War on History Education

War on History Education

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Letter to the Smithsonian: Internal Review of Smithsonian Exhibitions and Materials
Letter to the Smithsonian: Internal Review of Smithsonian Exhibitions and Materials
The Honorable Lonnie G. Bunch III Secretary, Smithsonian Institution 1000 Jefferson Dr SW Washington, DC 20560 Subject: Internal Review of Smithsonian
In this spirit, and in accordance with Executive Order 14253, Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History, we will be leading a comprehensive internal review of selected Smithsonian museums and exhibitions. This initiative aims to ensure alignment with the President’s directive to celebrate American exceptionalism, remove divisive or partisan narratives, and restore confidence in our shared cultural institutions.
By focusing on Americanism—the people, principles, and progress that define our nation—we can work together to renew the Smithsonian’s role as the world’s leading museum institution.
Museums should begin implementing content corrections where necessary, replacing divisive or ideologically driven language with unifying, historically accurate, and constructive descriptions across placards, wall didactics, digital displays, and other public-facing materials.
·whitehouse.gov·
Letter to the Smithsonian: Internal Review of Smithsonian Exhibitions and Materials
Historians Respond to Federal Actions - AHA
Historians Respond to Federal Actions - AHA
AHA members are providing important historical context and insight to the public on the recent actions by the federal government.
·historians.org·
Historians Respond to Federal Actions - AHA
H.R. 8931 | U.S. Department of the Interior
H.R. 8931 | U.S. Department of the Interior
This is just one example of the many regarding the work to change long-held understandings of the past - a bill on Congress to change the word "Historic" to "Battlefield" in the official name of the park
·doi.gov·
H.R. 8931 | U.S. Department of the Interior
National Council of History Educators - A Message of Support
National Council of History Educators - A Message of Support
Every professional history education organization should echo this message of support, many do - making the absence of voice in other organizations stand out in shame even more
·ncheteach.org·
National Council of History Educators - A Message of Support
In Defense of Academic Freedom - The Atlantic
In Defense of Academic Freedom - The Atlantic
The first principle he listed was the freedom to make personal choices within the limits of the law. The second principle was “unrestricted freedom of thought.” And the third principle was one’s right to due process when accused of breaking the law. “
By standing for “unrestricted free trade in ideas,”
Greg Lukianoff, the president of the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE),
the threat to academic freedom today arguably surpasses the threat that existed in the 1950s
·theatlantic.com·
In Defense of Academic Freedom - The Atlantic
Help Save the California Digitial Newspaper Collection
Help Save the California Digitial Newspaper Collection
Historians and history teachers have had the experience of searching and stumbling across primary sources like digital newspaper collections. Executive Orders and the Harvard pushback gets most attention, but there are countless collections and primary source archives in danger of disappearing. The destruction of access to sources is an important part of the war on history
#War on History
·givecampus.com·
Help Save the California Digitial Newspaper Collection
This State University Has a Plan to Take on Trump - The New York Times
This State University Has a Plan to Take on Trump - The New York Times
“We needed to write something that had some meat,” said David Salas-de la Cruz, who directs the chemistry graduate program at Rutgers University-Camden. He likened the effort to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, or NATO, a military alliance of 32 countries.
Even without overt buy-in from administrators, supporters said the clear goals first laid out by the Rutgers faculty had already been instrumental in helping to shift the tone of the national debate.
·nytimes.com·
This State University Has a Plan to Take on Trump - The New York Times
418TH ANNIVERSARY OF THE FIRST LANDING AND THE RAISING OF THE CAPE HENRY CROSS – The White House
418TH ANNIVERSARY OF THE FIRST LANDING AND THE RAISING OF THE CAPE HENRY CROSS – The White House
This commemorative Executive Order doesn't reference history education, yet references history with language laden with references Christian nationalism
Godspeed
courageous band of Christians
towering wooden cross
thanks to God
obey God, seek His blessing, and place their trust in Him
Yet, by the grace of God,
hallowed shores
majestic granite cross
testament to the steadfast Christian belief
God’s grace abides, His mercy is abundant, and His glory is everlasting
glorifies our God Almighty.
Nation under God and to always seek His blessing and protection
we prayerfully renew our covenant to always be one Nation under God and to always seek His blessing and protection.
we pledge to forge a future that always celebrates our history, honors our heritage, and glorifie
Today, a majestic granite cross stands on those same hallowed shores as a testament to the steadfast Christian belief of the Jamestown settlers that God’s grace abides, His mercy is abundant, and His glory is everlasting.
dedicated the land to His glory.
·whitehouse.gov·
418TH ANNIVERSARY OF THE FIRST LANDING AND THE RAISING OF THE CAPE HENRY CROSS – The White House
Brown University cuts Choices Program after 35 years
Brown University cuts Choices Program after 35 years
One by one resources that teachers took for granted are disappearing
Brown is cutting ties with the Choices Program, a long-running high school history curriculum used by over a million students nationwide, citing the program’s financial challenges that could not be effectively managed with existing University resources.
t. This process accelerated as a result of the University’s goals to reduce its $46 million operating deficit and amid threats to federal funding, he noted.
Institute for the Study of Global Antisemitism and Policy
accusing Choices of “foreign influence” that has promoted “anti-Israel bias” in its curriculum materials. Brown has disputed these claims.
The decision to pull support from Choices is all but certain to eliminate access to its digital materials, according to University Spokesperson Amanda McGregor and several program staffers.
“Few happenings in my 24-year career teaching high school history have so confounded my sense of what is right and good, but word of the demise of Choices has caused the global community of history teachers to be saddened,”
·browndailyherald.com·
Brown University cuts Choices Program after 35 years
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