UMass History Department, Wolfsonian Public Humanities Lab to Host Event Addressing Attacks on Teaching Accurate History

For not the first time in U.S. history, the content of public school curricula is being challenged across the country. Since January 2021, 41 states have introduced bills or taken other steps that would restrict the teaching or discussion of “divisive concepts,” such as racism, sexism, critical race theory, and the 1619 Project. A Tennessee school board recently banned teaching the Pulitzer Prize- winning Holocaust novel Maus. And at least 15 states are considering what some have called “don't say gay” laws, like the one passed by the Florida Legislature a few weeks ago, which restrict discussions of sexual orientation or gender identity. 

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The UMass Amherst History Department has partnered with the Wolfsonian

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Public Humanities Lab (WPHL) at Florida International University to present Telling the Truth About History. On Monday, April 4, from 4:30-6 p.m. on Zoom, this panel of scholars, political leaders, and teachers will address the ongoing national assault against teaching accurate and evidence-based history at the K-12 level, and increasingly, at the community college and university levels.

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Panelists will consider the history of public school educational disputes around race, sex and sexuality and the impact these educational gag orders have, not just on the teaching of history, but on our democratic system of government and the meaning of equality in the United States. Panelists will also consider ways to push back against these challenges.

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“The past is very much alive—and deeply felt—in our present. Any attempt to distort or limit how we understand and teach about the past inherently precludes us from working towards a more just future and the healing we so desperately need to build that future together,” said WPHL Deputy Director Julio Capó, Jr.

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Distinguished speakers include: Laura Briggs, professor of women, gender, sexuality studies at UMass Amherst and a member of the Organization of American Historians’ Academic Freedom Committee, where she has been active in monitoring and responding to educational gag orders; educator and Florida State Senator Shevrin Jones, a leading voice against measures restricting how we teach about race, such as the “Stop WOKE Act” and the bill popularly known as “Don’t Say Gay” which restricts the teaching about sexual orientation and gender identity; Jennifer Rich, executive director of the Center for the Study of the Holocaust, Genocide, and Human Rights, associate professor in the department of sociology and anthropology at Rowan University, and an expert in holocaust and genocide education; and Raphael Rogers EdD’15, associate professor of education practice at Clark University, longtime former Massachusetts high school history teacher, and author of “The Representation of Slavery in Children’s Picture Books: Teaching and Learning About Slavery in K-12 Classrooms.” The event will be moderated by Barbara Krauthamer, dean of the College of Humanities and Fine Arts and professor of history at UMass Amherst and an award-winning historian of African American slavery and emancipation.

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This event is co-presented by the UMass Amherst Department of History and the Wolfsonian Public Humanities Lab at Florida International University. It is co-sponsored by the following UMass Amherst entities: Civic Engagement and Service-Learning, Center of Racial Justice and Youth-Engaged Research, College of Humanities and Fine Arts, College of Social and Behavioral Sciences, Institute for Holocaust and Genocide Studies, Linguistics Department, Public History Program, and the W.E.B. Du Bois Department of Afro-American Studies, among others.

The event is free and open to the public. Registration is required. Read more: www.umass.edu/history/ttah