BY ALAN PARKES History is always political. Last month, the American Historical Association’s (AHA) leadership chose to override its own members for a second year, again vetoing a resolution on scholasticide in Gaza along with a resolution opposing attacks on academic freedom, especially those drawing attention to Israel’s US–sponsored genocide. As the AHA fails its…
BY HANK REICHMAN This week the AAUP released a report, In Defense of an Independent and Representative Faculty Voice: The Case of Faculty Senates, prepared by a subcommittee of the AAUP’s Committee on College and University Governance. I am a member of this committee and helped write the report, which demonstrates how recent state legislative actions…
BY HANK REICHMAN The image above is from an AI video that the GREAT (and demented) LEADER himself posted to social media. It reminded me of an historical analogy I’ve been mulling over since I first saw videos of masked ICE thugs rampaging through neighborhoods, courthouses, and downtown squares, chasing down immigrants (documented or not)…
BY JOAN W. SCOTT I was deeply disturbed to see this recent e-mailing from some 27 historians, 12 of whom are former presidents of the American Historical Association (AHA), urging members to vote for the slate proposed by the association’s Nominating Committee. To Members of the LAWCHA listserve, We write to ask those of you…
BY JOAN W. SCOTT Trump’s executive orders have been coming fast and furious, almost one a day. On March 27, with a stroke of his Sharpie, he promised to restore “truth and sanity” to our nation’s history—an interesting combination for a regime that has made lies the basis of its authority and vindictive narcissism the…
BY JOAN W. SCOTT The victory of Donald Trump in the presidential election has caused great concern for many in academia. When, on the campaign trail, J. D. Vance, now the vice-president-elect, commented that “professors are our enemy,” when the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025 called for the abolition of the Department of Education, and when…
BY CHRISTIAN K. ANDERSON AND PATRICIA SULLIVAN We are reprinting with permission this guest column published yesterday in the University of South Carolina Daily Gamecock. On April 25, 1963—60 years ago—Robert F. Kennedy spoke at a meeting of the University of South Carolina chapter of the American Association of University Professors (AAUP). He was invited by…
BY HISTORIANS AGAINST THE WAR (H-PAD) Right now, public education on all levels in Florida and the rights of the state’s population are under attack by forces led by Governor Ron DeSantis. The governor’s “Anti-Wokeness” campaign threatens to eviscerate honest teaching of United States history and force people of color and the trans and LGBTQ+…
BY HANK REICHMAN Victor Garlin, professor emeritus of economics at Sonoma State University, who served four terms as president of the Sonoma State chapter of the California Faculty Association, passed away at the age of 87 February 26 after a brief illness. Sonoma State professor emeritus of political science Andy Merrifield, who succeeded Victor as…
POSTED BY HANK REICHMAN I previously posted this in 2016. The following was written by Martin Luther King, Jr. and first published in the February 1947 edition of the Morehouse College Student Newspaper. King was 18 years old. As I engage in the so-called “bull sessions” around and about the school, I too often find…