Sam Wineburg: Mitch, Here's Where We Split Ways on Howard Zinn

Sam Wineburg is the Margaret Jacks Professor of Education and History at Stanford University and the author of Historical Thinking and Other Unnatural Acts: Charting the Future of Teaching the Past.

Dear Mitch, I hope you don’t mind the informality. I’ve felt like we share something in common ever since learning that you not only read my article about Howard Zinn but quoted from it approvingly in your press release.

Now that you’re a college president, it had to be embarrassing when those emails you wrote as governor came to light. You must’ve really hated “A People’s History” to put this request to your staff: “Can someone assure me that it is not in use anywhere in Indiana? If it is, how do we get rid of it before more young people are force-fed a totally false version of our history?” I know you tried to spin it differently now that you’re a university president. But I gotta tell you, it sounds like censorship to me....