President Joe Biden has retracted a recent report from the Trump administration that sought to promote “patriotic education” in schools, but which historians ridiculed and dismissed as political propaganda.
In an executive order signed on his first day of work on Wednesday, Biden dissolved Donald Trump’s 1776 Presidential Commission and retracted a report it released Monday. Trump founded the group in September to rally the support of white voters and in response to The New York Times’ “1619 Project” highlighting the lasting effects of slavery in America.
In its report, which Trump hoped would be used in classrooms across the country, the committee glorifies the country’s founders, downplays America’s role in slavery, condemns the rise of progressive politics, and argues that the civil rights movement is in conflict. was embraced with the “lofty ideals” by the Founding Fathers.
The panel, which did not include professional historians from the United States, complained of “false and fashionable ideologies” portraying the country’s story as a story of “oppression and victimization.” Instead, it called for renewed efforts to foster “a brave and honest love for our country.”
Historians have analyzed the report extensively and say it provides a false and outdated version of American history that ignores decades of research.
‘It is an insult to the entire education enterprise. Education should help young people learn to think critically, ”said David Blight, Civil War historian at Yale University. “That report is a piece of right-wing propaganda.”
Trump officials billed the report as “a definitive chronicle of the US founding,” but scholars say it ignores the most basic rules of science. For example, it does not provide citations or a list of source material.
It also includes several passages copied directly from other writings by members of the panel, as one professor discovered after running the report through software used to detect plagiarism.
Matthew Spalding, the panel’s executive director and a vice president of conservative Hillsdale College, denied any wrongdoing, saying that the members of the panel “ contributed our own work and wrote to the 1776 report under our own names, ” that was an advisory report to the president. “
Spalding and other committee leaders did not immediately respond to other criticisms of the report.
In documents announcing Biden’s executive order, government officials said the panel was “trying to erase US history of racial injustice.”
The American Historical Association condemned the document, saying it glorifies its founders and ignores the history and contributions of enslaved people, indigenous communities and women. In a statement also signed by 13 other academic groups, the organization says the report is pursuing “government indoctrination of US students.”
The strongest criticism of the report has focused on the presentation of slavery and race. The report attempts to undermine allegations of hypocrisy against Founding Fathers who owned slaves while advocating equality. It also attempts to soften and explain America’s role in slavery as a product of time.
“Many Americans are under the illusion that slavery was somehow a uniquely American evil,” the panel wrote in the twenty-page report. “The unfortunate fact is that the institution of slavery in human history has been the rule rather than the exception.”
Blight, at Yale, likened it to “a sixth or seventh grade approach to history – to make the kids feel good.” He added, “But it’s worse than that because it stems from an agenda of political propaganda.”
The authors argue that the civil rights movement was distorted to advance programs that promote inequality and “group privileges.” For example, it complains about positive action and other forms of ‘preferential treatment’.
Ibram X. Kendi, a scholar and historian of racism at Boston University, called the report “the last big lie of a Trump administration of big lies.”
“If we’ve usually been given preferential treatment, why do black people stay at the bottom of almost every racial inequality?” Kendi said on Twitter. “Whenever they answer this question, they are expressing racist ideas about black inferiority while claiming to be ‘not racist.’
Other scholars underlined what had been omitted. The report contains nothing of Native American history, and the only reference to the indigenous people is a racial slur quoted from the Declaration of Independence.
In a passage derided by historians, the authors draw a comparison between the progressive movement in America and the fascist dictator Benito Mussolini.
James Grossman, executive director of the American Historical Association, said the report aims to discredit contemporary government policies rooted in America’s progressive reform movement. He is concerned that even after Biden dissolves the committee, her report could end up in some classrooms.
“Historians should pay attention to curriculum conversations at the local and state level,” Grossman said. “The nonsense contained in this report will be used to legitimize similar nonsense.”
At a public meeting of the committee this month, some members hoped Biden would keep the committee alive. But others said they should pass the report on to state and local education officials.
“It’s really up to governors and state legislators and school administrators and parents and higher education commissioners, even students, to take on this task and continue this work,” said Doug Hoelscher, a White House assistant under Trump.
After the report was removed from a White House website, some of the authors switched to make it available on conservative websites. In an op-ed published by the Heritage Foundation, one of the commissioners, Mike Gonzalez, said members “intend to continue to meet and meet the burdens of our two-year assignment.”
The report ultimately calls for a shift in teaching in schools and American universities, which the panel describes as “hotbeds of anti-Americanism.” It condemns any teaching that breeds contempt for American ideals, and blames that kind of “destructive scholarship” for the divisions of the nation and for “so much of the violence in our cities.”
“To restore our society,” the report says, “academics must return to their calling to relentlessly pursue truth and engage in honest science that seeks to understand the world and America’s place in it.”