The AHA has released a statement condemning “the dismantling of federal departments and agencies through the indiscriminate termination of federal employees and elimination of programs, including historical offices.\u201d \u201cClosing federal history offices, rolling back protections granted by the Freedom of Information Act, firing archivists, and dismantling departments responsible for education, the humanities, arts, and sciences will render it impossible for Americans to learn about and from the past,\u201d the statement reads. \u201cA scorched-earth approach to the federal bureaucracy will leave our nation without the records and accumulated knowledge to make well-informed decisions.\u201d<\/p>\n
To date, 19 organizations have signed on to this statement.<\/p>\n
American Historical Association Condemns Indiscriminate Cuts to the Federal Government<\/strong><\/p>\n Approved by AHA Council, March 24, 2025<\/em><\/p>\n Federal agencies\u2014and the historians who staff them\u2014preserve, record, and interpret the history of the United States, serving the public and supporting the work of policymakers. The American Historical Association (AHA) condemns the dismantling of federal departments and agencies through the indiscriminate termination of federal employees and elimination of programs, including historical offices.<\/strong><\/p>\n Nearly every unit of the federal government depends on the work of historians who provide resources essential to research and education. They document, analyze, and share histories of war, military service, diplomacy, and nearly every aspect of domestic policy. However, they are now on the front lines of an unprecedented assault that threatens to undermine the basic functions of government, from national security to the national park system, the environment to economic development, transportation and housing to education\u2014nearly every aspect of civic life, from the highly visible to the quietly essential.<\/p>\n The list of agencies affected by sweeping executive orders and cuts applied by the Department of Government Efficiency continues to grow. The National Archives and Records Administration, including the National Historical Publications and Records; the Institute of Museum and Library Services; the National Park Service; and the Department of Defense\u2014these and many other vital agencies employ and support the work of historians and interpret history for the public. Our nation\u2019s museums and libraries provide a constructive gateway for the public to engage with the past; yet the Institute for Museum and Library Services is now targeted for dismantling.<\/p>\n Consider, for example, the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA). Archivists and historians work with the three branches of government and their agencies to identify, preserve, and ensure the accessibility of materials subject to the Federal Records Act and the Presidential Records Act. That work ensures current and future access to our nation\u2019s records for purposes including historical research and genealogy, consultation by federal agencies and policymakers, and records requests from military veterans and their families applying for crucial benefits. Members of NARA\u2019s senior staff, who possess decades of institutional knowledge, have been terminated or forced to resign\u2014along with dozens of recently hired employees\u2014while budget uncertainty has required canceling an application cycle for projects that ensure online public discovery of historical records.<\/p>\n The intended demise of the Department of Education provides another alarming example. Established by Congress, this agency works to ensure equal access to learning opportunities, collects and shares essential data on the nation\u2019s schools, distributes financial aid, and provides critical funding, guidelines, and research. Shuttering its National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) will eliminate data collection and research that guide educational policy and are essential to future scholarship in the history of education. Educators, policymakers, and parents rely on NCES data to measure student learning, track changes over time, and find places for improvement in public education. Students in fields that require deep knowledge of global challenges\u2014including history, business, and national security\u2014benefit from the Title VI programs and Fulbright-Hays grants now under threat.<\/p>\n Closing federal history offices, rolling back protections granted by the Freedom of Information Act, firing archivists, and dismantling departments responsible for education, the humanities, arts, and sciences will render it impossible for Americans to learn about and from the past. Historians and researchers from all fields will lack the data\u2014from the military, the US Census, and innumerable other sources\u2014essential to providing a full picture of US history. Shuttering history and archival offices will foreclose the benefits of learning from the past to help inform the future.<\/p>\n Good policy requires good history. We recognize that the AHA\u2019s singular focus on history describes only a portion of the chaos that ensues when those entrusted with our nation\u2019s institutions assume a mandate to move fast and break things. Chartered by Congress in 1889 \u201cto sustain and enhance the work of historians,\u201d the American Historical Association recognizes that haphazard disruptions to federal services impede historical research, undercut historic preservation, and interfere with history education. A scorched-earth approach to the federal bureaucracy will leave our nation without the records and accumulated knowledge to make well-informed decisions. That historical foundation is essential to the nation\u2019s health and prosperity.<\/p>\n The following organizations have signed on to this statement:<\/p>\n Alliance for Texas History The AHA has released a statement condemning “the dismantling of federal departments and agencies through the indiscriminate termination of federal…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"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":"%%post_title%%","_seopress_titles_desc":"The AHA has released a statement condemning \"the dismantling of federal departments and agencies through the indiscriminate termination of federal employees and elimination of programs, including historical offices.\u201d","_seopress_robots_index":"","footnotes":""},"aha-topic":[],"month":[554],"geographic-taxonomy":[],"post-type":[10,897],"thematic-taxonomy":[],"year":[875],"class_list":{"0":"post-94324","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","6":"hentry","7":"month-march","8":"post-type-advocacy","9":"post-type-federal-government","10":"year-875","14":"year-2025","15":"has-featured-image"},"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.historians.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/94324","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\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.historians.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=94324"}],"version-history":[{"count":18,"href":"https:\/\/www.historians.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/94324\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":100059,"href":"https:\/\/www.historians.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/94324\/revisions\/100059"}],"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=94324"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"aha-topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.historians.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/aha-topic?post=94324"},{"taxonomy":"month","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.historians.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/month?post=94324"},{"taxonomy":"geographic-taxonomy","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.historians.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/geographic-taxonomy?post=94324"},{"taxonomy":"post-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.historians.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/post-type?post=94324"},{"taxonomy":"thematic-taxonomy","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.historians.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/thematic-taxonomy?post=94324"},{"taxonomy":"year","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.historians.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/year?post=94324"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nAmerican Society for Environmental History
\nAssociation for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies
\nFrench Colonial Historical Society
\nHistorians for Peace and Democracy
\nImmigration\u00a0and\u00a0Ethnic\u00a0History\u00a0Society
\nLabor and Working Class History Association
\nLatin American Studies Association
\nLGBTQ+ History Association
\nNational Council on Public History
\nNorth American Conference on British Studies
\nOrganization of American Historians
\nPEN America
\nReacting Consortium
\nSociety for Historians of American Foreign Relations
\nSociety for Historians of the Gilded Age & Progressive Era
\nSociety for the History of Children and Youth
\nSociety for US Intellectual History
\nSouthern Association for Women Historians
\nWestern History Association<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"