By: Michael Fuhlhage (AJHA President) & Erin Coyle (AJHA First Vice President)

The ad hoc Defense of History Committee has begun work to collect the oral histories and track the erasure and alteration of the historical record at public sites.

The committee’s charge is to give voice to members whose academic freedom is being violated, to chronicle challenges our scholars face, and to give all AJHA members the means to help track the erasure of diversity, equity, and inclusion in the nation’s history at public institutions where Americans expect to learn about our nation’s history. Such places include national parks, federal and state historic sites, museums, and other places where the public encounters history.

The committee wants to give you an opportunity to be part of the historical record while protecting your identity in case you fear reprisal for speaking out. And we need your help in spotting instances where public sites are altering the historical record under pressure from federal and state authorities. Here’s how you can be heard.

Oral history: Oral history is a valuable method for recording contemporary conceptions of challenges. Thus, our committee plans to perform oral history interviews to record people's perceptions of whether and how laws, policies, and practices are changing how people may teach journalism history and perform research on the history of journalism. This part of the research will begin in the summer and continue in the fall. Anyone interested in participating in an oral history interview may contact this committee by sending an email to academicfreedomresearch@proton.me.

Tracking historical erasure: The committee has begun gathering published reports of the removal of references to controversial subjects and alteration of the description of events that sanitizes the past. And we invite you to contribute by submitting an “I want to report historical erasure” request. The form asks for the following information:

• Name of historic site affected.
• Erasure or other alteration done to the site.
• Reason given for the change, if any.
• Group whose history was removed or altered.
• A link to a published description of the alteration.
• A link to the website of the site that was affected.
• Location of the affected site.

The committee will use this information to create an interactive map chronicling historical alteration and erasure. Contributors will not be identified; your identity won’t even be collected. The committee will verify contributed information before adding it to this crowdsourced map of historical amnesia.

Your contributions are important to both the oral history and the historical mapping projects. There are only a few Defense of History committee members, after all, but there are many AJHA members and other scholars. You know that saying that many hands make light work? Many eyes do the same, and the eyes of our members are all over the country. Please join us in chronicling the current moment.

Editor's Note: This piece is a follow up to "Introducing the Defense of History Committee" published in February 2026.