AHA Executive Director Writes Op-Ed on Preserving Presidential Records (December 2020)

James Grossman, AHA executive director, and Richard Immerman, chair of the AHA’s NARA Review Committee, wrote an op-ed in The Hill regarding AHA-endorsed legislation introduced by Sen. Christopher Murphy (D-CT) that would define what constitutes a presidential record, as well as bolster the oversight role of the Archivist of the United States. “Access to presidential records is essential to our basic understanding of who we are, and how our government works,” wrote Grossman and Immerman. “Transparency and accountability are core values of a thriving democracy, and the ample access to its government records ... is a hallmark of its political culture.”

AHA Issues Letter Expressing Concern Regarding Termination of History Professor (December 2020)

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.

AHA Encourages Microsoft to Allow Editing on Footnotes in Microsoft Word (December 2020)

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. 

AHA Endorses Legislation Protecting Presidential Records (December 2020)

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.”

AHA Members Receive NEH Grants (December 2020)

Congratulations to the 37 AHA members who have been named as recipients of the National Endowment for the Humanities’ newest round of grants. The NEH has announced that it will award $32.8 million in grants for 213 humanities projects nationwide.

AHA Executive Director Featured in Diverse: Issues in Higher Education (December 2020)

AHA executive director Jim Grossman was interviewed for an article in Diverse: Issues in Higher Education regarding the Virginia Military Institute’s decision to relocate a General “Stonewall” Jackson statue to the Virginia Museum of the Civil War.

AHA Former President Recounts Career (December 2020)

Former AHA president and life member Linda K. Kerber (Univ. of Iowa) recounted her career for The Gazette. In addition to serving as AHA president in 2006, Kerber has also won both the Littleton-Griswold Prize for the best book in US legal history and the Joan Kelly Memorial Prize for the best book in women’s history.

AHA’s Lawsuit Covered by News Organizations (December 2020)

The AHA’s participation as plaintiffs in a lawsuit regarding the Presidential Records Act has received coverage from Bloomberg, CBS News, The Hill, Salon, Washington Post, Axios, and the Associated Press. The AHA and other 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.

AHA Member Wins 2020 Frederick Douglass Book Prize (December 2020)

Congratulations to AHA member Sophie White (Univ. of Notre Dame), who has won the 2020 Frederick Douglass Book Prize for Voices of the Enslaved: Love, Labor, and Longing in French Louisiana. Voices of the Enslaved also won the AHA’s 2020 James A. Rawley Prize. 

AHA Member Wins Cundill History Prize (December 2020)

Congratulations to AHA member Camilla Townsend (Rutgers Univ.), whose book Fifth Sun: A New History of the Aztecs was recently awarded the Cundill History Prize. McGill University awards the prize annually to recognize “the best history writing in English.”

AHA Members Win First IFRWH Blom-Offen Prize (December 2020)

Congratulations to AHA members Katherine Marino (Univ. of California, Los Angeles) and Jocelyn Olcott (Duke Univ.), who were recently awarded the inaugural Ida Blom-Karen Offen Prize in Transnational Women’s and Gender History by the International Federation for Research in Women’s History. The prize is named for Norwegian historian Ida Blom (1931-2016) and for AHA member Karen Offen (independent scholar).

AHA Executive Director Featured in Montgomery Advertiser (December 2020)

AHA executive director Jim Grossman was recently interviewed in the Montgomery Advertiser. Grossman discussed the history of Confederate monuments and their origins in the 1890s as monuments to white supremacy.

AHA Endorses $1 Billion Senate Bill for Civics Learning (December 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.”

AHA Member Writes One of The Economist’s Books of the Year (December 2020)

Congratulations to AHA member Amy B. Stanley (Northwestern Univ.), whose book Stranger in the Shogun’s City: A Japanese Woman and Her World was named as one of The Economist’s Books of the Year.

AHA Joins Lawsuit to Protect Historical Records (December 2020)

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.

AHA Issues Statement Concerning Access to French Archives (November 2020)

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.

AHA Member Wins Harriet Tubman Prize (November 2020)

Congratulations to Stephanie E. Jones-Rogers (Univ. of California, Berkeley), whose book They Were Her Property: White Women as Slave Owners in the American South was recently awarded the 2020 Harriet Tubman Prize from the Lapidus Center for the Historical Analysis of Transatlantic Slavery at the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture. The award is given to the best nonfiction book published in the United States on the slave trade, slavery, and anti-slavery in the Atlantic world.

AHA Urges Reconsideration of History Program Closure at Guilford College (November 2020)

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.”

AHA Expresses Concern over Legislative Request to Monitor Teaching of 1619 Project and Critical Race Theory (November 2020)

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.” 

AHA Member Appointed to Library of Congress Task Force (November 2020)

AHA member Katherine Rye Jewell (Fitchburg State Univ.) was recently appointed co-chair of the College and Community Radio Caucus of the Library of Congress Radio Preservation Task Force. The task force’s mission includes supporting researchers and activists who preserve radio history, developing an online archive of radio collections, and protecting and preserving endangered collections. 

AHA Sends Letter Opposing Cuts in NHPRC Funding (November 2020)

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.”

American Historical Review Article Wins NACBS Award (November 2020)

Ellen Boucher’s American Historical Review article “Anticipating Armageddon: Nuclear Risk and the Neoliberal Sensibility in Thatcher’s Britain,” published in the October 2019 issue, won the North American Conference on British Studies’ 2020 Walter D. Love Prize for the best article by a North American scholar in the field of British history.

AHA Member Publishes New Book (November 2020)

AHA member Ana Lucia Araujo (Howard Univ.) recently published a new book, Slavery in the Age of Memory, with Bloomsbury Publishing. “Exploring notions of history, collective memory, cultural memory, public memory, official memory, and public history,” the book “explains how ordinary citizens, social groups, governments and institutions engage with the past of slavery and the Atlantic slave trade.”

AHA Executive Director and Teaching Division Vice President Encourage a “GI Bill” for Essential Workers (November 2020)

On Veterans Day, in an article in the Washington Post’s Made By History section, AHA executive director Jim Grossman and AHA Teaching Division vice president Laura McEnaney (Whittier Coll.) encouraged lawmakers to support the equivalent of a “GI Bill” for front-line COVID-19 workers. “To express national gratitude,” they wrote, “requires rewarding national service as part of the social contract in exchange for sacrifice.”

AHA Executive Director Writes Editorial in The Hill (November 2020)

AHA executive director Jim Grossman recently wrote an editorial in The Hill discussing the November 2 executive order, “On Establishing the President’s Advisory 1776 Commission.” Grossman argues that the order “rests on caricatures of history education and remarkable ignorance about how historical knowledge evolves and finds its way into classrooms.”

AHA Member Featured on The Daily Show with Trevor Noah (November 2020)

AHA member Geraldo L. Cadava (Northwestern Univ.) recently appeared on The Daily Show with Trevor Noah. Cadava discussed identity politics, why some Hispanic voters tend to vote Republican, and what Democrats get wrong about Hispanic voters.

AHA Member Wins Award for Article in American Historical Review (November 2020)

Congratulations to AHA member Françoise N. Hamlin (Brown Univ.), whose article “Historians and Ethics: Finding Anne Moody,” published in the April 2020 issue of the American Historical Review, has won the 2020 Letitia Woods Brown Article Prize from the Association of Black Women Historians.

AHA Submits Comment on Proposed Rule Change for International Scholar Visas (October 2020)

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.”

AHA Executive Director Featured in Article on Renaming Public Places (October 2020)

AHA executive director Jim Grossman was recently featured in an article on renaming public places written for Stateline, the online news service for the Pew Charitable Trusts. “We are learning the history we thought happened didn’t happen the way we thought. That happens all the time,” Grossman said. “Revisionism isn’t lying or making it up. There’s new evidence.“

AHA Member Publishes New Book (October 2020)

Congratulations to AHA member Leela Prasad (Duke Univ.) who recently published her book The Audacious Raconteur: Sovereignty and Storytelling in Colonial India with Cornell University Press. 

AHA Member Featured on Podcast (October 2020)

AHA member Terrance Rucker (Office of the Historian, US House of Representatives) recently appeared as a guest on the podcast Ben Franklin’s World to discuss the first federal elections of 1788-90. This is the second in a four-part series about voting in the early Republic.

AHA Member Receives Gutenberg Teaching Award (October 2020)

AHA member Mills Kelly (George Mason Univ.) was recently awarded the 2019 Gutenberg Teaching Award by the Gutenberg Teaching Council at Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz.  The Gutenberg Teaching Award is an annual prize awarded to those “who have made a significant contribution to the development of academic teaching.”

AHA Issues Letter Expressing Grave Concern for Russian Historian (October 2020)

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.”

AHA Member Named as 2020 Frederick Douglass Book Prize Finalist (October 2020)

Congratulations to AHA member Stephanie E. Jones-Rogers (Univ. of California, Berkeley), whose book They Were Her Property: White Women as Slave Owners in the American South was recently named as one of the 2020 Frederick Douglass Book Prize Finalists, an annual award of the Gilder Lehrman Center for the Study of Slavery, Resistance, and Abolition. 

AHA Urges Retraction of Executive Order Prohibiting the Inclusion of “Divisive Concepts” in Employee Training Sessions (October 2020)

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.

AHA Member Writes Piece in the Virginian-Pilot (October 2020)

AHA member E. M. Rose has recently published an opinion piece, “History Shows the Overblown Value of Political Image” in the Virginian-Pilot. Rose discusses how the history of the first governor of Virginia, Lord Delaware, might indicate how political image can override reality, and asserts that “the lessons of Lord Delaware are more relevant than ever today. They suggest that a firm hand is important only in an immediate crisis. For long term institutional support, capitalist enterprise and the democratic debate it enables produce lasting results.”

AHA Member Named as Finalist for National Book Award (October 2020)

AHA member Claudio Saunt (Univ. of Georgia) has been named as a finalist for the National Book Award for Unworthy Republic: The Dispossession of Native Americans and the Road to Indian Territory.  The winner of the National Book Award will be announced in November.

AHA Leadership Featured in Chicago Tribune (October 2020)

AHA executive director James Grossman and former AHA Teaching Division vice president Elaine Carey (Purdue Univ. Northwest) were featured in a Chicago Tribune article regarding the September 17 “White House Conference on American History.” Grossman remarked that "history is not there to make people feel good-history is there to make people understand where we are and how we got here.”  Carey articulated the challenges of defining “patriotic education” and noted, “history is complex and messy, and there isn't one story.” The AHA’s Statement on the Recent “White House Conference on American History” can be viewed here. 

AHA Signs on to Amicus Brief in Ahmad v. Michigan (October 2020)

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.

AHA Executive Director Publishes Editorial in New York Daily News (October 2020)

AHA executive director Jim Grossman recently published a New York Daily News editorial commenting on the recent “White House Conference on American History.” “Genuinely patriotic history education is not cheerleading or nationalist propaganda,” Grossman writes. “A meaningful commitment to the greatness of our nation requires honesty about the past, distant and recent.” The AHA's Statement on the Recent "White House Conference on American History" can be viewed here. 

AHA Signs onto Comments Opposing DHS/CBP Proposals Permitting Records Destruction (September 2020)

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.

AHA Participates in Civil War History “Call to Action” (September 2020)

The AHA’s Statement on the “White House Conference for American History” was recently featured in a New York Times piece covering the important “Call to Action” event organized by the Journal of the Civil War Era and supported by the AHA. This event saw historians go to “a dozen Civil War-related sites across the country, from New York to Nashville to St. Louis,” where they “simultaneously gathered with signs highlighting distortions in existing plaques and memorials, or things that simply weren't being spoken of at all.” 

AHA Member Named as FDR Presidential Library Trustee (September 2020)

AHA member Adam Weisler (Scarsdale High School) recently became a library trustee of the Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library and Museum. The trustees are charged with “ensuring FDR's legacy is preserved and accessible to the public for generations to come.”

AHA Members Present at National Book Festival (September 2020)

The National Book Festival’s  History and Biography Stage features nine historians, including several AHA members, for their author Q&As. The festival is being held virtually this year on Saturday and Sunday, September 26 and 27, 9 a.m. ET with an additional day of children’s and teen programs on Friday, September 25 at 9 a.m. ET. According to the festival website, the 20th annual Library of Congress National Book Festival “celebrates American Ingenuity online,” and interested attendees can register or view the presentations on YouTube.

AHA Members Present at National Book Festival (September 2020)

The National Book Festival’s  History and Biography Stage features nine historians, including several AHA members, for their author Q&As. The festival is being held virtually this year on Saturday and Sunday, September 26 and 27, 9 a.m. ET with an additional day of children’s and teen programs on Friday, September 25 at 9 a.m. ET. According to the festival website, the 20th annual Library of Congress National Book Festival “celebrates American Ingenuity online,” and interested attendees can register or view the presentations on YouTube.

AHA Issues Statement on the Recent "White House Conference on American History” (September 2020)

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.

AHA Member Receives Berlin Prize Fellowship Award (September 2020)

Congratulations to AHA member Allison Blakely (Boston Univ.) who recently received the Berlin Prize Fellowship Award for his project “The African Diaspora in Modern Europe: An Interpretive History.” The prize includes a semester-long residential fellowship at the American Academy in Berlin.

AHA Sends Letter in Support of Women's History Museum (September 2020)

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.”

AHA Members Named as COVID-19 Rapid-Response Grantees (September 2020)

AHA members Erika Lee (Univ. of Minnesota, Twin Cities) and Allyson Poska (Univ. of Mary Washington) received Rapid-Response Grants on Covid-19 and the Social Sciences awarded by the Social Science Research Council (SSRC). The grants support “innovative and ethically informed projects using remote methods on key issues impacted by COVID-19,” according to the SSRC.

AHA Members Now Receive Discount with Historic Hotels of America (September 2020)

The AHA announces a new partnership with Historic Hotels of America to give members 10-30% off the best available rate at participating hotels through the Friends of Historic Hotels discount. An official program of the National Trust for Historic Preservation, Historic Hotels of America includes more than 300 historic hotels in the US and worldwide. Log into MyAHA to access the discount code for your next hotel reservation.

AHA Letter Registering Concern over Séminaire de Saint-Sulpice (September 2020)

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.

AHA Executive Director Quoted in Star Tribune (September 2020)

AHA executive director Jim Grossman was recently quoted in a Star Tribune article, “George Floyd? Donald Trump? Hero statue nominations are in,” by Ellen Knickmeyer, Alan Suderman, and Jim Anderson (August 31, 2020).

AHA Member Receives Fulbright (September 2020)

AHA member Sergei Zhuk (Ball State Univ.) was recently awarded a Fulbright U.S. Scholar Program award. He will lecture at Guangzhou University of Foreign Studies in the People’s Republic of China as part of a project called “Teaching Chinese Students of American Colonial History and Cultural Cold War in Comparative Historical Perspective.”

Bibliography of Historians’ Responses to COVID-19 Now Available (August 2020)

As part of its NEH CARES-funded project, “Confronting a Pandemic: Historians and COVID-19,” the American Historical Association has compiled a professionally vetted bibliography of historians’ responses to COVID-19 as a resource for the public, teachers, and scholars seeking historical perspectives on the current crisis and its local and global impacts. Educators will find the bibliography especially valuable as an index of online resources useful for remote instruction. The bibliography project is ongoing. Do you have a recent publication to include in the bibliography? Submit it here.

AHA Position Opening -- Director of Research and Publications (August 2020)

August 17, 2020 — Join our collaborative team of staff dedicated to promoting history and supporting the work of historians. The AHA is accepting applications for Director of Research and Publications. We will begin reviewing applications on September 7, 2020.

AHA Announces Remote Teaching Resources and Issues Call for Materials (August 2020)

The American Historical Association has launched Remote Teaching Resources to help our members and colleagues with the challenges of being a historian, and a history teacher, in a virtual environment. This ongoing project compiles materials and tools to aid historians in developing courses and teaching remotely in online and hybrid environments, providing a central location where instructors can access high-quality materials that meet professional standards. All resources are vetted by a team of historians at the AHA. Remote Teaching Resources is part of “Confronting a Pandemic: Historians and COVID-19,” which has been made possible by a major grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities, using funding from the CARES Act. 

To use Remote Teaching Resources, simply visit the site and find the resource you need. Remote Teaching Resources includes accessibility guides, pedagogy resources, and materials specific to a range of places, eras, topics, and fields. Resources are available in a wide range of formats, including filmed lectures, podcasts, short videos, lesson plans, syllabi, assignments, primary sources with discussion questions, online museum exhibits, maps, and a wide range of digital history projects useful for instruction. To maximize the number and range of resources available prior to the fall semester, the AHA encourages historians to submit teaching materials to the project using this form. No contribution is too small. New resources will be uploaded weekly through December 31, 2020.

AHA Member Receives Highest Harvard Faculty Honor (August 2020)

AHA member Annette Gordon-Reed (Harvard Univ.) was recently named University Professor, Harvard's highest faculty honor.  Among Gordon-Reed’s other honors are a Pulitzer Prize in History, the National Book Award for Nonfiction, a Guggenheim Fellowship in the Humanities, a MacArthur Fellowship, and a fellowship from the Dorothy and Lewis B. Cullman Center for Scholars and Writers at the New York Public Library. Of Gordon-Reed, the university president says “[she] has changed how people think about America.” Watch Annette Gordon-Reed in the recent AHA webinar, Erasing History or Making History? Race, Racism, and the American Memorial Landscape.

AHR Shifts to Quarterly Issues in 2021 (August 2020)

Beginning in March 2021, the American Historical Review will shift from publishing five times annually to a quarterly publishing schedule. Each issue will be 100 pages longer, ensuring that the total content published per year remains the same. This change will make work schedules easier for journal staff, will allow AHA members to receive the AHR on a more regular schedule, and is the first in a series of changes that will enable the publication of more advance content from the journal online.

AHA Offers Relief for Unemployed/Underemployed Members (August 2020)

To assist un/underemployed historians who have been financially affected by the COVID-19 outbreak, the AHA has established the Historians Relief Fund, which will provide $500 emergency grants to AHA members that can be used to cover a loss of income related to the crisis.

Applications are due August 31, and recipients will be selected by lottery. To apply for this funding, AHA members can log into their MY AHA page at historians.org/myaha and click “Available Awards” in the Awards, Grants, and Fellowships section. 

The AHA will continue to solicit donations to the Historians Relief Fund and plans to hold an additional lottery selection in late November, pending the availability of funds. Note to applicants: If you are not selected in the September lottery your application will be held over for the November drawing. If your employment situation changes so that you become ineligible, please let us know.

AHA Executive Director Interviewed in The Tennessean (July 2020)

AHA executive director Jim Grossman was interviewed in The Tennessean's web segment on “The Confederate Reckoning: Why monuments and symbols are being removed,” by Mike Fant (July 30, 2020). 

AHA Member Receives Research Award (July 2020)

Congratulations to AHA member Rev. Steven Avella (Marquette Univ.), who was recently awarded the 2020 Haggerty Research Award. This is Marquette University's highest honor for research, and is awarded in recognition of scholarly distinction. 

Opening Brief Submitted in ICE Lawsuit (July 2020)

On July 24, the Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, the American Historical Association, and the Society for Historians of American Foreign Relations submitted a plaintiff's opening brief in support of their suit against the National Archives and Records Administration (“NARA”) and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (“ICE”) and signed declarations attesting to their standing to bring the lawsuit.

AHA Announces Historians Relief Fund (July 2020)

The upheavals wrought by the COVID-19 pandemic have led to significant economic hardship for many in the historical community. Numerous non-tenure-track university faculty, public historians, and historians in other professional fields find themselves losing all or substantial parts of their income. To help mitigate these circumstances, the AHA Council has established the Historians Relief Fund for unemployed and underemployed AHA members. The Historians Relief Fund will provide $500 grants for applicants selected by a lottery system, with applications opening in early August.

To maximize the number of grants we can provide, the AHA is seeking donations to support the Historians Relief Fund. Please donate at www.historians.org/donatenow and click on “Historians Relief Fund” to direct your donation to the fund. Donations must be received by September 1 to be used for this round of funding. If you have any questions about the fund, email us at donate@historians.org.

AHA Issues Statement on Department Closures and Faculty Firings (July 2020)

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.

AHA Condemns Tenured Faculty Layoffs at Canisius (July 2020)

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.”

AHA Issues Statement on Historical Research during COVID-19 (July 2020)

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.

AHA Member Wins Book Prize (July 2020)

Lydia Barnett (Northwestern Univ.) won the 2019 Morris D. Forkosch Prize awarded by the Journal of the History of Ideas for her book, After the Flood: Imagining the Global Environment in Early Modern Europe. The prize is awarded for the best first book in intellectual history. 

2020 AHA Election Results Announced (July 2020)

In the 2020 balloting for officers and committee members of the American Historical Association, AHA members elected James H. Sweet (Univ. of Wisconsin-Madison) as the next president-elect. See the full list of historians who will begin serving in January 2021.

AHA Member Receives Teaching Award (July 2020)

AHA member Edward Slavishak (Susquehanna Univ.) was recently awarded the John C. Horn Award for Distinguished Scholarship and Creative Activity. Slavishak was recognized for his exceptional record of scholarship and his excellence in teaching.

AHA Member Wins Book Prize (July 2020)

Congratulations to AHA member Eric K. Washington (Columbia Univ.), whose book Boss of the Grips: The Life of James H. Williams and the Red Caps of Grand Central Terminal was recently awarded the 2020 Herbert H. Lehman Prize for Distinguished Scholarship in New York History.

AHA Executive Director Quoted in Washington Post (July 2020)

AHA executive director Jim Grossman was quoted in three Washington Post articles in July 2020.

Mark Philip Bradley Named Editor of American Historical Review (July 2020)

After a national search, the American Historical Association (AHA) has appointed Mark Philip Bradley as editor of the American Historical Review (AHR), beginning August 2021. Bradley is the Bernadotte E. Schmitt Distinguished Service Professor of International History and the College at the University of Chicago, where he also serves as faculty director of the Pozen Family Center for Human Rights and as deputy dean of the Social Sciences Division. Bradley replaces Alex Lichtenstein, who has served as AHR editor since 2016.

AHA Hosts Webinar on "Erasing History or Making History? Race, Racism, and the American Memorial Landscape"

On July 2, 2020, the AHA hosted David W. Blight and Annette Gordon-Reed with moderator AHA executive director James Grossman for “Erasing History or Making History? Race, Racism, and the American Memorial Landscape.” Thanks also to HISTORY® for its generous sponsorship of this event.

AHA Members Awarded Stanford Fellowships (July 2020)

Congratulations to AHA members Keith Baker (Stanford Univ.), Elizabeth Jacob (Stanford Univ.), Matthew Wormer (Stanford Univ.), and Adrien Zakar (Stanford Univ.), who were named 2020-21 Stanford Humanities Center fellows. The center seeks to create an intellectual community for scholars to exchange academic ideas. 

AHA Executive Director Quoted on Removal of Monuments and Statues (July 2020)

AHA executive director Jim Grossman was quoted in a number of recent media articles on the debate over removing Confederate monuments and statues of Christopher Columbus. The articles include:

AHA Executive Director Appeared on Wisconsin Institute for Public Policy and Service's Web Series (July 2020)

AHA executive director Jim Grossman appeared in the Wisconsin Institute for Public Policy and Service's web series “Two Bald Guys” on the episode discussing “Rethinking Statues and the Meaning of American History.”

AHA Opposes New ICE Obstacles to Students from Foreign Countries (July 2020)

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. 

AHA Executive Director Quoted on Proposed National Garden Monument (July 2020)

AHA executive director Jim Grossman was quoted in several recent articles on President Trump's proposal to create a National Garden Monument. 

AHA Member Wins Lifetime Achievement Award (June 2020)

AHA member Alan I Marcus (Mississippi State Univ.) recently won the Gladys L. Baker Award for Lifetime Achievement from the Agricultural History Society. This award recognizes Marcus for his professional influence on the AHS throughout his 36-year membership.

AHA Member Named Mellon/ACLS Public Fellow (June 2020)

Congratulations to AHA member Nichole Nelson (Yale Univ.), who was recently named as one of 22 Mellon/ACLS Public Fellows. The program, sponsored by The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and the American Council of Learned Societies, prioritizes placing recent PhDs in civic and nonprofit organizations. Fellows are chosen for projects that contribute to community-based initiatives. 

Former AHA President Appointed Dean at Fordham (June 2020)

Former AHA president Tyler Stovall (Univ. of California, Santa Cruz) was recently appointed as the dean of the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences at Fordham University. Stovall served as AHA president in 2017 and as dean of the Humanities Division at UC Santa Cruz before accepting this position, which he officially assumes in July 2020.

AHA and NCSS Host Webinar on Teaching the History of Racist Violence in the High School Classroom (June 2020)

On June 19, 2020, the American Historical Association (AHA) and the National Council for the Social Studies (NCSS) hosted a panel on effectively using the AHA's Statement on the History of Racist Violence in the United States and how it can be used productively in high school history classrooms. Panelists explored the history referenced in the statement, the context of its authorship, and the opportunities the statement creates for challenging classroom conversations on historical and current events. The panelists were Reginald K. Ellis (Florida A&M Univ. and member of the AHA's Professional Division) and Tina L. Heafner (president, NCSS), with moderator Jacqueline Jones (AHA president-elect).

AHA Receives Major NEH Grant to Fund COVID-19 Initiative (June 2020)

The AHA announces "Confronting a Pandemic: Historians and COVID-19," a multi-faceted initiative to document historians' immediate responses to a historic global pandemic, create digital resources to help history teachers navigate a newly-pervasive environment of remote instruction, and support early career historians during a time of crisis. This project has been made possible by a major grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities, using funding from the CARES Act. 

AHA Executive Director Quoted in TIME (June 2020)

AHA executive director Jim Grossman was quoted in TIME magazine's "Confederate Statues Are Being Removed Amid Protests Over George Floyd's Death. Here's What to Know." Grossman contextualized the call for Confederate monuments to be removed from public spaces and discussed the history of such monuments as symbols of white supremacy.

AHA Member Wins Francis Parkman Prize (June 2020)

AHA member Charles King (Georgetown Univ.) was recently awarded the Francis Parkman Prize by the Society of American Historians for his book Gods of the Upper Air: How a Circle of Renegade Anthropologists Reinvented Race, Sex, and Gender in the Twentieth Century. This prize is awarded for literary and scholarly achievement.

AHA Member Wins Two Awards for Article (June 2020)

Congratulations to AHA member Bathsheba Demuth (Brown Univ.), whose article "The Walrus and the Bureaucrat: Energy, Ecology, and Making the State in the Russian and American Arctic, 1870-1950," published in the American Historical Review, has won two awards: the 2020 Theodore C. Blegen Award from the Forest History Society and the 2019 Article Prize from the Berkshire Conference of Women Historians.

AHA Council Member Elected to Council of Historically Black Graduate Schools (June 2020)

AHA Council member Reginald K. Ellis Jr. (Florida A&M Univ.) has recently been elected to serve as secretary of the Council of Historically Black Graduate Schools. The council recently celebrated its 50-year anniversary.

AHA Issues Statement on the History of Racist Violence in the United States (June 2020)

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. 
98 scholarly organizations have co-signed this statement to date.

AHA Joins Call for Further CARES Funding for Higher Ed (June 2020)

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.

AHA Past President John McNeill Discusses Future of Historical Research (May 2020)

Former AHA president John R. McNeill (Georgetown Univ.) was recently interviewed by the University of Manchester. In this interview, he discussed the future of the historical field and called for new interdisciplinary collaborations between historians and scientists.

AHA Member Wins Frances Richardson Keller-Sierra Prize (May 2020)

AHA member Jacqueline-Bethel Mougoué (Univ. of Wisconsin-Madison) has been awarded the Western Association of Women Historians' 2020 Frances Richardson Keller-Sierra Prize for her book Gender, Separatist Politics, and Embodied Nationalism in Cameroon (Univ. of Michigan Press, 2019). The Keller-Sierra Prize is given annually to the best monograph in the field of history published by a WAWH member.

AHA Member Accepts New Tenure-Track Position (May 2020)

AHA member Beau Gaitors (Winston-Salem State Univ.) has accepted a new tenure-track position in the Department of History at the University of Tennessee at Knoxville starting August 2020.

AHA Member Receives ACLS and Newberry Fellowships (May 2020)

Congratulations to AHA member Christine Adams (St. Mary's Coll. of Maryland), who was recently awarded fellowships from the American Council on Learned Societies (ACLS) and the Newberry Library. Both of these fellowships support outstanding scholars conducting innovative and ground-breaking research in their fields. 

AHA Members Named among ACLS Fellows (May 2020)

Congratulations to AHA members Christine M. Adams (St. Mary's Coll. of Maryland), Simon E. Balto (Univ. of Iowa), Susanna Elm (Univ. of California, Berkeley), Natasha Lightfoot (Columbia Univ.), Ryan Moran (Univ. of Utah), Douglas Northrop (Univ. of Michigan), Jennifer L. Palmer (Univ. of Georgia), Anne Ruderman (London School of Economics), Nicole Sackley (Univ. of Richmond), and Samira Sheikh (Vanderbilt Univ.), who were all named as 2020 American Council of Learned Societies Fellows. These prestigious fellowships are awarded to scholars conducting influential research in the humanities and social sciences.

AHA Member Publishes Articles on Post-pandemic Planning and #MeToo (May 2020)

AHA member Rachel Wheeler (Indiana Univ.-Purdue Univ., Indianapolis) recently published an article in Inside Higher Ed on post-pandemic planning and a piece on the fallout of academic #MeToo in Women in Higher Ed.

AHA Members Win ACLS Project Development Grants (May 2020)

Congratulations to AHA members Jaclyn Sumner (Presbyterian Coll.) and Louie Dean Valencia-García (Texas State Univ.), who were among the 15 awardees selected for the American Council of Learned Societies' Project Development Grants program. These grants are awarded to university faculty whose proposed research projects have the potential to advance significantly their areas of study in the humanities.

AHA Members Announced as Mellon/ACLS Fellows (May 2020)

Four AHA members were recently named as 2020 Mellon/ACLS Community College Faculty Fellows by the American Council of Learned Societies, including AHA Council member Shannon T. Bontrager (Georgia Highlands Coll., Cartersville). Congratulations to Shannon and to Emily Brooks (Graduate Center, CUNY), Karen R. Miller (La Guardia Comm. Coll., CUNY), and William A. Morgan (Lone Star Coll., Montgomery). These fellowships recognize humanities faculty who teach at two-year institutions and their indispensable contributions to scholarship, teaching, and their communities.

AHA Member Wins Lester J. Cappon Award (May 2020)

AHA member Rachel Wheeler (Indiana Univ.-Purdue Univ. Indianapolis) has won the Lester J. Cappon Award for the best article published in 2019 in the William and Mary Quarterly for her co-authored article, "Singing Box 331: Re-Sounding Eighteenth-Century Mohican Hymns from the Moravian Archives." The Omohundro Institute of Early American History & Culture awards this prize annually.

AHA Member Hosts PBS Special Segment (May 2020)

Today, states plan to reopen even as the coronavirus crisis continues to grow. This impulse has a history: it's what many towns did during the flu pandemic of 1918. In this special documentary short, AHA member Ed Ayers, host of the PBS series The Future of America's Past, offers a snapshot view of Richmond, Virginia's experience with the 1918 flu. The special segment was released Friday, May 8, via PBS and NPR. 

AHA Member Awarded ASECS Gottschalk Prize (May 2020)

AHA member Katie Jarvis (Univ. of Notre Dame) has been awarded the 2020 Louis A. Gottschalk Prize for her book Politics in the Marketplace: Work, Gender, and Citizenship in Revolutionary France (Oxford Univ. Press, 2019). The Gottschalk Prize is given annually to the best scholarly book on an 18th-century subject in any discipline. 

AHA Member Receives Carnegie Fellowship (May 2020)

AHA member Bathsheba Demuth (Brown Univ.) is the recipient of one of 22 prestigious Andrew Carnegie Fellowships. The Andrew Carnegie Fellowship Program provides one of the most generous research stipends of its kind, and rewards a select few scholars whose research in the humanities is original, impactful, and addresses important issues in society.

AHA Member Awarded Humanities Grant from NEH (May 2020)

Congratulations to AHA member Jennifer Speed (Univ. of Dayton), who was awarded a Humanities Connections Implementation Grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities for a project on Paul Laurence Dunbar. These grants are awarded to support the preservation of collections, exhibitions in the humanities, and other scholarly research.

AHA Member Wins Pulitzer Prize in History (May 2020)

AHA member W. Caleb McDaniel (Rice Univ.) has won the 2020 Pulitzer Prize in History for his book Sweet Taste of Liberty: A True Story of Slavery and Restitution in America (Oxford Univ. Press).  McDaniel's book was noted as "a masterfully researched meditation on reparations based on the remarkable story of a 19th century woman who survived kidnapping and re-enslavement to sue her captor."

AHA Members among 2020 SAH Fellows (May 2020)

The Society of American Historians recently elected its 2020 fellows. Eight members of the AHA were among the honorees. Congratulations to Carol Anderson (Emory Univ.), Gordon H. Chang (Stanford Univ.), Ariela J. Gross (Univ. of Southern California), Ari Kelman (Univ. of California, Davis), Kevin M. Kruse (Princeton Univ.), Mae M. Ngai (Columbia Univ.), Valerie Paley (New-York Historical Society), and Kim Phillips-Fein (New York Univ.).

Prize Contest: Applying History to Clarify the COVID-19 Challenge (April 2020)

Inspired by the AHA's recent Statement Regarding Historians and the COVID-19 public health crisis, the Stanton Foundation is launching a weekly contest to identify the best new applied history article or op-ed that analyzes history to clarify the medical, political, economic and/or international impact of COVID-19 and identifies lessons or clues for policymakers. Each week's winner will receive $1,000, with an additional $2,500 prize for the best overall. Further details can be found on the Foundation's website.

AHA Members Elected to 2020 Class of the Academy of Arts and Sciences (April 2020)

Congratulations to AHA members Tomiko Brown-Nagin (Harvard Univ.), Michael Kazin (Georgetown Univ.), Erika Lee (Univ. of Minnesota, Twin Cities), Alondra Nelson (Institute for Advanced Study), Eve M. Troutt Powell (Univ. of Pennsylvania), Craig Steven Wilder (Massachusetts Inst. of Technology), and Louise Young (Univ. of Wisconsin, Madison), who were recently elected to the 2020 class of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.  These members are among the 276 exceptionally accomplished artists, scholars, scientists, and leaders to be honored by the Academy and engaged in advancing the public good.

AHA Members Named 2020 ACLS-Mellon Fellows (April 2020)

AHA members Jennifer L. Anderson (State Univ. of New York, Stony Brook), Jesse Hoffnung-Garskof (Univ. of Michigan, Ann Arbor), and Treva B. Lindsey (Ohio State Univ., Columbus) have been named 2020 Mellon/ACLS Scholars and Society Fellows.  The fellowships, funded through the Mellon Foundation and the American Council of Learned Societies, reward outstanding scholars dedicated to the public good by supporting twelve projects that demonstrate the dynamic role humanistic scholarship plays beyond academic settings.

AHA Issues Statement Regarding Historians and COVID-19 (April 2020)

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.  

AHA Sends Letter to University System of Georgia Opposing Proposed Changes to the General Education Curriculum (March 2020)

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. 

AHA Signs onto Statement Encouraging Temporary Adjustments to Faculty Review and Reappointment Processes during COVID-19 Crisis (March 2020)

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.

AHA Encourages Congress to Support NEH during COVID-19 Crisis (March 2020)

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. 

AHA Joins Lawsuit Challenging ICE Records Disposition (March 2020)

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.

AHA Supports Release of Grand Jury Records of Historical Significance (March 2020)

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.

AHA Expresses Concern over Deletion of Immigration Records (Feb 2020)

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 1,000 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.

AHA Sends Letter to French President Emmanuel Macron with Concerns about Unclear Procedures for Declassification of Archives

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.

AHA Member Holloway Appointed President of Rutgers University

Jonathan Holloway, AHA member and provost of Northwestern University, has been appointed the 21st president of Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey. Following appointments at Northwestern University and Yale University, Holloway will begin serving as president of the university on July 1, 2020.

AHA Issues Statement Condemning the Use of Historical Sites in Warfare

The AHA 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. Read the statement here.

AHA Sends Letter to Archivist about Altered Photo

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. Read the letter here.