In the late summer of 2024, the AHA continued its work to support history and social studies education by signing on to a letter recommending strong funding for Title VI programs in fiscal year 2025 and writing to Oklahoma’s governor and board of education urging them not to undergo a detrimental overhaul of their current learning standards. Additionally, the Association signed on to an amicus curiae brief in United States v. Skrmetti and wrote to the president of the Republic of Sierra Leone, expressing concern for the personal safety and academic freedom of Chernoh Alpha M. Bah, a historian facing threats and harassment.
AHA Signs On to CIE Letter Recommending Strong Funding for Title VI Programs in FY 2025
On July 18, the AHA signed on to a letter from the Coalition for International Education (CIE) recommending strong funding for HEA–Title VI International Education and Foreign Language Studies programs in FY 2025, including Fulbright-Hays programs. The recommended funding, the letter stated, “would continue the gradual progress of restoring funding to FY 2010 levels, which is ever so urgent for addressing rising national needs for international expertise and global competencies in our increasingly contested world.”
AHA Urges Oklahoma to Retain Current Social Studies Standards
On August 26, the AHA sent a letter to Oklahoma Governor J. Kevin Stitt and the members of the Oklahoma State Board of Education expressing alarm about State Superintendent of Public Instruction Ryan Walters’s plans for a “complete overhaul” of Oklahoma’s existing state academic standards for social studies, urging the state to instead retain their current standards. “The Oklahoma Academic Standards for Social Studies are among the best in the nation,” the AHA wrote. “[Walters] would sacrifice historical accuracy and carefully framed learning outcomes to his extreme ideas about ‘American exceptionalism’ grounded more in ideological commitments than in historical evidence.”
AHA Signs On to Amicus Curiae Brief in United States v. Skrmetti Supreme Court Case
On September 5, the AHA, along with the Organization of American Historians, the LGBTQ+ History Association, and several individual historians, signed on to an amicus curiae brief in United States v. Skrmetti, a case considering Tennessee’s ban on gender-affirming care for minors slated to be heard by the US Supreme Court. The brief, based on decades of study and research by professional historians, aims to provide an accurate historical perspective of the long history of gender-affirming care and sex-identity transition.
AHA Sends Letter in Support of Sierra Leonean Historian Facing Threats
On September 5, the AHA sent a letter to Julius Maada Bio, president of the Republic of Sierra Leone, expressing “concern for the personal safety and academic freedom of Dr. Chernoh Alpha M. Bah,” a historian and journalist who has faced threats and harassment for his reporting on alleged corruption among Sierra Leonean government officials. “The harassment Bah has been subjected to—which includes death threats—has prevented him from returning to Sierra Leone to continue his academic research,” the AHA wrote. “These threats from government officials represent a clear violation of his freedom to pursue historical scholarship.”
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