AHA Executive Director Quoted in NBC News Article on Hillsdale College (August 2023) Added August 03, 2023

AHA executive director Jim Grossman was quoted in an NBC News article by Tyler Kingkade about Hillsdale College’s growing influence as a resource for conservatives overhauling K–12 education policy. “What they’ve done is they’ve simply left stuff out in an attempt to shape a vision of patriotism,” Grossman said of Hillsdale’s “1776 Curriculum.” “What they also are trying to do is replace an approach to teaching that teaches students how to think with an approach that teaches the students what to think.”

AHA Executive Director Quoted in Christian Post Article on Backlash to Hillsdale Curriculum (August 2023) Added August 03, 2023

AHA executive director Jim Grossman was quoted in a Christian Post article by Samantha Kamman about the backlash to Hillsdale College’s conservative “1776 Curriculum” for K–12 schools. The article also cited the AHA’s April 2023 letter to the South Dakota Board of Education expressing concerns about the state’s social studies standards, which failed to meet the AHA’s Criteria for Standards in History/Social Studies/Social Sciences after being reworked in a partisan political environment by a a retired Hillsdale professor.

Report of 1776 Commission Statement.pdf

What Happened after America Pulled Out In 1776?

AHA President and Executive Director Discuss 1776 Report (January 2021) Added January 21, 2021

AHA president Jacqueline Jones (Univ. of Texas at Austin) and AHA executive director Jim Grossman wrote an editorial in the New York Daily News discussing the report of the 1776 commission, which Grossman and Jones describe as “political propaganda masquerading as history.”

AHA Condemns Report of Advisory 1776 Commission (January 2021) Added January 20, 2021

The AHA has issued a statement condemning the report from “The President’s Advisory 1776 Commission.” “Written hastily in one month after two desultory and tendentious ‘hearings,’” the AHA writes, “without any consultation with professional historians of the United States, the report fails to engage a rich and vibrant body of scholarship that has evolved over the last seven decades.” 47 organizations have signed onto the statement.

AHA Statement Condemning Report of Advisory 1776 Commission (January 2021) Added January 20, 2021

The AHA has issued a statement condemning the report from "The President’s Advisory 1776 Commission.” “Written hastily in one month after two desultory and tendentious ‘hearings,’” the AHA writes, “without any consultation with professional historians of the United States, the report fails to engage a rich and vibrant body of scholarship that has evolved over the last seven decades.” 47 organizations have signed onto the statement.

AHA Statement Condemning “1776 Report” Featured in Media Coverage (January 2021) Added January 26, 2021

The AHA’s statement condemning the Report of the Advisory 1776 Commission has been featured in The Guardian, the Las Vegas Sun, the Moultrie News, Politico, Revolt.tv, the Christian Post, Commons Dreams, Detroit Free Press, Statehouse Report, The Philadelphia Tribune, and Daily Beast.

AHA Executive Director Comments on White House 1776 Report (January 2021) Added January 19, 2021

AHA executive director Jim Grossman was quoted in the 74, Colorado Springs Independent, Independent, Inside Higher Ed, New York Times, NBC News, Politico, Stuff, Washington Post, and KITV4 ABC commenting on the report issued by the President’s Advisory 1776 Commission. “It’s a hack job. It’s not a work of history,” Grossman told the Post. “It’s a work of contentious politics designed to stoke culture wars.”

AHA Executive Director Featured in ABC News Article on “1776 Ideals” Political Messaging (July 2023) Added July 20, 2023

AHA executive director Jim Grossman spoke with ABC News about the historical context behind Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy’s invocation of “1776 ideals” on the campaign trail, as well as previous conservatives candidates’ use of 1776 as a shorthand for certain values. “We have, from the very beginning, had vast disagreements of what the spirit of ‘76 is," Grossman said, noting that the contradictions around “liberty” in the founding documents have spurred debate to this day. “If you look at the early to mid-19th century, what you will see are vast debates over whether the Constitution was a pro-slavery or anti-slavery document. . . . [The documents] were written by men who grew up in a world where it was considered normal and acceptable to own, buy, and sell other people.”