AHA Announcements

Keep up with the latest AHA activity supporting history and historical thinking in all fields and professions.

  • AHA Issues Statement on 2024 Campus Protests (May 2024)

    May 06, 2024 - 

    The AHA has issued a statement “deplor[ing] recent decisions among college and university administrators to draw on local and state police forces to evict peaceful demonstrators.” Pointing to historical events on campuses such as Kent State University and Jackson State University in 1970, as well as the “Orangeburg Massacre” of 1968, the AHA “urges everyone involved to learn from that history and turn away from the violent escalation we are now seeing on campuses.” The AHA “urges administrators to recognize the fundamental value of peaceful protest on college and university campuses.” To date, 21 organizations have signed on to the statement.

  • AHA Submits Testimony on Idaho Social Studies Standards Review (April 2024)

    May 01, 2024 - 

    The AHA has reviewed the draft Idaho Content Standards for Social Studies and submitted testimony to the Idaho Department of Education offering suggestions to improve student learning in specific content areas. “Additional attention to state and local history would enhance this framework by engaging students through exploration of the pasts that shape their experiences and the communities in which they live,” the AHA wrote. “Taking advantage of this opportunity to revise the standards by bringing in more of Idaho’s unique story, especially in relation to Native history, westward migration, mining, and public land use, as well as specifying more than a single line about the Civil Rights Movement would further strengthen them.”

  • AHA Submits Testimony on Maine Social Studies Standards Review (April 2024)

    May 01, 2024 - 

    The AHA has reviewed the existing Maine Learning Results for Social Studies and has submitted testimony to the Maine Department of Education (DOE) as part of the state’s process for standards revision. This testimony includes suggested revisions and “encourages the DOE to provide more robust guidance to districts and teachers about themes, topics, ideas, and developments with which students should ideally be familiar by the completion of their K–12 education,” emphasizing the importance of teaching students to think historically.

  • AHA Sends Letter to Iowa Governor Urging Veto of Social Studies Bill (April 2024)

    Apr 25, 2024 - 

    The AHA has sent a letter to Iowa Governor Kim Reynolds urging her to veto HF 2545, a bill “[r]iddled with distortions and inaccuracies” that “overrides the state’s mandated process for developing public school curricula, while imposing unprecedented restrictions on the content and structure of key courses in US and world history.” “This bill is a Frankenstein’s monster constructed out of five out-of-state model bills that share little more than the support of a small group of lobbyists with an overt political agenda,” the AHA wrote. 

  • AHA Researcher Testifies on Maine Social Studies Standards (April 2024)

    Apr 24, 2024 - 

    AHA researcher Scot McFarlane will testify on behalf of the AHA to the Maine Department of Education regarding the state’s current social studies standards. In a public hearing in Augusta on April 29, McFarlane will share prepared remarks. “Maine’s social studies standards… emphasize skills with little specificity about content. This is a missed opportunity. State-level social studies standards can help teachers engage their students by placing local, state, and regional history in a context that connects to national and global themes,” his testimony states. “Good, history-rich standards can guide parents, teachers, and school administrators as they prepare future generations of Maine students for success in a complex and interconnected world.”

  • AHA Endorses Letter Asking for Congressional Recognition of the US Army’s First Uniformed Female Combatants (April 2024)

    Apr 22, 2024 - 

    The AHA endorsed a letter from 55 professional historians asking members of Congress to co-sponsor S.815 and H.R. 1572, bills that would award the Congressional Gold Medal to the US Army’s first uniformed female combatants—the switchboard operators who connected calls between the front lines and Army command during World War I. “When survivors sailed home in 1919, the Army informed them that their dog-tags and dedicated service did not entitle them to the same Victory Medals, cash bonuses, or hospitalization for disability granted other soldiers,” the letter states. “A group of descendants and the World War One Centennial Commission have spearheaded an effort to obtain the Congressional Gold Medal on their behalf. Doing so would not only honor these pioneers, but every woman in uniform since.”

  • AHA Sends Letter of Concern about Missing Chinese Scholar (March 2024)

    Mar 12, 2024 - 

    The AHA has sent a letter to President Xi Jinping of the People’s Republic of China expressing “concern for the fate of Professor Rahile Dawut, a scholar of Uyghur studies who has apparently been sentenced to life in prison and whose specific whereabouts are unknown.” Professor Dawut, missing since 2018, has “been detained and sentenced in connection with her peaceful exercise of the right to academic freedom” in a situation that, in addition to raising concern for Dawut’s well-being, “raises questions about the ability of intellectuals in China generally to conduct scholarship safely and freely.” The AHA urges President Xi to secure Professor Dawut’s immediate and unconditional release.

  • Coalition of Organizations Submit Letter Opposing Florida SB 1372 (February 2024)

    Feb 29, 2024 - 

    The AHA, as part of a nonpartisan coalition of organizations, has signed on to a letter opposing Florida SB 1372, which would threaten the integrity of K–12 history education in the state. This statement expresses “serious concerns that the bill is not constitutionally viable, is overly vague, and is an example of viewpoint discrimination that is contrary to free speech and expression. . . . This bill could create a new generation of history teachers who are unsure how to teach material about slavery, the Civil Rights Movement, or women’s suffrage.”

  • AHA Sends Letter to South Carolina State University Opposing Plan to Cut Majors (February 2024)

    Feb 29, 2024 - 

    The AHA has sent a letter to leaders at South Carolina State University expressing grave concern about a plan to cut majors in history, African American studies, and social studies teaching at the university. “Cutting a core liberal arts degree like African American studies or history is short-sighted. Civic leaders from all corners of the political landscape have lamented the lack of historical knowledge of American citizens,” the AHA wrote. “Cutting social studies education is an especially irresponsible move at a moment when teachers are being prohibited from teaching the truth about slavery, the Civil Rights Movement, or the continuing centrality of racism in American public culture.”

  • AHA Sends Letter to Florida Legislature Opposing Harmful K–12 Teacher Training Bill (February 2024)

    Feb 27, 2024 - 

    The AHA has sent a letter to Florida legislators opposing HB 1291/SB 1372, a “heavy-handed and inappropriate intervention in college curricula, classroom instruction, and professional learning.” The proposed legislation, the AHA writes, “would require educators teach a history that is incomplete, tendentious, and politically driven rather than based on evidence and consistent with professional standards. . . . SB 1372 establishes a mechanism for censoring classroom teaching and learning, and hence stands in stark opposition to academic freedom and true intellectual diversity.”

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