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American Association of Colleges and Universities - Public Statement: A Call for Constructive Engagement (April 22)
American Association of Colleges and Universities - Public Statement: A Call for Constructive Engagement (April 22)
College and University presidents have signed on to this statement speaking against unprecedented government overreach and political interference in public education and calling for constructive engagement
Our colleges and universities share a commitment to serve as centers of open inquiry where, in their pursuit of truth, faculty, students, and staff are free to exchange ideas and opinions across a full range of viewpoints without fear of retribution, censorship, or deportation.
·aacu.org·
American Association of Colleges and Universities - Public Statement: A Call for Constructive Engagement (April 22)
History Perception - 2022 Research showing Americans agree on how history should be taught
History Perception - 2022 Research showing Americans agree on how history should be taught

2022 Research that shows a “perception gap” on either side of the political spectrum, in that both sides agree on how to teach history more than is often assumed, but they also tend to think the other side is more extreme than they actually are.

In 2025 however, these misconceptions are driving devoted conservatives to using legal and financial resources of the federal government.

This research should be considered alongside the AHA's "America's Lesson Plan" report, a detailed study of the reality of what is taught in American classrooms. https://www.historians.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/09/American-Lesson-Plan-1.pdf

·static1.squarespace.com·
History Perception - 2022 Research showing Americans agree on how history should be taught
Freedom to Learn | American Historical Association
Freedom to Learn | American Historical Association

Copies of letter sent by the AHA to states as part of the Freedom to Learn Project

The AHA’s Freedom to Learn initiative educates historians and others on how to advocate publicly for honest history education, responds directly to the bills themselves, and creates resources.

·historians.org·
Freedom to Learn | American Historical Association
“The Past is Never Dead”: U.S. Perspectives on History, Memory, and Current Challenges / Discussion - March 28
“The Past is Never Dead”: U.S. Perspectives on History, Memory, and Current Challenges / Discussion - March 28

Almost two hours of panel conversation about attacks on history education as part of project of teachers and scholars exploring how Germany and the United States understand their past. Panelists include leaders of the AHA, Southern Poverty Law Center, Special Representative for Racial Equity and Justice for the United States State Department, and Chief Program Officer for the National Center for Civil and Human Rights in Atlanta.

This is part of the project “Building a Critical Memory: Transitioning from Denial to Collective Responsibility in Germany and the United States.”

·youtube.com·
“The Past is Never Dead”: U.S. Perspectives on History, Memory, and Current Challenges / Discussion - March 28
Harvard’s Decision to Resist Trump Is ‘of Momentous Significance’ (April 15)
Harvard’s Decision to Resist Trump Is ‘of Momentous Significance’ (April 15)
First day's reporting of Havard's resistance to the Trump Administration. Take note of the background of the lawyer's representing the University, and see how the University changed it's website https://www.harvard.edu/
“This is of momentous, momentous significance,” said J. Michael Luttig, a prominent former federal appeals court judge revered by many conservatives. “This should be the turning point in the president’s rampage against American institutions.”
J. Michael Luttig,
That is a fraction of the $9 billion in federal funding that Harvard receives, with $7 billion going to the university’s 11 affiliated hospitals
“Will this government force the economics department to hire Marxists or the psychology department to hire Jungians or, for that matter, for the medical school to hire homeopaths or Native American healers?” he said
Harvard, William A. Burck
Mr. Burck is also an outside ethics adviser to the Trump Organization and represented the law firm Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison LLP in the deal it recently reached with the Trump administration.
Mr. Hur,
who worked in the Justice Department in Mr. Trump’s first term, was the special counsel who investigated President Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s handling of classified documents and termed him “an elderly man with a poor memory,” enraging Mr. Biden.
“But Harvard is not prepared to agree to demands that go beyond the lawful authority of this or any administration.”
“Will this government force the economics department to hire Marxists or the psychology department to hire Jungians or, for that matter, for the medical school to hire homeopaths or Native American healers?”
he said.
Elise Stefanik, the New York Republican
“Harvard University has rightfully earned its place as the epitome of the moral and academic rot in higher education,” Ms. Stefanik, a Harvard graduate, wrote. She added that “it is time to totally cut off U.S. taxpayer funding to this institution that has failed to live up to its founding motto Veritas. Defund Harvard.”
Michael S. Roth, who is the president of Wesleyan University
“What happens when institutions overreach is that they change course when they meet resistance,” he said. “It’s like when a bully is stopped in his tracks.”
·nytimes.com·
Harvard’s Decision to Resist Trump Is ‘of Momentous Significance’ (April 15)
The Early Republic Tracker of removed facts and stories from public historical sites, museums, websites, and executive agencies (Journal of the Early Republic)
The Early Republic Tracker of removed facts and stories from public historical sites, museums, websites, and executive agencies (Journal of the Early Republic)
The Early Republic Tracker is dedicated to documenting instances where the federal government is removing facts and stories essential to the public’s understanding American history from public historical sites, museums, websites, and executive agencies.
·thepanorama.shear.org·
The Early Republic Tracker of removed facts and stories from public historical sites, museums, websites, and executive agencies (Journal of the Early Republic)
Am I Still Allowed to Tell the Truth in My Class?
Am I Still Allowed to Tell the Truth in My Class?
Yale Professor essay in the Atlantic describes how orders from the Trump administration can muzzle professors who teach about the racism of the country’s past.
But in seeking to maim how this nation teaches history, the administration is advancing a policy of ignorance, what W. E. B. Du Bois called the “propaganda of history,” a deliberate rewriting of the past to justify current inequalities.
Now that this formula has been unleashed on a national scale, these policies pose a real risk of muzzling professors who wish to teach their students about injustice, and will have the effect of rewriting how race and racism are taught and understood at all levels, in the classroom and beyond. That should concern all of us, not only because understanding racism matters for our moral, social, and economic future—but because these attacks will inhibit the nation’s ability to tell the truth and hold powerful people accountable.
The letter, in contrast, would have readers believe that racism’s greatest harm is hurting students’ feelings on campus. One cannot be a neutral observer of the world and hold this position.
But the administration would rather just disappear all the evidence. As I teach in my class, ignoring race does not make racism go away. It just makes it harder to remedy.
Another writer using the word "disappear" as a verb
The goal is not neutrality but the active production of ignorance to advance inequality. The
The question universities face, therefore, is whether they have the courage to resist. Institutions of higher education have the resources needed for a fight. They have the legal teams, the alumni networks, and the institutional influence. But more important, they also have the responsibility. Their mission is to preserve and develop knowledge, to foster critical thinking, and to prepare students to engage with the realities of the world. If they retreat, they cede that role to a government actively working to create alternative facts in service of its political agenda. But there is still time.
education have the resources needed for a fight. They have the legal teams, the alumni networ
yes this is true, the big, elite universities have the resources to fight - but so did the world's most elite law firms, all of which fell for the extortion and willingly complied
Phillip Atiba Solomon (formerly Goff) is the chair and Carl I. Hovland Professor of African American Studies and Professor of Psychology at Yale University.
·theatlantic.com·
Am I Still Allowed to Tell the Truth in My Class?
New York Warns Trump It Will Not Comply With Public School D.E.I. Order - April 4
New York Warns Trump It Will Not Comply With Public School D.E.I. Order - April 4
New York responded to the DEI certification order with a letter that stated that there are no federal or state laws prohibiting the principles of DEI.
Daniel Morton-Bentley, the deputy commissioner for legal affairs at the state education agency in New York,
wrote in a letter to federal education officials that “we understand that the current administration seeks to censor anything it deems ‘diversity, equity & inclusion.’”
“But there are no federal or state laws prohibiting the principles of D.E.I.,”
“It’s just that simple. So whatever it is that this tyrant is trying to do to this city, we’re going to fight back.”
“We’re not going to be intimidated by these threats,
Chicago, Mayor Brandon Johnson, a Democrat
The state’s letter argued that the case did “not have the totemic significance that you have assigned it” — and that federal officials were free to make policy pronouncements, but “cannot conflate policy with law.”
He pointed out that the education secretary in President Trump’s first term, Betsy DeVos, once told staff that “diversity and inclusion are the cornerstones of high organizational performance.” She also said that “diversity and inclusion are key elements for success” for “building strong teams,” he wrote.
·nytimes.com·
New York Warns Trump It Will Not Comply With Public School D.E.I. Order - April 4
Secretary of Education refers to "AI" (artificial intelligence) as A1 (as in the steak sauce). Global Silicon Valley/Arizona State Summit
Secretary of Education refers to "AI" (artificial intelligence) as A1 (as in the steak sauce). Global Silicon Valley/Arizona State Summit
The Secretary of Education refers to "AI" (artificial intelligence) as A1 (as in the steak sauce). She was apparently read her study guide wrong. It is important to note that the is the Secretary of Education for the United States of America
·youtube.com·
Secretary of Education refers to "AI" (artificial intelligence) as A1 (as in the steak sauce). Global Silicon Valley/Arizona State Summit
Mississippi libraries ordered to delete academic research in response to state laws - Mississippi Today
Mississippi libraries ordered to delete academic research in response to state laws - Mississippi Today
The memo, written by Mississippi Library Commission Executive Director Hulen Bivins, confirmed the scrubbing of scholarly material from a database used by publicly funded schools, libraries, community colleges, universities and state agencies. The database, MAGNOLIA, is funded by the Mississippi Legislature.
·mississippitoday.org·
Mississippi libraries ordered to delete academic research in response to state laws - Mississippi Today
Rutgers Senate's Open Letter to the President of Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey in support of the Big Ten Mutual Defense Compact - April 9
Rutgers Senate's Open Letter to the President of Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey in support of the Big Ten Mutual Defense Compact - April 9
This strongly-worded letter to the President of Rutgers is from the Rutgers Senate, which consists of Rutgers faculty, students, staff, administrators, and alumni. It supports Big Ten Mutual Defense Compact in which the universities pledge a common defense fund and agree to provide common communication, amicus brief, and expert testimony in defense against the Trump Administration effort's to undermine the public mission of education
·docs.google.com·
Rutgers Senate's Open Letter to the President of Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey in support of the Big Ten Mutual Defense Compact - April 9
Trump’s War on History and Education - Arab American Institute
Trump’s War on History and Education - Arab American Institute
This essay written by Dr. James J. Zogby, president of the Arab American Institute, puts the Executive Orders in historical context, describing the way the Administration's attack on history education reverses advances made over the last 50 years.
Buried in the flurry of President Trump’s Executive Orders is one that has been largely ignored, despite being potentially the most far-reaching of these presidential acts. Titled “Ending Radical Indoctrination in K-12 Schooling,” this diktat lays bare Trump’s intention to roll back the gains that have been made over the last half century by historians working to present a more accurate portrait of American and world history. Trump calls these efforts “anti-American, subversive, harmful and false,” and demands instead that schools devote themselves to “patriotic education” that will “instill a patriotic admiration for our incredible Nation”—in other words, to teach the kind of history we learned three generations ago.
·aaiusa.org·
Trump’s War on History and Education - Arab American Institute
Education Counsel - Executive Actions Chart
Education Counsel - Executive Actions Chart
From Education Counsel, an education consulting firm, an updated list of executive orders related to education and the litigation related to them. This is the go-to list for what is happening with each of them.
·docs.google.com·
Education Counsel - Executive Actions Chart
Key Considerations as K-12 Leaders Navigate Minefield Involving DEI, Federal Funding, and Potential Investigations - April 7
Key Considerations as K-12 Leaders Navigate Minefield Involving DEI, Federal Funding, and Potential Investigations - April 7
This is a law firm's general guidance to K-12 leaders contemplating their responses to the recent DOE letter demanding certification of compliance with Title VI (as interpreted by the DOE). Although much of this important advice deals with programs, hiring, placement, counseling and discipline, it also references curriculum. It seems like that the upcoming publication of the "Ending Indoctrination Strategy" document, due April 29th, will target history curriculum and teaching
Curriculum that touches on systemic racism, privilege, and critical race theory
In fact, at least one state education department, in New York, has already stated that it will not sign the certification, characterizing the certification as duplicative of assurances already provided and overstating the holding of Harvard.
DOE/DOJ Title IX Special Investigations Team (SIT).
Be prepared for the creation and intervention of a "DEI Special Investigations Team" to review district initiatives and activities.
Consult with their respective state education departments for guidance.
The order required Cabinet members to develop an "Ending Indoctrination Strategy" by April 29. Secretary McMahon has made clear that her priorities include "combatting critical race theory."
·parkerpoe.com·
Key Considerations as K-12 Leaders Navigate Minefield Involving DEI, Federal Funding, and Potential Investigations - April 7
National History Day Discontinued
National History Day Discontinued
The pop-up that appears when you first look at the National History Day site reads "National History Day was recently notified that our grants from the national Endowment for the Humanities were cancelled. This means a loos of more than $336.000 over this year and the nest
·nhd.org·
National History Day Discontinued
Don't Cut Ohio Libraries
Don't Cut Ohio Libraries
As the state budget is developed and debated, a proposal in the Ohio House of Representatives will cut $100 million in public library funding. It is important to keep in mind that the national cut to the Institute of Library and Museum Services is being mirrored in state budgets across the country. The effort to cut public education, learning and understanding of the past has a deep and broad momentum.
·olc.org·
Don't Cut Ohio Libraries
The White House Frames the Past by Erasing Parts of It - NY Times
The White House Frames the Past by Erasing Parts of It - NY Times

"As the Trump administration pulls government websites and data offline, it is selectively stripping away the public record, letting the president declare his own version of history, archivists and historians said."

"President Trump’s team is selectively stripping away the public record, reconstructing his preferred vision of America in the negative space of purged history, archivists and historians said. As data and resources are deleted or altered, something foundational is also at risk: Americans’ ability to access and evaluate their past, and with it, their already shaky trust in facts."

President Trump’s team is selectively stripping away the public record, reconstructing his preferred vision of America in the negative space of purged history, archivists and historians said. As data and resources are deleted or altered, something foundational is also at risk: Americans’ ability to access and evaluate their past, and with it, their already shaky trust in facts.
“There are tectonic plates that are shifting, and it’s a new version of truth that is being portrayed, and that, I think, is the most profound danger we have ever faced as a country,”
aurence H. Tribe, a constitutional scholar and professor emeritus at Harvard Law School.
The Data Rescue Project,
Mark Graham, the director of the Wayback Machine,
“What we’re seeing this time around is unprecedented, both in terms of the scope and the scale of the web-based resources that are being taken offline, and material on those pages that is being changed,”
“We’ve seen examples throughout history and all over the world where governments attempt to change culture, change the values of a population by changing and/or restricting access to information,” he said. “I think we still see that to this day.”
The Defense Department said it would republish pages about Jackie Robinson’s military service, the Enola Gay B-29 bomber that dropped the first atomic bomb, the Tuskegee Airmen, the Navajo Code Talkers and others.
·nytimes.com·
The White House Frames the Past by Erasing Parts of It - NY Times
Japanese American National Museum takes a stand against DOGE cuts to NEH - LA TImes
Japanese American National Museum takes a stand against DOGE cuts to NEH - LA TImes
$175,000 in NEH grants used by the Japanese American National Museum to fund teacher professional development programs was cut by the Trump Administration. The museum is also losing funding from the Institute for Museum and Library Sciences.
On Wednesday night, state humanities councils across the country had begun receiving similar letters stating that their NEH funding had been terminated, one day after Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency visited NEH headquarters.
Over the last two years, more than 100 teachers from 31 states have attended the two-week program and shared their experiences and new knowledge with approximately 21,000 students.
·latimes.com·
Japanese American National Museum takes a stand against DOGE cuts to NEH - LA TImes
UMass Amhert Chancellor Reyes - April 5
UMass Amhert Chancellor Reyes - April 5
Pledging support for international students, UMass Amherst, the school provides detailed information regarding the law and the efforts to protect students. UMass Amherst also keeps the school community appraised of developments at https://www.umass.edu/news/federal-actions
Additionally, UMass has established the Angel Fund to help meet the legal, academic, housing, living and counseling needs of students who are adversely affected by changes in federal immigration.
·view.marcom.umass.edu·
UMass Amhert Chancellor Reyes - April 5
Publishers Send Letter to Congress Advocating for Libraries & IMLS Funding
Publishers Send Letter to Congress Advocating for Libraries & IMLS Funding
This letter submitted to Congress April 3, 2025 by Penguin Random House, Hachette Book Group, Macmillan Publishers, Simon & Schuster and Sourcebooks advocating for libraries in response to the Executive Order signed on March 14 that calls for the dismantling of the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS).
·global.penguinrandomhouse.com·
Publishers Send Letter to Congress Advocating for Libraries & IMLS Funding
Federal Investigations of UC Faculty Members – The Council of UC Faculty Associations
Federal Investigations of UC Faculty Members – The Council of UC Faculty Associations
Letter to President of the University of California and UC Regents regarding the UC system's provision of personal and demographic information of 850 faculty to the EEOC.
In the past several weeks, faculty and students across the country have experienced unprecedented attacks on their constitutional and civil rights as a result of the Trump Administration’s assault on US higher education. This assault has included the abduction and threats of ideological deportations of international students living in the US on permanent resident visas, the unilateral takeover and shuttering of departments and programs that the government disfavors, efforts to shift faculty shared governance to university trustees, and an expanded presence of armed police on university campuses.
·cucfa.org·
Federal Investigations of UC Faculty Members – The Council of UC Faculty Associations
Trump Administration Moves to Cut Humanities Endowment - NY Times April 3
Trump Administration Moves to Cut Humanities Endowment - NY Times April 3
Grant recipients have been told that funds from the National Endowment for the Humanities would be redirected to furthering “the president’s agenda.” Michael McDonald, the Acting NEH Chairman, suggested that , "going forward, the agency would focus on patriotic programming"
The National Endowment for the Humanities has canceled most of its grant programs and started putting staff on administrative leave, as its resources are set to be redirected toward supporting President Trump’s priorities
In a meeting on Thursday afternoon, Mr. McDonald told senior leadership that upward of 85 percent of the agency’s hundreds of current grants were to be canceled, according to two people privy to the meeting. He also suggested that, going forward, the agency would focus on patriotic programming, the employees said.
·nytimes.com·
Trump Administration Moves to Cut Humanities Endowment - NY Times April 3