BY CORY JAMES YOUNG

I was having a conversation with a graduate student in my department about a possible collaboration when we noticed the television. One of our colleagues was on the Iowa City news providing historical context about the ongoing crisis in Palestine and Israel. Then, even more unexpectedly, a student from my previous institution appeared on screen. Two summers ago in Lincoln, Nebraska, we worked together on a digital history project about how marginalized people used the law to pursue freedom in the American West. Now, she was exercising her First Amendment rights to demand freedom for Gazans.

A view from the author’s University of Iowa office onto the Pentacrest, the heart of student political expression on campus, shows chalk messages reflecting different stances on the Israel-Hamas war.

Walking to my office the next day, I approached a large group of people gathered on campus. Drawing nearer it became clear that this was a demonstration on behalf of the Palestinian people. As I met the crowd, I saw that it was my former student, megaphone in hand, who was emceeing—leading chants and introducing speakers. She had come into town to support local activists, many of whom are currently enrolled at my university. This was one of those precious moments as a professor when the transformative power of higher education was laid bare. It is gratifying to help young people find their voices.

Unfortunately, there are others who would punish such young people. I learned from my former student that state Democratic Party functionaries recently called for the resignation of students at my university who dared to issue a statement expressing solidarity with Palestine. I could not help but view this attempt to quiet these activists alongside ongoing efforts to dismantle the rights of young Iowans. The Republican-controlled administration has weakened child labor protections, denied healthcare to trans youth, censored libraries, curtailed public school funding, and prohibited teaching about systemic racism and sexism in K–12 public schools. In Iowa, young people are being discouraged from learning about others and learning about themselves. The rise of Islamophobic and antisemitic incidents on college campuses further discourages already vulnerable community members.

Learning is one of the joys of being human; to deny this is to deny a human right. As an American historian, I am grateful to belong to a professional organization that has committed itself to advocating for honesty and integrity in public education. The American Historical Association’s “Freedom to Learn” initiative is a step toward justice, but a leap is required. It is not enough to oppose the “divisive concept” laws that reactionary state assemblies have enacted from Florida to Texas to Iowa: we must act.

It is for this reason that I will be supporting the resolution “In Defense of the Right to Learn” at the upcoming conference of the American Historical Association in San Francisco. On January 6, 2024, attendees of the business meeting will have the opportunity to call on their fellow Association members to speak and write in support of academic freedom nationally and to organize against disinformation locally. To ask historians to resist state legislatures and school boards that oppose an honest reckoning with the past is not mere politics, it is existential. The resolution is a leap—albeit a modest one—toward activating our profession to defend itself.

Our students are already acting. It is time we do the same.

In Defense of the Right to Learn
[Submitted for the Business Meeting of the American Historical Association, January 6, 2024]

Whereas, Council’s Guiding Principles on Taking a Public Stance (2017) specify that “In a wide range of situations, whether involving the rights and careers of individual historians, historical practice in diverse venues, or the role of history in public culture, the AHA has the responsibility to take public stands.”

Whereas, Council further stipulated, as an example, “When public or private authorities…censor or seek to prevent the writing, publication, exhibition, teaching, or other practices of history or seek to punish historians…for conclusions they have reached and evidence they have unearthed as a result of legitimate historical inquiry,” mandating that “The AHA should defend historians, regardless of institutional affiliations or lack thereof, against efforts to limit their freedom of expression, or to punish them for ideas, grounded in legitimate historical inquiry, they have expressed or material they have uncovered.”

Whereas, numerous state legislatures and officials are censoring the teaching of history in public schools and universities;

Whereas, said legislation mandates the distortion of scholarship about such central topics as slavery, the dispossession of Indigenous peoples, and LGBTQ people;

Whereas, under pressure from partisan groups, school boards across the country are forcing teachers to censor their treatment of these issues in their classes and libraries are removing canonical books in literature and history from their shelves;

Whereas, teachers and librarians who resist these measures have faced personal attacks and threats;

Therefore, the Association calls on its members to:

• Support AHA actions to uphold accuracy in history teaching;
• Organize on your campus against the attacks on history and historians;
• Defend academic freedom and job security for history teachers at every level;
• Write editorials and letters-to-the-editor defending teachers, librarians, and school board members;
• Testify before legislative bodies and school boards about the right to learn.

Cory James Young is assistant professor of history at the University of Iowa.

See also Benjamin N. Lawrance’s blog post “An Election about the Right to Learn History ” in support of the AHA resolution.