Supporting the Presidential Records Act
Defending Presidential Records
In April 2026, the American Historical Association, in collaboration with American Oversight, filed a lawsuit challenging a recent memorandum from the Department of Justice declaring the Presidential Records Act unconstitutional, potentially blocking public access to hundreds of millions of records and presenting serious risk to transparency and recordkeeping throughout the executive branch, including the National Archives.
April 14, 2026
The American Historical Association and American Oversight filed a motion for a preliminary injunction seeking immediate court action to block the Trump administration from disregarding the Presidential Records Act (PRA) and to prevent the destruction or loss of presidential records. The motion argues that without urgent court intervention, records documenting presidential decision-making could be “lost to history.”
April 6, 2026
The American Historical Association, in collaboration with American Oversight, filed a lawsuit challenging a recent memorandum from the Department of Justice declaring the Presidential Records Act unconstitutional, potentially blocking public access to hundreds of millions of records and presenting serious risk to transparency and recordkeeping throughout the executive branch, including the National Archives.
AHA Member Declarations
Read Sarah Weicksel's (Executive Director, AHA) Declaration
Read Kathryn Cramer Brownell's (Purdue Univ.) Declaration
Read Matthew Connolly's (Columbia Univ.) Declaration
Read Elizabeth Marx's (American Oversight) Declaration
Read Timothy J. Naftali's (Columbia Univ.) Declaration
Read Natalia Mehlman Petrzela's (New School) Declaration
Support AHA Advocacy
The American Historical Association provides leadership for the discipline, defends academic freedom, and promotes the critical role of historical thinking in public life. The AHA, in collaboration with our colleagues at the American Council of Learned Societies and the Modern Language Association, have filed a lawsuit in response to the illegal dismantling of the National Endowment for the Humanities. We need your support for this and our ongoing advocacy efforts at the federal and state levels. Please join join or donate today.
The preservation of these records, both current, past and future, are all essential to democratic processes that depend upon appropriate public scrutiny,
Sarah Weicksel
In Politico, April 2026
Executive Director, American Historical Association
When Presidential records are withheld indefinitely, or made inaccessible, it becomes impossible to reconstruct what officials did in the name of the people who elected them. And if our government is not accountable even in the court of history, it is accountable to no one. The costs of that loss — diminished public confidence in political institutions, the proliferation of conspiracy theories, and the deepening inability of citizens to evaluate or even understand critical policy choices — are incalculable.
Matthew Connelly
Columbia University
AHA members will lose access to information that would create the historical record of presidential activities, and that would help to educate the public about that history. AHA members would be left with an incomplete historical record by which to professionally research, produce scholarship on, and teach U.S. history. Once lost, this information is irretrievable, causing AHA and its members to lose access to the documents and other materials essential to understanding, and learning from, our past.
Sarah Weicksel
Executive Director
American Historical Association
Exploring and analyzing the president's relationship to any number of issues, through the archival record, is often one of the most important ways that historians begin to understand the national and federal dimensions of a wide range of concerns. Losing access to these sources would be a major blow to the historical profession, and to our collective understanding of the United States, past and present.
Natalia Mehlman Petrzela
The New School
For the Press
If you are a member of the media and would like to submit a request for a referral or interview, please email press@historians.org.
Please provide any pertinent deadlines and we will do our best to accommodate your request. The AHA can find you a historian for any topic, and assists with dozens of inquiries each year.