Actions by the AHA Council, January–June 2025

Through email communications from January 5 through May 30, 2025; at a teleconference held on March 20, 2025; and at meetings on June 7 and 8, 2025, the Council of the American Historical Association took the following actions:

• Approved a joint statement with the Organization of American Historians opposing the executive order “Ending Radical Indoctrination in K–12 Schooling.”
• Interpreted Article VIII, Section 1(b), of the AHA Constitution to provide that separate petitions shall be required for each nominee to be proposed by petition. Each petition must be signed by no fewer than 100 AHA members. Each member may sign more than one petition to place a nominee on the election ballot.
• Admitted the Center for New Deal Studies as an AHA affiliate.
• Approved a joint statement with the Organization of American Historians condemning “recent efforts to censor historical content on federal government websites, at many public museums, and across a wide swath of government resources that include essential data.”
• Submitted testimony opposing Ohio SB 1, which would eliminate tenure in higher education.
• Sent a letter to the Iowa Senate Education Committee registering strong objection to core provisions of Iowa HF 402/SF 322, which would establish limiting curriculum requirements in community colleges.
• Approved a statement condemning “the dismantling of federal departments and agencies through the indiscriminate termination of federal employees and elimination of programs, including historical offices.”
• Signed on to a joint statement with the American Council of Learned Societies and the Phi Beta Kappa Society opposing the executive order to close the US Department of Education.
• Approved a statement in support of the Smithsonian Institution, the target of the executive order “Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History.”
• Signed on to a letter from a coalition of 13 organizations requesting that the Virginia Board of Education delay implementations of the 2023 History and Social Science Standards of Learning for one year.
• Approved a statement condemning “the evisceration of the National Endowment for the Humanities” and called on its members to contact their congressional representatives and urge them to save the NEH.
• Agreed to collaborate with the American Council of Learned Societies and the Modern Language Association to engage legal counsel to evaluate potential claims to be brought in court regarding the termination of NEH grants and related issues.
• Approved a statement condemning policies and practices that target international scholars in various ways, especially (but not solely) with regard to immigration status.
• Appointed Chad Bryant (Univ. of North Carolina at Chapel Hill), Laura Edwards (Princeton Univ.), and Christy Pichichero (George Mason Univ.) to three-year terms on the AHR Board of Editors beginning July 1, 2025.
• Appointed Sara Caputo (Univ. of Cambridge), Juan Cobo Betancourt (Univ. of California, Santa Barbara), Esther Liberman Cuenca (Univ. of Houston–Victoria), Heather Murray (Univ. of Ottawa), Matthew Reeder (National Univ. of Singapore), and Penny Sinanoglou (Pomona Coll.) to three-year terms as AHR associate review editors beginning July 1, 2025.
• Approved a statement condemning censorship at military educational institutions.
• Sent a letter to state legislators urging them to oppose Texas SB 37, a higher education omnibus reform bill, which would strip faculty control over general education requirements and impose new restrictions based on race and gender.
• Sent a letter to state legislators urging them to oppose Alabama SB 166, which would require display of the Ten Commandments in US history classrooms with language about how it is “historical truth” that the Ten Commandments inspired the American founding.
• Sent a letter to state legislators urging them to oppose Texas SB 10, which would require display of the Ten Commandments in public schools.
• Sent a letter to members of the Texas Senate Committee on Education K–16 urging them to reconsider plans to eliminate requirements for state assessment in social studies and history.
• Signed on to a letter encouraging the Virginia Board of Education and Department of Education to invest in history and civics and better integrate it into the state’s system for public school accountability.
• Approved the January 3 and 6, 2025, Council meeting minutes.
• Approved the January 16, 2025, Council meeting minutes.
• Approved the March 20, 2025, Council meeting minutes.
• Approved the interim meeting minutes and ratified Council votes taken from January 8 to May 30, 2025.
• Appointed the following members of the 2027 Annual Meeting Program Committee: Luisa Arrieta Fernandez (Spelman Coll.), BuYun Chen (Swarthmore Coll.), Rowan Dorin (Stanford Univ.), Roy Doron (Winston-Salem State Univ.), Theresa Jach (Houston Community Coll.), Monica Martinez (Univ. of Texas at Austin), Stuart Rockoff (Mississippi Humanities Council), Nerina Rustomji (St. John’s Univ.), Lisa Trivedi (Hamilton Coll.), and Wade Trosclair (Jesuit High School of New Orleans).
• Appointed Ashley Rogers (Whitney Plantation Museum) as co-chair of the Local Arrangements Committee for the 2027 annual meeting.
• Approved adding “+” to the name of the AHA Committee on LGBTQ+ Status in the Profession.
• Approved nominations for the 2025 Awards for Scholarly Distinction, John Lewis Award for Public Service, and Tikkun Olam Prize, to be announced in October.
• Removed the final sentence in AHA Bylaw 16.3 (pursuant to Article IX, Sections 1–3) stating that “all nominations by petition shall be received by the chair of the Nominating Committee on or before May 15” to resolve a discrepancy with the AHA Constitution.
• Admitted the Consortium on the Revolutionary Era as an AHA affiliate.
• Updated the affiliate application process to include the requirement that a list of members of the applicant’s governing bodies must be publicly available.
• Approved the FY26 budget.
• Established a Development Working Group to be appointed by the AHA president and report to AHA Council.
• Approved updates to the AHA’s Code of Professional Conduct at Officially Sanctioned AHA Activities.
• Approved updates to the Guide for Contending with Online Harassment, with an addendum allowing staff to update resources as necessary.
• Approved changes to section 5.1(c) of the AHA’s Annual Meeting Guidelines to encourage commentators to bring a diversity of perspectives to sessions.