Response to Proposed Resolutions: Taking Action to Support Historians
November 26, 2025
The AHA has a broad responsibility to advocate for the historical discipline and to enable our members and affiliates to carry out their own priorities. We are united across our different missions in our shared commitment to furthering historical work. At a time of unprecedented global threats to historical scholarship, the AHA Council is prioritizing direct action to support the discipline and its institutions as a whole.
The Council received two resolutions for consideration at the 2026 annual business meeting: the “Resolution in Solidarity with Gaza” and the “Resolution Opposing Attacks on Core Principles of Education.” The Council has heard powerful expressions from members about threats to academic freedom and the needs of Palestinian historians and appreciates the work of affiliated societies to address these concerns. In response, the Council has taken direct actions on topics addressed in both proposed resolutions. Under its authority to set the business meeting agenda, and after careful review in light of the obligations and realities the AHA faces in its role as a professional advocate for the entirety of the discipline, the Council will not place the proposed resolutions on the agenda.
In our legal obligations as fiduciaries of the AHA, the Council has a responsibility to act in the long-term best interests of the Association, which represents the whole community of historians and their work. This obligation includes the duty of carrying out the AHA’s mission, safeguarding its charter, and sustaining the work of the Association.
As previously announced, and as part of the AHA’s mission to defend, sustain, and enhance the work of historians in the United States and abroad, the Council unanimously supported the establishment of the Ad Hoc Committee to Aid Palestinian Historians. This committee will provide guidance for the Association’s efforts and complements the AHA’s longstanding partnership with Scholars at Risk and the work of other committees, including the Committee on International Historical Activities.
In light of continuing threats to the historical discipline, academic freedom, and freedom of speech, the AHA established the Ad Hoc Committee on Academic Freedom. This committee convenes historians from many institutional backgrounds and other scholars and practitioners with relevant expertise to aid the Association in its longstanding work with affiliated societies and other scholarly associations to advocate collectively for academic freedom.
The Council gratefully acknowledges the work of AHA members serving on committees and working groups and participating in the new Community Action and Resource Exchange network. If you are interested in supporting these or other initiatives now or in the future, please contact us at info@historians.org.
FAQs on the 2026 Proposed Resolutions
January 5, 2026
The questions below reflect concerns raised by members across the Association about the AHA Council’s decisions regarding proposed resolutions related to Gaza. These are difficult and deeply felt issues, and the Council recognizes that people within the discipline hold strong and sometimes divergent views.
The Council offers these responses in the spirit of transparency and good-faith engagement, with respect for the concerns expressed by many members and for the Council’s responsibility to steward the Association in accordance with its mission, charter, and governance obligations. The purpose of this FAQ is to clarify the Council’s reasoning and the actions the AHA has taken, not to foreclose debate or scholarly disagreement.
Why did the AHA Council decide not to place the proposed resolutions on the business meeting agenda?
In deciding whether to include these resolutions on the agenda, the question before the Council was not whether the situation in Gaza warrants moral concern. It plainly does, which is reflected in our prior statement condemning any intentional destruction of educational institutions in Gaza, in our defense of scholars’ rights to free expression and peaceful protest, as well as in our recent creation of a new committee—unanimously approved by the Council—to provide guidance on the Association’s efforts to aid Palestinian historians and students.
The question instead was whether the Association should use its general business meeting to adopt binding institutional positions on active geopolitical conflicts in ways that would set enduring precedent for the Association—particularly on matters where our membership holds deeply divergent views—and whether the resolutions fell within the Association’s stated mission.
After careful reflection on our mission, governance responsibilities, institutional risk, and the long-term implications for the discipline, the Council concluded that taking on this role would fundamentally alter the nature of the Association and its capacity to serve historians across perspectives and geographies. Especially at a time when the fundamental practice of history and the humanities face existential threats within our own institutions and public sphere, the Council determined that this resolution fell outside what it determined to be the appropriate scope of the Association’s congressionally chartered mission.
In what ways did the proposals fall outside the scope of the AHA’s mission?
The resolutions, as written, would have required the Association itself to take positions and actions that go beyond the scope of the AHA’s congressionally chartered mission and its responsibilities as a 501(c)(3) organization. In particular, the resolutions would have obligated the Association to adopt ongoing institutional positions on an active geopolitical conflict, creating precedent with implications well beyond the immediate case.
The AHA was chartered by Congress in 1889 for a specific purpose: “the promotion of historical studies, the collection and preservation of historical manuscripts, and for kindred purposes in the interest of American history and of history in America.”
The Association can and should take principled, history-focused actions in alignment with this mission, but it must do so in a way that neither undermines its ability to serve a diverse membership nor exposes it to undue legal and financial risks.
Why did the AHA not include these resolutions on the business meeting agenda, yet issued a statement condemning Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and approved a resolution condemning the war in Iraq?
The 2025 and 2026 resolutions are substantively different—both in form and consequence—than the 2007 resolution related to the war in Iraq and the 2022 statement related to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
The 2007 resolution was far more limited in scope, simply urging individual AHA members “to take a public stand as citizens on behalf of the values necessary to the practice of our profession, and to do whatever they can to bring the Iraq war to a speedy conclusion.” It did not mandate any ongoing institutional statements, actions, or commitments.
The 2022 statement was coordinated and co-signed with 41 other organizations and dealt specifically with Russia’s use of “outlandish historical claims, including an argument that Ukraine was entirely a Soviet creation.” It was not a resolution, nor did it mandate any ongoing institutional statements, actions, or commitments.
The 2025 and 2026 resolutions regarding Israel and Gaza are far broader and mandate specific institutional actions and commitments that go beyond the scope of the AHA’s congressionally chartered mission and its responsibilities as a 501(c)(3) organization.
Why did the AHA create the Ad Hoc Committee to Aid Palestinian Historians? And what is the status of the committee?
Using the Council’s discretion on how to best advocate and support historians while also acting in the long-term best interests of the Association, the AHA has chosen to prioritize concrete, direct action to address the concerns of its members and the broader historical community related to Gaza.
At its regularly scheduled meeting in October 2025, the Council unanimously approved the establishment of the Ad Hoc Committee to Aid Palestinian Historians, which, similar to the body that both the 2025 and 2026 resolutions called for, is tasked with identifying resources and other organizations with whom to collaborate and ultimately presenting an actionable plan for the AHA to aid Palestinian historians and to support educational needs in the region.
This committee’s structure is consistent with the Association’s mission and institutional precedent. It also complements the AHA’s ongoing and longstanding partnership with Scholars at Risk, an organization that protects scholars suffering grave threats to their lives, liberty, and well-being by arranging temporary research and teaching positions and providing advisory and referral services.
The AHA is in the process of appointing committee members, which includes invitations to Palestinian historians, historians of genocide, and archival experts with expertise in human rights.
Does not including the resolutions on the business meeting agenda stifle discussion and debate?
No. The AHA is committed to robust scholarly debate and provides numerous opportunities at the annual meeting to discuss and engage with Palestinian history, genocide, and state violence. These include sessions organized or accepted by the program committee; sessions organized by Historians for Peace and Democracy (HPAD), who submitted the 2025 and 2026 resolutions; and a roundtable on “Historians and the Politics of Genocide Studies,” organized by the Council’s Research Division.
The Council’s decision concerned the use of the business meeting as a mechanism for adopting binding institutional policy, not the substance or legitimacy of scholarly debate.
Why did the AHA allow similar resolutions on the agenda in 2025?
The AHA initially allowed the 2025 resolutions to proceed in recognition of the depth of member concern and in good-faith engagement with members’ desire for action. Following the business meeting, however, the Council concluded that adopting the resolution as institutional policy would exceed the Association’s chartered mission.
Why did the Council veto the 2025 resolution that was approved by members present at the Business Meeting?
Under the AHA’s governance structure, the Council retains responsibility for ensuring that actions taken in the name of the Association comply with its legal obligations and mission. After careful review, the Council determined that implementing the resolution as institutional policy would exceed the Association’s chartered mission.
While the 2025 resolution was vetoed, the Council also asserted that the AHA “deplores any intentional destruction of Palestinian educational institutions, libraries, universities, and archives in Gaza.”
What other actions has the AHA taken related to the war in Gaza and the impact on Palestinian historians and educational facilities?
For years, the AHA has been actively involved in protecting both the rights of individual members to speak freely as well as the rights of scholars to study and preserve our past. These include statements and actions defending the right of faculty and students to engage in peaceful campus protests, as well as in support of international students and faculty. On these issues and others, the AHA has deeply engaged in advocacy with other associations across a broad landscape, including K–12 schools, universities, museums, archives, national parks, and others.
These are examples of direct actions taken in response to member requests that can create meaningful change and that also allow the AHA to continue to carry out its work on behalf of all its members.
Can individual historians and affiliated societies still advocate and take positions?
Absolutely. The Council’s decision applies only to what the Association itself formally adopts as institutional policy, and the AHA remains committed to fostering robust scholarly exchange and disagreement within the discipline.
Individual historians, caucuses, and affiliated societies remain free to debate, organize, advocate, and express moral and political positions, and the AHA will continue to defend their right to do so.