Actions by the AHA Council

Through email communications from January 22 to May 16, 2024; at a teleconference meeting held on March 8, 2024; and at meetings on June 8 and 9, 2024, the Council of the American Historical Association took the following actions:

 

• Approved the text of “In Defense of the Right to Learn,” the resolution passed at the 137th business meeting of the AHA (held on January 6, 2024). 

• Sent a letter to Manhattan College administrators opposing the termination of history faculty members. 

• Appointed Nicole Mahoney (New-York Historical Society) and Nike Nivar (American Council of Learned Societies) as co-chairs for the Local Arrangements Committee for the 2025 annual meeting in New York. 

• Sent a letter to members of the Nebraska Legislature opposing LB 1064, a proposed bill that would eliminate tenure in state universities and colleges. 

• Sent a letter to members of the Indiana House Education Committee opposing Senate Bill 202, which would “create a policy for granting tenure and terminating the appointments of tenured faculty based on how well that faculty member has fostered ‘intellectual diversity’ within the classroom.” The AHA’s letter made it clear that the Association agrees that a diversity of ideas and perspectives is important to higher education institutions. This bill, however, would establish processes that violate academic freedom. 

• Sent a letter to members of the Iowa House of Representatives opposing HF 2544, which would impose alarming and ill-advised requirements for social studies curriculum in the state. 

• Sent a letter to members of the Florida House of Representatives and Senate opposing HB 1291 / SB 1372, a “heavy-handed and inappropriate intervention in college curricula, classroom instruction, and professional learning.” 

• Sent a letter to leaders at South Carolina State University expressing concern about a plan to cut majors in history, African American studies, and social studies teaching. 

• Approved changes to the Equity Award description to remove references to academic departments. This change aligns with the AHA’s efforts to broaden historical scholarship. 

• Established a co-editor model for the American Historical Review (AHR) and a process for the 2031 AHR co-editor search to accept applications from teams of historians. Applicants would be encouraged to include historians representing different fields. 

• Authorized a search for a second editor of the AHR. The co-editors’ five-year terms would begin in August 2026. 

• Approved revisions to the Inclusive Language section of the AHA Style Guide. 

• Reappointed Kalani Craig (Indiana Univ.) and Joshua Reid (Univ. of Washington) to three-year terms on the AHR Board of Editors beginning July 1, 2024. 

• Appointed Michelle Armstrong-Partida (Emory Univ.), David Biggs (Univ. of California, Riverside), Mark Hanna (Univ. of California, San Diego), Quinn Slobodian (Boston Univ.), Rhiannon Stephens (Columbia Univ.), and Fei-Hsien Wang (Indiana Univ.) to three-year terms on the AHR Board of Editors beginning July 1, 2024. 

• Reappointed Rose Miron (Newberry Library) to a three-year term as associate review editor of the AHR beginning July 1, 2024. 

• Appointed Sharika Crawford (US Naval Academy), Andrew Denning (Univ. of Kansas), Joan Flores-Villalobos (Univ. of Southern California), and Doug Rossinow (Metropolitan State Univ.) as associate review editors of the AHR for three-year terms beginning July 1, 2024. 

• Sent a letter to Chinese president Xi Jinping expressing concern for Professor Rahile Dawut, a historian-folklorist of Uyghur studies in China who has apparently been sentenced to life in prison and whose specific whereabouts are unknown. 

• Approved the charge for a Working Group on K–12 Education. 

• Appointed the following members of the Working Group on K–12 Education: Kathleen Hilliard (Iowa State Univ.), Jenny Baniewicz (Amos Alonzo Stagg High School), Daniel Gutierrez (Harvard-Westlake School), Katharina Matro (Walter Johnson High School), Craig Perrier (Fairfax County Public Schools), Brenda Santos (Brown Univ.), and Shane Carter (Univ. of California, Berkeley). 

• Endorsed a letter to members of the US Congress requesting approval of a Congressional Gold Medal for the first women to serve our nation in uniform, the “Hello Girls” telephone operators of World War I. 

• Admitted Wiki Education and the Historical Society of the Episcopal Church as AHA affiliates. 

• Issued a statement on the 2024 campus protests, “deplor[ing] recent decisions among college and university administrators to draw on local and state police forces to evict peaceful demonstrators.” 

• Signed on to the ACLS Statement on 2024 Campus Protests. 

• Approved the minutes of the January 4 and 7, 2024, Council meetings and the March 8, 2024, Council meeting. 

• Approved the interim minutes and ratified the votes of the Council from January through May 2024. 

• Appointed Melissa Byrnes (Southwestern Univ., Texas) as a member of the Small Liberal Arts Colleges Working Group. 

• Approved the charge of the Working Group on AI in Research and Publications. 

• Appointed Toshihiro Higuchi (Georgetown Univ.) and Pablo Sierra Silva (Univ. of Rochester) as members of the 2026 Annual Meeting Program Committee. 

• Officially thanked Lee White for his years of service as executive director of the National Coalition for History. 

• Updated AHA Bylaw 4, pursuant to Article IV, Section 6, by changing all references to the AHR “editor” to “co-editors.” 

• Admitted Historians for Peace and Democracy as an affiliate of the AHA. 

• Changed the name of the Committee on Minority Historians to the Committee on Racial and Ethnic Equity. 

• Authorized the solicitation of bids from Detroit, Toronto, New York, and Boston to hold future AHA annual meetings. 

• Approved a policy for handing concerns raised about sessions accepted by the Program Committee. 

• Approved changes to the Investment Objectives and Guidelines to allow, but not require, investment in environmental, social, and governance (ESG) funds. 

• Approved changes to the Investment Committee Statement of Responsibilities to clarify the committee’s oversight of the Association’s retirement plans for employees. 

• Approved changes to the Guidelines for Academic Tenure-Track Job Offers in History to better reflect variations in departments’ hiring authorities and decision-makers. 

• Approved changes to simplify the Statement on Age Discrimination. 

• Approved nominations for the 2024 Awards for Scholarly Distinction, the Tikkun Olam Prize, John Lewis Award for Public Service, and the Troyer Steele Anderson Prize, to be announced in October.