Our Current Activities
Israel-Palestine Working Group
On January 5, 2025, AHA members in New York voted overwhelmingly to pass our Resolution to Oppose Scholasticide in Gaza. This was the culmination of a lot of work by H-PAD members and many others outraged by the destruction of the education system in Gaza, and the loss of life of many of its teachers and students. Since the passage of the resolution there has been coverage in Haaretz, in The New York Times, Inside Higher Education, on Democracy Now!, and elsewhere.
Legislative Working Group
HPAD’s legislative work consists of periodic action alerts asking members to call the White House or their representatives and senators in Congress on major legislation of policy. We also ask those who make calls to let us know and usually hear from a few members.
We are working to expand our legislative program. The legislative committee aims to create an action network with point people in each state or Congressional district. These point people will coordinate actions. These can consist of mobilizing phone calls to our elected officials as well as organizing in-person meetings with members of Congress and their staffs. The latter is a powerful way to develop influence and we can organize trainings for our members who are interested in such visits.
As we grow our national membership and acquire new tools to put members in touch with government, we expand our impact. If you are interested in joining our working group or have other ideas about this work, please contact our legislative coordinators Rusti Eisenberg and Prasannan Parthasarathi by emailing legislativealerts@historiansforpeace.org
AHA Working Group
Since 2020 H-PAD has partnered with Radical History Review to organize a mini-conference within the American Historical Association’s (AHA) annual meetings. Alongside traditional conference sessions we have worked with our colleagues to pass AHA resolutions, organized rallies, round table discussions on political developments, and more.
If you are interested in contributing to next year’s meeting, please contact Andor Skotnes. We are looking for panelists and academic contributors, but also people to assist with recordings, distribution of fliers, and related tasks. For more information on our mini-conferences check the links below.
Since 2022, Historians on Call has been a partnership between K-12 teachers and historians working in post-secondary education to defend the teaching of honest history across the K-16 landscape. To date, we have more than 90 volunteer historians from a wide range of states who have signed up to do whatever they can to support teachers in their regions.
We are currently hoping to expand our steering committee to include a larger number of current K-12 teachers. We would especially like to include teachers from a wide range of personal backgrounds, and in states and districts facing significant challenges to academic freedom. While we hope to continue to provide support to teachers facing disciplinary actions for teaching true history, we would also like to brainstorm together how we can be proactive in supporting one another and defending the teaching profession in the coming years.
In the past, Historians on Call has provided teachers support in the following ways:
- Submit expert comments to state legislatures on proposed new or amended social studies standards.
- Meet with local social studies coordinators, high school teachers, and school boards.
- Research local school board elections, draw attention to the issues, and get out the vote.
- Write op-eds and letters to the editor of newspapers, or meet with their editorial boards to explain the impact of legislation or elections that will censor historical education
We are hoping to build a group of committed teachers who can build on this work and help set the agenda for a new chapter in this partnership. We anticipate this is a commitment of about two hours per month, plus work outside the committee.
If you are interested in getting involved, especially if you are a current K-12 teacher, please email stone.hpad@gmail.com to get involved.
Archiving the Culture Wars on Education
The culture wars on education are a series of attacks on how history and social studies are taught and written. They attempt to severely restrict or eliminate teaching about race, ethnicity, gender, sexuality, and LGBTQ issues. They are an assault on academic freedom in higher education and on professional autonomy and responsibility in K-12 schools. They undermine public education in the United States on all levels.
Historians for Peace and Democracy has compiled an extensive archive of materials on the past and present of the culture wars and responses to them. We hope it will help teachers and students at all levels educate themselves about the current crisis and find constructive ways to respond to it. The archive provides a variety of resources that will be useful as well for journalists, commentators, politicians, and the general public. Contents will be updated regularly.
Updating the archive is a lot of work so if you’d like to assist us with compiling and annotating relevant articles, please contact Molly Nolan.
Visit archive: The Culture Wars Against Education
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