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, 49 organizations have signed on to the statement.
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.”
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.”
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.
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.”
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.”
The AHA has sent a letter to San Francisco State University president Lynn Mahoney expressing “deep concern” regarding the university’s “investigation” of Professor Maziar Behrooz for showing a drawing of the prophet Muhammad in his course on the history of the Islamic world between 500 and 1700. “Sanctioning Professor Behrooz for showing an image relevant to the course on grounds that it offended a student would constitute a serious breach of the professor’s academic freedom,” the AHA wrote. “Any attempts to ban the teaching of primary sources on the grounds that they offend religious sensibilities would mean that SFSU would be taking a position on a theological matter—one that is well beyond the purview of institutions of higher education.”
The AHA has sent a letter to the members of the Texas House of Representatives opposing SB 18, which would eliminate tenure for new hires at public institutions in the state beginning in 2024. “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,” the AHA wrote. “Were Texas to eliminate ‘tenure-track’ positions… any public university in Texas would immediately become an employer of last choice among scholars who desire an environment amenable to high-quality teaching and research.”
The AHA has 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 level of state oversight described in the bill, the AHA wrote, “smacks less of guaranteeing the ideological diversity cited in the legislation than government surveillance more closely resembling the Soviet Union or Communist China than a public university system in the United States. . . . If passed, SB 83 would undermine the quality of public higher education in Ohio by preventing qualified instructors from teaching honest and accurate history.”
The AHA has sent a letter to the South Dakota Board of Education Standards registering strong concern that the social studies standards draft on the agenda for the Board of Education Standards’ April 17 meeting fails to satisfy the AHA’s Criteria for Standards in History/Social Studies/Social Sciences. “The document’s numerous flaws can be traced to a process that was rushed, secretive, and driven by political motives at the expense of the educational needs of South Dakota students,” the AHA wrote. “The AHA joins a clear majority of South Dakotans in its assessment of this unabashed attempt to interfere in K–12 social studies education.”
The AHA has signed on to a statement from the American Council of Learned Societies (ACLS) opposing Florida House Bill 999, "protest[ing] this proposed legislation and call[ing] on citizens to recognize the danger it poses to higher education in this country." If HB 999 passes, the ACLS writes, "it ends academic freedom in the state's public colleges and universities, with dire consequences for their teaching, research, and financial well-being. . . . Academic freedom means freedom of thought, not the state-mandated production of histories edited to suit one party’s agenda in the current culture wars."
The AHA has released a statement on Florida House Bill 999, “express[ing] horror . . . at the assumptions that lie at the heart of this bill and its blatant and frontal attack on principles of academic freedom and shared governance central to higher education in the United States.” “What has previously best been characterized as unwarranted political intervention into public education has now escalated to an attempt at a hostile takeover of a state’s system of higher education,” the AHA writes. “This is not only about Florida. It is about the heart and soul of public higher education in the United States and about the role of history, historians, and historical thinking in the lives of the next generation of Americans.” To date, 84 organizations have signed onto the statement.
The AHA has sent a letter to US Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken expressing "grave concern" for Marc Fogel, a US citizen and history teacher currently imprisoned in Russia, and urging that he be designated as "wrongfully detained" under the Robert Levinson Hostage Recovery and Hostage-Taking Accountability Act. "We respectfully urge the reclassification of Mr. Fogel and the respect of his civil and legal rights," the AHA wrote. "We ask for immediate attention to this matter to ensure Mr. Fogel’s health and well-being."
The AHA has sent a letter to Marymount University president Irma Becerra opposing the “short-sighted decision to propose to Marymount University’s governing board the elimination of history and other humanities majors” at the university. “We urge Marymount University to reconsider this decision, which undermines the university’s commitment to ‘intellectual curiosity, service to others, and a global perspective’,” the AHA wrote.
The AHA has signed on to a statement from the American Council of Learned Societies (ACLS) “in support of ex-President [Dr. Patricia] Okker, the New College community, and faculty and students at institutions of higher education around the country” following Florida governor Ron DeSantis’s politically motivated “overhaul” of New College of Florida. “Their attacks threaten public understanding of our nation’s history and culture, and they undermine key principles of academic freedom and faculty governance,” the ACLS writes.
The AHA has sent a letter to US Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken regarding the January 24 abduction of Professor Pierre Buteau, president of the Société Haïtienne d’Histoire, de Géographie et de Géologie. “We recognize that the crisis of domestic insecurity in Haiti goes well beyond the fate of a single individual,” the AHA writes. “Understanding Haiti’s history is an essential element of any viable long-term response to this crisis, and Professor Buteau has devoted his professional life to bringing such understanding to bear on the challenge of re-founding a democratic state in his native land. On behalf of the American historical community, we appeal to you to use your good offices at this difficult time in Haiti’s history to do whatever is possible to help secure the safe release of Professor Buteau.”
On February 2, Brendan Gillis, manager of teaching and learning at the AHA, testified before the Virginia Board of Education's hearing on the history and social studies standards revisions process. He spoke in support of the collaborative Combined History and Social Science Standards for Virginia developed by the AHA, the Virginia Social Studies Leaders Consortium, and the Virginia Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development. Brendan reported on the AHA's involvement in Perspectives on History, "The Uncertain Future of Social Studies in Virginia." The AHA has also shared action alerts with VA members encouraging testimony and submitted comments on the draft standards.
The AHA has signed onto a letter from the American Anthropological Association opposing Florida Governor Ron DeSantis’s appointment of six new members to the New College of Florida governing board. “The brazen aspiration of transforming a nationally ranked public honors college into a college along the lines of the private evangelical Christian Hillsdale College is especially alarming and appears to be nothing more than an orchestrated attack on academic integrity.”
The AHA has sent letters to Marymount University president Irma Becerra, provost Hesham El-Rewini, Faculty Council president Sarah Ficke, and Board of Trustees chair Edward Bersoff opposing the proposed elimination of the history major at the university. “The AHA has seen this approach to prioritization and restructuring before, and the results have been detrimental to students. . . . Overwhelming evidence shows that employers seek the kind of skills a history degree can provide,” the AHA wrote. “This elimination is an especially wrongheaded shift at a time when civic leaders from all corners of the political landscape have lamented the lack of historical knowledge of American citizens. Offering a history major is standard at comprehensive universities, and the elimination of the history major would place Marymount far outside the mainstream of its peer institutions.”
The AHA signed on to a letter from the Coalition for International Education asking leaders in the US Senate and House of Representatives for “robust funding for HEA-Title VI, International Education, and Fulbright-Hays programs.” In addition to “strengthen[ing] the key Title VI foundational programs that address the nation’s critical and expanding needs for deep expertise in foreign languages, world regions and international business,” the letter states, this funding “will incentivize research and innovation in U.S. international education capacity, organization and delivery to meet 21st century challenges, as well as expand international and foreign language education to traditionally underserved students and institutions.”
