA calls upon Polish leaders “to protect the rights of historians and other scholars to conduct impartial research into history and to advance the search for historical accuracy in a still controversial, and often painful, past.”
The AHA has sent a letter to administrators at Youngstown State University strongly discouraging the university from “proceeding with the reported nonrenewal of two faculty members in the history program.” These nonrenewals, in addition to planned retirements, “would severely diminish the department’s ability to maintain appropriate pedagogical and research standards, and counteracts the university’s own recent assessment of the department’s health.”
The AHA wrote to the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) on behalf of historical researchers seeking clarity about reopening plans. The questions in the letter drew on email communications received by the AHA and other membership organizations. NARA has provided responses to the questions posed in the AHA’s letter, as well as a communication to researchers. We are glad to publish these responses as a window into NARA’s reopening process and future plans. The AHA continues to work with our colleagues at NARA to increase communication between archivists and researchers.
The AHA has signed on to a letter by the Coalition for International Education “urg[ing] the Department of Education to prioritize and strengthen its international and foreign language education and research role under HEA-Title VI and Fulbright-Hays 102(b)(6).” “Our challenges increasingly rely on foreign language abilities, regional knowledge, cultural understanding, and experience abroad,” the letter states. “Key foreign language, regional studies, international business, research and education abroad infrastructures and capacity must be replenished.”
The AHA has sent a letter to President W. Kent Fuchs of the University of Florida stating that it “objects strenuously to [the] decision preventing University of Florida faculty members from testifying in a voting-rights case.” The university’s decision “is contrary to the principle that the state university is a resource upon which public institutions such as the courts can (and should) draw for expertise,” the AHA writes. “A public university is not a political agent of the state in which it is situated; it is a site of learning and scholarly inquiry in service to the residents of that state.”
The AHA has released a statement condemning the harassment and intimidation of participants, organizers, and university sponsors of the virtual conference “Dismantling Global Hindutva: Multidisciplinary Perspectives.” “Conferences, both in person and across digital platforms, are critical to the exchange of ideas among historians and our colleagues in other disciplines,” the AHA wrote. “Disruptions to a conference represent an assault on the principle of academic freedom, and the AHA stands unequivocally with participants in this conference and its sponsors in their right to exchange ideas without fear of threats and intimidation.” To date, 40 organizations have signed onto this statement.
The AHA, along with the Organization of American Historians, has become a signatory to an amicus curiae brief in the Supreme Court case Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization. This brief, based on decades of study and research by professional historians, aims to provide an accurate historical perspective as the Court considers the state of Mississippi’s challenge to a woman’s right to abortion, a right that was affirmed by the Court in Roe v. Wade.
The AHA has sent a letter to Missouri governor Mike Parson recommending “most emphatically” that he reconsider his “decision to remove the exhibition Making History: Kansas City and the Rise of Gay Rights from the Missouri State Museum.” “By excluding this high-quality, professionally researched and produced historical exhibition from the State Museum,” the AHA wrote, “you articulate a vision of the state that we hope you do not intend: that LGBTQ+ Americans are not worthy of recognition or inclusion in the state of Missouri.”
The AHA wrote to Texas governor Greg Abbott and the members of the state legislature to oppose SB 3 and HB 28, introduced during the Texas legislature’s special session. “This proposed legislation threatens the integrity of history education in Texas,” the AHA wrote. The AHA “urges the Texas legislature to reject these bills, both of which seek to indoctrinate students rather than help them learn the inquiry-based skills that will prepare them for their future civic and professional lives.” The letter cited a previous AHA letter to Governor Abbott and the Texas Senate in May, an AHA statement in July, and a joint statement in June addressing similar legislative efforts that “risk infringing on the right of faculty to teach and of students to learn.”
The AHA has signed on to a letter from the Scholars at Risk Network to US Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken, requesting “immediate action” from the US Department of State “to save Afghanistan’s scholars, students, practitioners, civil society leaders and activists, especially women and ethnic and religious minorities.” “The eroding situation in Afghanistan poses a threat not only to the lives of our colleagues still in Afghanistan, but to the future of that country, and to the future security and honor of the United States,” the letter states. “If we move quickly, we can go a long way towards mitigating the worst of the threats and demonstrate continuing commitment to the future of Afghanistan and its people.”
The AHA has issued a letter to Gov. Mike DeWine and the members of the Ohio state legislature registering “strong objection to Ohio HB 322 and HB 327, acts relating to the social studies curriculum in public schools.” These bills, wrote the AHA, are “a tangle of contradictory mandates” about how history can be taught and “part of a misguided, nationally coordinated attempt to put the government in classrooms at every level from kindergarten through high school—and in the case of HB 327, through higher education—to intimidate teachers, and to indoctrinate students rather than helping them learn the inquiry-based skills that will prepare them for their future civic and professional lives.”
The AHA has written a letter seeking clarity on the National Archives and Records Administration’s planned reopening following pandemic closures and to offer the AHA’s “help in communicating with the community of history researchers.” The AHA recognizes “the difficulties of operating facilities around the country during a pandemic” and encourages NARA to maximize equitable access to its collections while continuing to make the health and safety of NARA staff its highest priority.
The AHA has issued a letter to Louisiana Governor John Bel Edwards and other leaders in the state expressing “alarm that vaccination rates in the state of Louisiana remain well below the national average.” “We know that city and state officials are eager to see business travel resume and travel industry jobs and revenue rebound,” the AHA wrote, “and we trust that you will mount a vigorous public health effort to increase vaccination rates and prevent a renewed surge of COVID cases, which would necessitate the reimposition of restrictions on conferences and business travel.” The AHA wants to ensure that its annual meeting, to be held in New Orleans in January 2022, is “as safe as possible for all to attend.”
In a statement on the recently-enacted Texas House Bill 3979, the American Historical Association “views with alarm several provisions” in the so-called “divisive concepts” legislation, including those affecting state institutions that present history to the public. “By hindering the professional development of public historians and restricting funding,” the AHA’s statement says, “this law would prevent state-owned agencies and facilities from presenting accurate views of Texas history, and would hobble fundraising efforts crucial to the vibrant state-sponsored public-history sector.“ The legislation “clearly violates” the AHA’s Standards for Museum Exhibits Dealing with Historical Subjects and “will adversely affect not only K–12 students, but all Texans and visitors who want to learn more about the state’s complicated past.” 28 organizations have signed onto this statement to date.
The American Historical Association has signed on to a letter from the Coalition for International Education to Senators Patty Murray and Roy Blunt supporting increased funding for the US Department of Education's international and foreign language education programs. The letter strongly recommends funding for International Education and Foreign Language Studies, including for HEA-Title VI and Fulbright-Hays 102(b)(6) programs, that would restore them to their FY 2010 levels, adjusted for inflation.
The American Association of University Professors, the American Historical Association, the Association of American Colleges & Universities, and PEN America have authored a joint statement stating their “firm opposition” to legislation, introduced in at least 20 states, that would restrict the discussion of “divisive concepts” in public education institutions. In total, 155 organizations have signed onto the statement.
In response to recent legislative efforts and existing anti-LGBTQ+ laws in several states, the AHA has released a statement opposing “efforts to restrict the teaching of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer history in elementary, middle, and high schools.” “The failure to teach LGBTQ+ history,” the statement argues, “distorts the historical record, harms LGBTQ+ students specifically, and prevents all students from receiving a complete education.” The AHA supports “expanding access to LGBTQ+-inclusive history curricula and greater protections for history teachers who include LGBTQ+ history in their classrooms.”
The National Coalition for History (NCH) has released a statement opposing the passage of so-called “divisive concepts” legislation currently under consideration in numerous state legislatures. NCH “deplores the intent of these bills to foment confusion and have a chilling effect on teachers,” the statement said. “We denounce such bills as thinly veiled attempts to place limits on a curriculum which fosters a comprehensive and critical look at our history from a variety of perspectives.” The NCH provides leadership in history-related advocacy. The AHA is a member of the Coalition, and AHA representatives serve on its executive committee.
The AHA has written a letter to Texas Lt. Governor Dan Patrick and the members of the Texas Senate registering strong objection to Texas House Bill 3979, urging them to “reject this misguided, harmful, and unnecessary piece of legislation.” The letter describes how the bill would likely endanger Advanced Placement and dual-enrollment programs in Texas public schools. “The actual purpose” of the bill, the AHA writes, “is about whitewashing American history, keeping to the margins (or excluding altogether) such central issues as slavery; forced removals of Native Americans; inequalities based on race, gender, or other characteristics; and other aspects of our past likely to inspire the vigorous discussion that characterizes a good history class. . . . To deny Texas students the opportunity to discuss these issues openly and freely is to deny them their rightful place as citizens of the United States, and of the world.”
The American Historical Association signed onto a letter from the Coalition for International Education to Representatives Rosa DeLauro and Tom Cole supporting increased funding for the US Department of Education's international and foreign language education programs. The letter strongly endorses a bipartisan letter from 116 House members recommending increased funding for International Education and Foreign Language Studies, including for HEA-Title VI and Fulbright-Hays programs at their FY 2010 levels as adjusted by inflation.
The AHA has signed onto a letter by the Coalition for International Education “express[ing] our strong support” for the reauthorization of Title VI international education programs. “Whether it’s global health, environment, food production, cyber security, law enforcement, immigration and more, meeting our challenges increasingly relies on foreign language abilities, regional knowledge, cultural understanding, and experience abroad,” the letter states. “As the most comprehensive and multifaceted federal program in international education, we believe HEA-Title VI is the federal government’s foundational vehicle to address this 21st century human resource issue.”
The AHA has signed on to a Middle East Studies Association statement opposing a Florida bill (HB233), approved by both houses and awaiting the governor’s signature, that would allow “students to record in classrooms without the consent of their professors.” The bill would also mandate “the State Board of Education and the Board of Governors to conduct an assessment of the ‘intellectual freedom and viewpoint diversity’ at every institution in the Florida College System.” The statement notes that the proposed law “constitutes a legislative intrusion that will have a chilling effect on the free exchange of opinions it claims to enhance” and would limit “students’ abilities to express their views freely in an open environment.”
The AHA signed on to a letter drafted by Open the Government to Sec. Alejandro Mayorkas requesting the withdrawal and reevaluation of the Department of Homeland Security records schedules authorizing the destruction of records of abuse, neglect, and misconduct. On March 12, 2021, a federal judge invalidated one of these records schedules, ruling that the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) failed to evaluate the long-term interests in the ICE records expressed by members of Congress, advocacy organizations, historians, and others. DHS and NARA are now considering their next steps, both in this case and with respect to other DHS records destruction schedules.
The American Historical Association signed onto a letter from the Coalition for International Education to Senate majority leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) and minority leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY). The letter expressed support for the bipartisan re-authorization of the Higher Education Act and the inclusion of enhancements to Title VI in the bill.
The AHA and nine other scholarly societies have sent a letter to convention bureaus in Georgia to “register our alarm and disappointment about the passage of SB 202” and its voting restrictions. “The grave concerns we share about this legislation,” the letter reads, “force us to reconsider whether we can in good conscience bring our meetings to your state. . . . As it stands, it will be difficult for us and our members to consider coming to Georgia in the future should the law remain in place.”
The American Historical Association has signed onto an amicus curiae brief in Lepore v. United States regarding the release of the records of two 1971 Boston, Massachusetts, grand juries that investigated the Pentagon Papers leak. Although grand jury records are usually kept under seal in perpetuity, the AHA supports the court’s original position that these records can be released as a matter of exceptional historical significance, a precedent the government is working to overturn. Relevant to this case is the AHA’s comment on Rule 6(e).
The AHA has written a letter to the president and provost of Salem State University strongly discouraging them from proceeding with the reportedly proposed termination of four tenured members in the history department. “This drastic reduction in faculty would severely diminish the department’s ability to maintain the impressive pedagogical and research standards that the department sets for itself and apparently maintains, along with its striking level of engagement with local communities,” the AHA wrote. The letter noted the Salem State history department’s participation in AHA Tuning, the data at Salem State showing history ranked #1 of 30 majors in the “fill rate” of its courses, and the fact that “Salem is a site of considerable historical importance,” making the role of historical work at Salem State “in many ways a special case.”
The AHA has issued a statement deploring the recent incidents of violence and harassment aimed at Asians and Asian Americans. “This hostility against particular groups because of their ethnic origins—expressed via cultural stereotypes, scapegoating, physical aggression, and bloodshed—has deep roots in our nation’s past,” the AHA writes. “The murder in Atlanta of eight people on March 16, including six women of Asian descent, suggests that we have not transcended this history.” From 2019 to 2020, the number of hate crimes committed in the United States against Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders increased by 150 percent. “The racialized misogyny explicit in the Atlanta killings is the product of generations-long stereotyping and cultural denigration against Asian American women in particular.” 45 organizations have signed onto the statement to date.
In a letter to the City Council of New Orleans, the AHA expressed enthusiastic support for the work of the New Orleans City Council Street Renaming Commission and its final report, “a remarkable document of collaborative historical research.” The letter praised the process undertaken by the Renaming Commission and its consultation with historians, including many AHA members. The letter urged “all localities undertaking this kind of process to recognize that it is indeed possible to listen to a broad spectrum of voices, and not just the loudest, angriest, or most powerful.”
The AHA recently sent a letter to King Mohamed VI and Prime Minister Saadeddine Othmani of Morocco protesting the imprisonment of Maâti Monjib, historian at the University of Mohammed V in Rabat. Monjib was sentenced to a year in prison for charges that appear to be “baseless, levied more in the interest of a political agenda than honest law enforcement,” and is on a hunger strike. The letter urges “the release of Dr. Monjib and the respect of his civil and legal rights,” and asks for “immediate attention to this matter to ensure Dr. Monjib’s health and well-being.”
The American Historical Association joins co-plaintiffs Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington and the Society for Historians of American Foreign Relations in sharing the success of our lawsuit against the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) and US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). The lawsuit challenged NARA’s approval of ICE’s records disposition, which would have authorized ICE to destroy several categories of records documenting mistreatment of immigrants detained in ICE custody. On March 12, 2021, Judge Amit Mehta granted summary judgment on the challenged aspects of ICE’s records destruction plan. The court also made clear that during its records evaluation process, NARA must pay close attention to the records' long-term research value and must meaningfully consider public comments raising concerns.
The AHA has issued a letter to leaders of John Carroll University expressing “grave concern about the recent approval by [the] Board of Directors of a ‘budgetary hardship’ amendment to the university’s Faculty Handbook,” noting that “both faculty governance and the integrity of tenure seem to be hanging by a thread.” The AHA urged the board “to reconsider the threat to tenure protections” that the amendment represents.
The AHA signed on to a letter sent by the American Council of Learned Societies to members of the Iowa legislature and Gov. Kim Reynolds. The letter strongly encouraged lawmakers to oppose House File 496 and Senate File 41, “which would remove the status of tenure for professors and discontinue the practice at Iowa's three public universities.”
The AHA has signed on to the Middle East Studies Association’s Statement in Solidarity with Protests at Boğaziçi University. Students and faculty protesting the appointment of a new rector “have faced police brutality, protesters have been described by government officials as terrorists, and those detained have been subjected to abuse, including strip searches and sexual harassment.” The statement condemned the “ongoing and intensified government assault on higher education in Turkey” and urged President Erdoğan to “restore the autonomy of universities and the protection of academic freedom—including freedom of expression, opinion, and association—in Turkey’s legal order.”
The AHA sent letters to Polish leaders Andrzej Duda, Mateusz Morawiecki, Jarosław Kaczyński, and Jarosław Gowin expressing concern about recent legal proceedings against Barbara Engelking and Jan Grabowski, two historians convicted of libel regarding their co-edited book, Night Without End. In the letter, AHA emphasized that “a legal procedure is not the place to mediate historical debates” and urged Polish leaders to “uphold the rights of historians to investigate the past without legal harassment and with no fear of reprisals for making public their historical- and evidence-based findings.” In August 2021, a Polish appeals court dismissed the claims against Engelking and Grabowski.
The AHA issued a statement expressing alarm regarding the San Francisco School Names Advisory Committee’s process in proposing changing the names of 44 public schools. The committee “showed little interest in consulting professional historians, relying instead on Wikipedia articles and cursory glances at other online sources.” The AHA is “not advising the people of San Francisco on the substance of their decisions,” the statement clarified. Instead, the AHA urged the San Francisco School Board to “begin this process anew, inviting broader public participation, enlisting the expertise of professional historians, and encouraging a robust debate about the way historical figures and events should or should not be memorialized via school naming practices.”
The AHA sent a letter to the Board of Trustees of the University Press of Kansas expressing alarm about financial cuts and the press’s possible elimination. The letter notes that “few presses have done so much to burnish their home institution’s reputation, to advance the careers of promising scholars, and to make vital contributions to historical knowledge as the University Press of Kansas,” and that its demise “would be an incalculable loss for the historical discipline and for generations of American historians yet to come.”
The AHA sent a letter to János Áder, president of the Republic of Hungary, expressing “deep concern about recent government actions against the Institute of Political History,” including “unfounded attacks on our colleagues,” “eviction from its new premises,” and “defunding.” The AHA “urges the Hungarian government to reconsider the misguided steps that have already been taken to the detriment of the institute and to safeguard its premises, support its activities, and vouchsafe its independence now and in the future.”
The AHA has signed onto the Association for Slavic, East European, & Eurasian Studies statement calling for an end to the trial of historians Jan Grabowski (Univ. of Ottawa) and Barbara Engelking (Polish Center for Holocaust Research), who are charged with libel for their 2018 co-edited book, Night without End: The Fate of Jews in Selected Counties of Occupied Poland. The trial “strikes at the very core of academic and intellectual freedom,” and the statement calls for a “clear and unambiguous repudiation of the legal and political strategy that allowed such a trial to go forward in the first place.”
The AHA has endorsed the Educating for American Democracy initiative, a multi-institution, cross-partisan initiative to create a Roadmap for Excellence in History and Civic Education for All Learners. The roadmap is “a practical and highly implementable guide about how to integrate history and civic education to give today’s diverse K-12 students a strong sense of connection to and ownership of our constitutional democracy.”
The AHA issued a statement registering concern about a new policy issued by India’s Ministry of Higher Education/Department of Higher Education that “requires Indian scholars and administrators to obtain prior approval from the Ministry of External Affairs if they want to convene online or virtual international conferences, seminars, or trainings.” The AHA states that this policy is likely to “affect a wide range of scholarly exchanges that are critical to the free international expression of ideas” and “strongly maintains that government agencies should not intervene in the content of scholarly exchange.”26 organizations have signed onto the statement.
The AHA sent comments to the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) on the proposed rule “Federal Records Management: Digitizing Permanent Records and Reviewing Records Schedules.” The AHA “strongly support[s]” the requirement that “every five years, agencies review records schedules which are ten or more years old.” The AHA also recommends that NARA “require the involvement of subject matter experts in each review process undertaken with an agency” and “regularly draw on the expertise of staff members throughout the agency who have appropriate subject backgrounds and training.” The AHA also judges NARA “to have exceeded the requirements of federal law by stating that records will be accepted ONLY in digital form,” which could “delay, interrupt, or delay indefinitely the transfer of records.”
The AHA has signed on to a statement by the American Council of Learned Societies urging the Kansas Board of Regents to withdraw its endorsement of a proposed policy that would “ease the path to suspending, dismissing, or terminating employees, including tenured faculty members, without undertaking the processes of formally declaring a financial emergency.“ The AHA also sent a letter to the University of Kansas regarding this issue.
The AHA sent a letter requesting that the California State Legislature amend the list of exceptions to AB1887, a law that bans state-funded travel to specified states with anti-LGBTQ laws. While the AHA “support[s] the principles underlying AB1887,” it is concerned that the boycott “restricts the work of graduate students and early career scholars, preventing them from completing research that would actually showcase the significance of LGBTQ life, among other pressing subjects, in targeted states.” The AHA urged the legislature to “permit state-funded travel for research and educational initiatives related to the discipline of history, broadly conceived, including LGBTQ culture, health, law, and politics.”
The AHA issued a letter urging the University of Kansas to reject a Kansas Board of Regents policy that would “temporarily allow public institutions of higher education to terminate or suspend employees, including tenured faculty, without declaring a financial emergency.” “As historians,” the AHA wrote, “we are especially aware of what can happen when principles of academic freedom in higher education lose the essential protection of tenure.” The university should “reject this extraordinary departure that would enable the university to enact drastic and arbitrary personnel actions while bypassing the process of formally declaring financial emergency.”
The AHA issued a letter expressing grave concern regarding the proposed removal of the history major and termination of two tenured history professors at the University of Evansville. Calling the process leading to the proposed cuts “an especially striking embarrassment for an institution whose stated values emphasize ‘a culture of trust,’” the AHA urged the university to “consider the educational and community impacts of this short-sighted plan for realignment, which will serve to weaken the preparation of your students for the global citizenship imperative to economic and civic accomplishment, as well as the lifelong learning essential to professional success.”
The AHA has joined the Washington state attorney general’s office; the state of Oregon; 29 tribes, tribal entities, and Indigenous communities from Washington, Oregon, Idaho, and Alaska; and 8 community organizations, historic preservation organizations, and museums in filing a lawsuit “to halt the federal government’s unlawful and procedurally deficient sale of the National Archives at Seattle facility.” The government plans to transfer the Seattle facility’s records, most of which have not been digitized, to archive centers in Kansas City, Missouri, and Riverside, California— rendering public access to the records difficult if not impossible for millions of users.
The AHA has issued a statement condemning the report from "The President’s Advisory 1776 Commission.” “Written hastily in one month after two desultory and tendentious ‘hearings,’” the AHA writes, “without any consultation with professional historians of the United States, the report fails to engage a rich and vibrant body of scholarship that has evolved over the last seven decades.” 47 organizations have signed onto the statement.
The AHA issued a statement condemning “the actions of those who, on January 6, stormed the United States Capitol, the seat of the nation’s legislature, the heart of its democratic form of governance.” The AHA deplores the “inflammatory rhetoric of all the political leaders who have refused to accept the legitimacy of the results of the 2020 election and thereby incited the mob.” 63 organizations have signed onto the statement.
The AHA has issued a statement expressing solidarity with “professional historians affected by the extreme and arguably punitive fiscal retrenchment affecting Mexico’s system of higher education.” The AHA “reminds decision makers that the habits of mind and knowledge that derive from the study of history have never been more important and deserving of adequate funding than at the present moment.”
