Departments

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teaching history

  • 3/19/2023

    Censoring History Education Goes Hand in Hand with Democratic Backsliding

    by Julia Boechat Machado and Ruben Zeeman

    Regimes in the Philippines, India and Brazil have recently tried to censor the teaching of history in service of their poltical goals and claims to power. The pushback by scholars in these countries should inspire historians in Florida and elsewhere to resist the political censorship of research and teaching. 

  • SOURCE: New York Times
    2/17/2023

    Who's Afraid of Black History?

    by Henry Louis Gates

    The protestations of Ron DeSantis aside, American schools today carry the legacy of a massive neoconfederate indoctrination campaign that distorted the meaning of the Civil War, Reconstruction and Jim Crow, justified racist terrorism, and erased ongoing debates—including among Black Americans—about the meaning of freedom and democracy. 

  • SOURCE: The Atlantic
    2/22/2023

    Ron DeSantis is Making History a Political Issue; What does His Book Say?

    by David Waldstreicher

    Nobody paid much attention to the Florida governor's 2011 book "Dreams from Our Founding Fathers." Maybe we should now—it spells out a justification for a deeply conservative view of the constitution that dismisses the significance of racism in the founding and in the doctrine of originalism.

  • SOURCE: Inside Higher Ed
    2/22/2023

    Drawing the Line between Assigning and Endorsing

    by Steve Mintz

    Controversies about recent books about the history and legacy of colonialism raise questions about what it means to assign – or refuse to – a book for students to read, discuss, and potentially critique, and how provocation works in the liberal model of inquiry. 

  • SOURCE: African American Policy Forum
    2/12/2023

    African American Policy Forum Announces #TruthBeTold Campaign

    The AAPF is launching an interactive project to monitor efforts to ban books, censor classes, and punish teachers, and to offer reader the opportunity to share their valued experiences with antiracist education. 

  • SOURCE: Black Perspectives
    2/14/2023

    HBCUs and the 1950s Red Scare

    by Candace Cunningham

    South Carolina officials were able to use the purse strings to coerce public HBCU administrators to expel student activists. When private HBCUs became centers of sit-in organizing, state legislators turned to accusations of Communism. 

  • 2/6/2023

    Historians Mobilize to Fight Back Against Right-Wing Attacks

    by Margaret Power

    Historians for Peace and Democracy condemns recent legislation restricting the content of history classes and libraries and censoring the freedom to teach and learn about racism and LGBTQ history. The group urges college faculty to join with their local K-12 educators and librarians. 

  • SOURCE: Made By History at the Washington Post
    1/25/2023

    Florida's AP Fight Latest Battle in a Very Old Education War

    by Bethany Bell

    The state's rejection of the proposed curriculum as "indoctrination" stands on the foundation laid by the United Daughters of the Confederacy to establish the Lost Cause myth as the center of history education in the South for generations. 

  • SOURCE: Inside Higher Ed
    1/30/2023

    On Florida's Erasure of Black History

    by Lynn Pasquerella and Mary Dana Hinton

    The Florida AP decision raises a host of troubling questions about what the state hopes to accomplish, with ominous implications for political enfranchisement, democratic deliberation, and civic connection. 

  • SOURCE: Richmond Times-Dispatch
    1/31/2023

    Beneath the Surface of Virginia's History Standards

    by Edward L. Ayers

    Virginia's Department of Education has ignored the guidance of historians and educators in revising the state's K-12 history standards. The example of how political appointees treated the role of African Americans in driving the movement for abolition is a telling example of the inadequate history they want to teach.