To Our Members:
On January 11, 2026, the American Historical Association’s Council vetoed by majority vote two resolutions that were passed at the January 10 Business Meeting, which was attended by 360 members.
The Council made this decision even as we recognize and deplore the killing of scholars and students and the destruction of archives, libraries, museums, and universities in Gaza. Numerous AHA members as well as international humanitarian and human rights groups have concluded that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza. We also express our horror at the violence unleashed by Hamas’s attack on Israel on October 7, 2023. The loss of life and the destruction of educational and historical resources are matters of grave concern to us as people and members of the historical community.
However, the AHA as an organization is bound by its legal obligations and congressionally chartered mission. As worded, the two resolutions go beyond a specific focus on history and thereby fall outside the scope of the AHA’s mission. As such, approving them would present institutional risk and have long-term negative implications for the organization. It is critical that the AHA maintain its organizational standing, congressional charter, nonpartisanship, and independence, in order to preserve and defend scholarly expertise; support historical research and teaching; and otherwise fulfill our core mission. The AHA supports the historical discipline and historians on behalf of its 11,000 members in the United States and abroad. Our responsibility as Council members is to protect the institution’s capacity and stability so that the AHA can continue to serve the discipline and its constituents into the future.
The Council took concrete action after the 2025 business meeting to respond constructively to the concerns of members and established a Committee to Aid Palestinian Historians. It is our hope that this committee, in collaboration with Palestinian historians, can identify an actionable plan to mobilize members and identify partners with whom we can work to support Palestinian historians and Gaza’s historical and educational institutions. We welcome all with expertise or interest in these pursuits to join in this endeavor.
In response to increasing threats to academic freedom, we also established a Committee on Academic Freedom to support our members and the historical discipline in the face of ongoing and new attacks on teaching and learning. The AHA is committed to defending all historians’ ability to teach, research, and work in their area of expertise, without fear that their evidence-based scholarship and teaching will be construed or attacked as divisive political speech.
The last few years have been extraordinarily challenging, and we all, as historians and individuals, have divergent views about how to identify, prioritize, and respond to threats to our discipline. But there is no question that the threats to historians and historical scholarship—from violence, censorship, and harassment of many kinds—is uppermost in our minds.
We will continue to lead efforts to confront the many threats to history and historians at local, state, national, and international levels as outlined in our fall 2025 Call to Action. Historians’ particular skills—and the work of historical thinking—put us at the center of current crises. We must act collectively to defend the individuals and institutions that make this work possible.