The Institute for Historical Study, an international community of independent scholars centered in the San Francisco Bay area, condemns the Trump Administration’s attacks on the unbiased study of history. As historians, we know that our understanding of history is always imperfect, which is why historians are always working to improve it. We can do that only when we are free to examine all the evidence, free to discuss all the possible interpretations, free to express our thoughts and to come to our conclusions without orders from anyone, however powerful.
The Trump administration is deliberately manipulating and suppressing our history through attacks on government institutions such as the National Archives and the Smithsonian Institution. It is using the powers of the purse and the police to force private universities, libraries, and other independent entities to deny clear and solid historical evidence and conclusions and to dispose of important historical archives and artifacts.
The administration would have us whitewash all mention of slavery, racism, bigotry, discrimination, and cruelty committed in times past. It would have us forget the successes of women just as we are finally starting to acknowledge them. It would deny the accomplishments of Blacks and Hispanics, of immigrants, of gays, Jews, Muslims, and other minorities. It would reject the separation of church and state that is an essential part of our history. In short, the administration would command us to cease the valuable work of doing honest history.
The Trump administration demands the glorification of a mythical past, one that never existed but which it wants to “recreate.” It seeks to drive any evidence that challenges that myth out of our history books, out of our archives and museums, out of our classrooms, and out of our memory. These are all tactics that—as history reminds us—have been used by Nazi Germany; by Tsarist, Soviet, and post-Soviet Russia; by China’s Cultural Revolution; and by other autocracies. Our own country’s history includes such disgraces as the “Red Scare” and the promotion of the Mexican War, the Spanish-American War, the Vietnam War, and the Gulf War. History also teaches us that all such tactics eventually fail, though all too often only after wreaking great harm.
The Institute has always been an independent community of scholars and students of history, founded to pursue an open and honest discussion of history. We remain dedicated to the independent examination of history, without fear or favor, without submission to prejudice or whim, politics or faith or ideology. We therefore commit ourselves to fighting the actions of this administration that have the purpose or effect of inhibiting the conduct or dissemination of historical research, and we call on other history associations to join.
[Adopted by the IHS Board May 2025]