statement<\/a> co-signed by 145 organizations, the American Historical Association condemns such bills for \u201csubstitut[ing] political mandates for the considered judgment of professional educators\u201d and \u201chindering students\u2019 ability to learn and engage in critical thinking across difference and disagreements.\u201d<\/p>\nThe bills are a tangle of contradictory mandates. For example, HB 327 allows teachers to discuss US Supreme Court decisions, yet HB 322 requires that no teachers shall teach or believe that \u201cWith respect to their relationship to American values, slavery and racism are anything other than deviations from, betrayals of, or failures to live up to the authentic founding principles of the United States, which include liberty and equality.\u201d This clause would prohibit teaching the landmark Dred Scott v. Sandford decision (1857), in which the Supreme Court held that the founders of the United States believed Black people \u201chad no rights which the white man was bound to respect.\u201d It would also prohibit the teaching of the US Constitution, which includes passages ensuring the temporary continuation of the slave trade and counting for Census purposes an enslaved person as three-fifths of a free person\u2014clauses that were critical to the Constitution\u2019s adoption.<\/p>\n
As a result, HB 322 and HB 327 would erase content students need to succeed at every level. In high school, for example, students in courses that lack analysis of the continuing impact of racism would have no opportunity to learn the full history of either the American Revolution or the Civil War. They would miss the basic historical information needed to pass Advanced Placement tests, and they would be unable to gain early college credit by taking qualified dual-credit courses at local colleges.<\/p>\n
American history is steeped in divisions and conflicts shaped by ideas about race and by cultures and institutional structures that perpetuate those divisions. This is fact, not theory or ideology. Ignoring fundamental sources of division and conflict in any nation\u2019s history requires ignoring the most careful and most up-to-date historical scholarship.<\/p>\n
None of this damage, of course, is the actual purpose of this legislation, much of which is couched in barely concealed euphemisms. This is about whitewashing American history, keeping to the margins (or excluding altogether) such central issues as slavery; forced removals of Native Americans; inequalities based on race, gender, and other characteristics; and other aspects of our past likely to inspire the vigorous discussion that characterizes a good history class. If a teacher cannot teach or assign \u201cfault, blame, or bias . . . on the basis of race or sex,\u201d as HB 322 dictates, how are students to understand who owned human property and who were enslaved? Or the role of the \u201cwhite primary\u201d in the disfranchisement of African Americans? Or arguments over whether women, of any race, were fit to vote?<\/p>\n
The language of these bills makes it clear that the cosponsors misunderstand the purpose and practice of history education. With few exceptions, teachers are not indoctrinating students in a particular view of history; they are giving students the information, sources, and skills they need to reach their own conclusions about the past. Doing so requires teaching historical facts that might make some students uncomfortable\u2014something these bills would make illegal.<\/p>\n
As participants in the American experiment, we should not be afraid to face the hard truths that history teaches us. These sloppily written bills, based on model legislation drafted by activist organizations in Washington, DC, will not in any way benefit Ohio school children, college students, or other residents. Instead, they will prohibit the full and accurate teaching of American history in Ohio classrooms. No goal could embody American ideals any less.<\/p>\n
Sincerely,<\/p>\n
Jacqueline Jones
\nPresident<\/p>\n
James R. Grossman
\nExecutive Director<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The AHA has issued a letter to Gov. Mike DeWine and the members of the Ohio state legislature registering \u201cstrong…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":17025,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"none","_seopress_titles_title":"AHA Letter Objecting to Social Studies Curriculum Legislation in Ohio","_seopress_titles_desc":"The AHA has issued a letter to Gov. Mike DeWine and the members of the Ohio state legislature registering \u201cstrong objection to Ohio HB 322 and HB 327, acts relating to the social studies curriculum in public schools.\u201d","_seopress_robots_index":"","footnotes":""},"aha-topic":[],"month":[558],"geographic-taxonomy":[56],"post-type":[579,10],"thematic-taxonomy":[45],"year":[107],"class_list":{"0":"post-26160","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","6":"hentry","7":"month-july","8":"geographic-taxonomy-united-states","9":"post-type-academic-freedom","10":"post-type-advocacy","11":"thematic-taxonomy-state-local-us","12":"year-107","18":"year-2021","19":"has-featured-image"},"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.historians.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26160","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.historians.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.historians.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.historians.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.historians.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=26160"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.historians.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26160\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":65144,"href":"https:\/\/www.historians.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26160\/revisions\/65144"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.historians.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/17025"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.historians.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26160"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"aha-topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.historians.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/aha-topic?post=26160"},{"taxonomy":"month","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.historians.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/month?post=26160"},{"taxonomy":"geographic-taxonomy","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.historians.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/geographic-taxonomy?post=26160"},{"taxonomy":"post-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.historians.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/post-type?post=26160"},{"taxonomy":"thematic-taxonomy","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.historians.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/thematic-taxonomy?post=26160"},{"taxonomy":"year","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.historians.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/year?post=26160"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}