Attack on U.S. Research and Education: French Views

Posted on March 17, 2025 by briansandberg

I participated in a workshop on Guerres de Religion et Changement Climatique (Religious Wars and Climate Change) at the IMéRA (Institute for Advanced Study) in Marseille, France, on 11 March 2025. This was a workshop that I co-organized with Jérémie Foa, Maître de conférences habilité à diriger des recherches (Aix-Marseille Université).

The conference went very well and we had great discussions of connections between climate change, disasters, social crises, and religious conflicts in France and Europe during the period of the Little Ice Age of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Presentations focused on historical evidence of climate change, natural disasters, war zones, siege warfare, wolf populations, and recurrent plague epidemics. We also considered the plight of women and children as non-combatants and refugees during the religious wars.

Unfortunately, this is precisely the sort of research that is currently under attack by the Trump administration in the United States.

Climate history, environmental history, social history, cultural history, women’s history, gender history, migration history, and other forms of historical studies are being targeted for restricted funding or elimination by an administration that is using unconstitutional means to intervene in fundamental research and curricular programs at universities in the United States.

These interventions make clear that academic freedom, scientific research, and democratic education are under direct assault in the United States.

Following our workshop on Guerres de Religion et Changement Climatique, I was asked by the administrators of the IMéRA research institute to participate in a discussion of the state of higher education and research in the United States, held at the la Cité de l’Innovation et du Savoir Aix-Marseille (CISAM).

I had an opportunity to meet with Elisabeth Borne (Minister of Education) and Philippe Baptiste (Minister for Higher Education and Research), as well as the President of Aix-Marseille Université and the research administrative team of the university.

In the discussions at CISAM, I offered the perspective of an American professor and researcher who has engaged in sustained research collaborations with French researchers and universities. I spoke for myself as a professor and researcher, but I provided context on the situation of professors, postdocs, graduate students, undergraduate students in History and the Humanities during the press conference and following interviews.

The discussion at CISAM was held in part because Aix-Marseille Université has just launched a Safe Place for Science initiative to recruit scientists from the United States to join French laboratories and research teams in Marseille. 

Aix-Marseille Université indicates the goals for this initiative: “At a time when academic freedom is sometimes called into question, Aix-Marseille Université is launching the Safe Place For Science program, offering a safe and stimulating environment for scientists wishing to pursue their research in complete freedom. In a context where some scientists in the United States may feel threatened or hindered in their research, our university is announcing the launch of the Safe Place For Science program, dedicated to welcoming scientists wishing to pursue their work in an environment conducive to innovation, excellence and academic freedom. As a major player in European research, Aix-Marseille University offers cutting-edge infrastructures, major international collaborations and strong support for scientists working on groundbreaking, forward-looking themes. The AMIDEX foundation will support the funding of research positions, particularly in the fields of climate, environment, health and human and social sciences (SHS).”

I also participated in several interviews during my research trip to Marseille, including with Chloé Leprince, a reporter with France Culture, and with a documentary film-making team.

The website for the Guerres de Religion et Changement Climatique (Religious Wars and Climate Change) workshop is at the IMéRA (Institute for Advanced Study) in Marseille, France.

BFM TV reported on the press conference at CISAM.

Elziere, Loïs. « Trump menace la science : des dizaines de chercheurs américains postulent à Marseille ». Made in Marseille (14 March 2025).

Laferté, Colombe. « “La souveraineté, ce n’est pas que la défense, c’est aussi la recherche ” assure Elisabeth Borne ». La Tribune (13 March 2025).

Leprince, Chloé. « Recherche aux États-Unis : “Même des mots comme ‘historique’ ou ‘socio-économique’ sont rayés” ». L’Info de France Culture (15 March 2025).

Vanderheyden, François-Samuel. « Une attaque sans précédent contre la recherche et l’éducation ». La Marseillaise (14 March 2025).

The Safe Place for Science program site is at Aix-Marseille Université.

La Cité de l’Innovation et du Savoir Aix-Marseille (CISAM) provides further information on its website.

Posted in Academic Freedom, Climate Change, Contemporary France, Current Research, Education Policy, Environmental History, European History, European Studies, European Union, French History, French Wars of Religion, History of Science, History of Violence, Little Ice Age, Mediterranean World, Religious Violence, Revolts and Revolutions, United States History and Society, Warfare in the Early Modern World, Women and Gender History | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Religious Wars and Climate Change

Posted on March 5, 2025 by briansandberg

Jérémie Foa (Maître de conférences habilité à diriger des recherches à Aix-Marseille Université) and I are co-organizing a workshop on Guerres de Religion et Changement Climatique at the IMéRA in Marseille, France, on 11 mars 2025.

Jérémie Foa has definitely taken the lead in organizing this workshop, but I am very pleased to have been involved in ongoing discussions to develop this line of research. I look forward to presenting new historical research at the workshop and to building research collaboration on the religious wars and climate change in the early modern period.

Guerres de Religion et Changement Climatique

“Si les guerres de religion françaises (1562-1598), sont bien connues des chercheurs, on sait moins en revanche que les contemporains de ces événements dramatiques ont connu un changement climatique soudain : en quelques années, au milieu des années 1560, le climat s’est brusquement refroidi, avec l’apogée du « petit âge glaciaire ». Aux hivers rigoureux succèdent des étés maussades, entraînant famines, pestes et effondrements de population.

“À travers des études de cas sur les loups, le siège de la Rochelle ou encore la peste, l’enjeu de cette journée d’études sera de considérer les guerres de religion comme une crise globale, et pas seulement politico-religieuse. Quels ont été les effets des désordres environnementaux sur les enjeux politiques, et réciproquement ? Comment les contemporains se sont-ils adaptés à ces changements, comment ont-ils vécu et interprété le gel soudain des rivières, l’inondation de leurs villages, les assauts répétés des loups ?”

11 mars 2025 – Salle de conférence de la Maison des Astronomes, IMéRA, Marseille

9h30 : Zoé Esclavissat-Lopez (amU, TELEMMe) : « La malice du temps continuant si longtemps : France et Angleterre face aux troubles environnementaux et religieux (1560-1588) ».


10h30 : Ariane Godbout (UQaM) : « Une histoire environnementale du grand siège de La Rochelle (1627-1628) ».


11h30 : Brian Sandberg (Northern Illinois Univ) :   « ‘La misère de ce temps’ : Souffrir de privation et de la famine pendant les dernières guerres de Religion (1588-1629) ».

Pause déjeuner

14h : Jean-Marc Moriceau (Université de Caen Normandie) : « Entre l’homme et le sauvage : l’apogée des attaques de loups (1560-1610) ? ».


15h : Jérémie Foa (amU, TELEMMe) : «La peste au temps des guerres de Religion »

For more information, see the workshop webpage at the IMéRA website.

Posted in Climate Change, Comparative Revolutions, Conferences, Current Research, Early Modern Europe, Early Modern France, Early Modern World, Empires and Imperialism, Environmental History, European History, European Wars of Religion, French History, French Wars of Religion, History of the Western World, History of Violence, Languedoc and Southern France, Little Ice Age, Mediterranean World, Religious Violence, Revolts and Revolutions, Warfare in the Early Modern World, World History | Leave a comment

On Trump’s Berating of President Zelensky

Posted on March 4, 2025 by briansandberg

“As Mr. Trump admonished President Volodymyr Zelensky and warned him that ‘you don’t have the cards’ to deal with President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia, and as Vice President JD Vance dressed down the Ukrainian leader as being ‘disrespectful’ and ungrateful, it was clear that the three-year wartime partnership between Washington and Kyiv was shattered,” according to The New York Times.

“But the larger truth is that the venomous exchanges — broadcast not only to an astounded audience of Americans and Europeans who had never seen such open attacks on each other, but to Mr. Putin and his Kremlin aides — made evident that Mr. Trump regards Ukraine as an obstacle to what he sees as a far more vital project.”

David E. Sanger emphasizes that “What Mr. Trump really wants, one senior European official said this week before the blowup, is a normalization of the relationship with Russia. If that means rewriting the history of Moscow’s illegal invasion three years ago, dropping investigations of Russian war crimes or refusing to offer Ukraine long-lasting security guarantees, then Mr. Trump, in this assessment of his intentions, is willing to make that deal. …”

Sanger assesses President Trump’s radical changes in the direction of U.S. foreign policy: “Mr. Trump makes no secret of his view that the post-World War II system, created by Washington, ate away at American power.”

“Above all else, that system prized relationships with allies committed to democratic capitalism, even maintaining those alliances that came with a cost to American consumers. It was a system that sought to avoid power grabs by making the observance of international law, and respect for established international boundaries, a goal unto itself.”

“To Mr. Trump, such a system gave smaller and less powerful countries leverage over the United States, leaving Americans to pick up far too much of the tab for defending allies and promoting their prosperity.”

Many news analysts have been debating whether the blowup in the Oval Office was spontaneous, partially prepared, or completely orchestrated by Trump and Vance.

Tom Nichols, Professor Emeritus of National-Security Affairs (U.S. Naval War College), argues that: “All of the ghastliness inflicted on Zelensky today should not obscure the geopolitical reality of what just happened: The president of the United States ambushed a loyal ally, presumably so that he can soon make a deal with the dictator of Russia to sell out a European nation fighting for its very existence.”

Nichols concludes that “today’s meeting and America’s shameful vote in the United Nations on Monday confirmed that the United States is now aligned with Russia and against Ukraine, Europe, and most of the planet. I felt physically sick watching the president of the United States yell at a brave ally, fulminating in the Oval Office as if he were an addled old man shaking his fist at a television. Zelensky has endured tragedies, and risked his life, in ways that men such as Trump and Vance cannot imagine. (Vance served as a public-relations officer in the most powerful military in the world; he has never had to huddle in a bunker during a Russian bombardment.) I am ashamed for my nation; even if Congress acts to support and aid Ukraine, it cannot restore the American honor lost today.”

In the aftermath of the press conference, President Trump has complained that Zelensky should have been more deferential to him, saying “I just think he should be more appreciative.”

President Trump indeed seems to have planned the ambush in the Oval Office precisely in order to prepare a complete abandonment of Ukraine and a realignment with Putin’s Russia.

And, Trump has now completely suspended U.S. military aid to Ukraine.

Green, Erica L., Eric Schmitt, David E. Sanger, and Julian E. Barnes. “Trump Suspends Military Aid to Ukraine After Oval Office Blowup.” The New York Times (3 March 2025).

Nichols, Tom. “It Was an Ambush.” The Atlantic (28 February 2025).

Sanger, David E. “Behind the Collision: Trump Jettisons Ukraine on His Way to a Larger Goal.” The New York Times (28 February 2025).

For international coverage, see:

“Donald Trump gèle brutalement l’aide militaire à l’Ukraine pour soumettre Volodymyr Zelensky à sa volonté.” Le Monde (3 March 2025).

Starcevic, Sev. “Trump and Zelenskyy’s White House clash a ‘deliberate escalation’ by US, says Germany’s Merz.” Politico.eu (3 March 2025).

“Trump Halts Military Aid to Ukraine.” Politico.eu (3 March 2025).

Posted in European History, European Studies, European Union, Security Studies, State Development Theory, Strategy and International Politics, United States Foreign Policy, United States History and Society, War and Society, War, Culture, and Society, World History | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

History Summer School at Glasgow

Posted on March 3, 2025 by briansandberg

The University of Glasgow is hosting a History International Summer School during Summer 2025.

History students at Northern Illinois University interested in the Glasgow program or other study abroad programs should contact me via email.

Here is the announcement from the University of Glasgow:

It is a six week, credit bearing, programme where undergraduate students complete a personal research project associated with a list of topics which changes every year.

Students who successfully complete the summer school will be eligible for an alumni discount for postgraduate study at Glasgow.

This year we have a range of courses relating to Poland, Russia, Byzantium, Britain / Scotland, Slavery Studies, Medieval Queenship, Animal Studies. 

  • A Collective Biography of Scotland in the First World War
  • Britain’s Toy Soldiers: Representations of War and Conflict
  • ‘A New System of Slavery’? Unfree Labour after Abolition in the British Empire
  • The Reports of the Protectors of Slaves: Enslaved Life in British Guiana, 1819-1834
  • A Person-centred Approach to Examining Slavery in the British Caribbean.
  • When Scots Returned from India: Wealth, Race and Cultural Strategies, 1757-1820
  • Russian Autocracy: Ideology and Praxis, 1682-1906
  • Golden Liberty: Polish Political Thought from 1385 to 1795, and Beyond
  • Human and Animal Relationships in Early Modern Scotland, c.1500-1700
  • Witch Trials and the Belief in Witchcraft in Early Modern England and Scotland
  • Echoes of Empire: Byzantine Culture and the Palaeologan Renaissance, 1261-1453
  • Gender and Politics in Medieval England: Three Generations of Political Turmoil
  • Medieval London and Queenship: The Cartulary of the Priory of Holy Trinity Aldgate

Full details and descriptions can be found at the link below (dropdown menu “Research Projects 2025”).

The application portal can be found here: https://www.gla.ac.uk/study/visiting/internationalsummerschool/ourcourses/historysummerresearchprojectopen/

The general Summer School information page can be found here: https://www.gla.ac.uk/study/visiting/internationalsummerschool/

Application advice here: https://www.gla.ac.uk/study/visiting/internationalsummerschool/howtoapplyandvisainformation/

Please note, early applications are encouraged. We will try to accommodate as many people as possible but places are limited and will be allocated on a first-come first-serve basis. If demand exceeds capacity, a waiting list will be created.

Posted in European History, European Studies, Graduate Work in History, Study Abroad, Undergraduate Work in History | Tagged , , , , , | Leave a comment

Considering the Multilingual Mediterranean

Posted on March 1, 2025 by briansandberg

I am enjoying participating in a Mediterranean Seminar Workshop on The Multilingual Mediterranean this weekend at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

“The Mediterranean is not only the crossroads among continents, cultures, peoples, and religions; it is also, as Suzanne Conklin Akbari and Karla Mallette have put it, ‘a sea of languages.’ From the use of Romance rhyme words in the zajals of twelfth-century Iberia to the playful code-switching in twenty-first-century North African hip hop, writers and artists in the Mediterranean region have often mixed different languages to create new artistic forms, to provoke and perplex, and to test the borders of different identity categories. Multilingualism has also helped to forge networks of trade, diplomacy, exchange across the Mediterranean region, leading to the emergence of new koines, linguae francae, and pidgins. Indeed, we could say that multilingualism and different forms of multilingual creativity are constants of Mediterranean history, rather than sporadic exceptions to a monolingual norm or rule.

“The workshop’s aim is to bring together scholars working on the history of multilingualism in the Mediterranean region. Our theme, ‘the multilingual Mediterranean,’ encompasses such topics as language contact zones, multilingual art forms and media, and the relationships between language and identity. Our hope is to attract contributions from scholars working on several geographical contexts and historical periods in the Mediterranean world. We also hope to encourage contributions from a diverse range of disciplinary perspectives. To that end, we invite potential participants to consider our theme broadly, and even metaphorically, in order to engage with different forms of multilingualism —including the interplay and intersection of visual, musical, and material ‘languages’ in the Mediterranean world.

The Multilingual Mediterranean program is available at the Mediterranean Seminar.

Posted in Cultural History, Early Modern Europe, Early Modern World, Empires and Imperialism, Languedoc and Southern France, Medieval History, Mediterranean World, Religious History, World History | Leave a comment

Challenging Trump’s Use of Unitary Executive Theory

Posted on February 27, 2025 by briansandberg

“In his opening weeks back in office, President Trump is asserting power in a way that pushes hard on, and sometimes past, the boundaries of executive authority,” according to Cass R. Sunstein, Professor of Law (Harvard University).

“One of the most important of those boundaries involves his relationship with independent regulatory agencies. Mr. Trump is the first president since the 1930s to assert control over many of them, and this assertion of power will almost certainly be tested in the Supreme Court.”

Cass R. Sunstein explains the historical development of constitutional law on executive authority and unitary executive theory.

“Mr. Trump is operating under the theory that the executive branch is unitary, in the sense that Article II of the Constitution places executive power in a single person, the president, who gets to control every high-level official who executes federal law (and plenty of lower-level ones, too).”

Sunstein argues that “The president is not a king. In its most extreme version, the unitary executive theory is a form of invented history, a modern creation that threatens to change, and in important ways to undermine, the operations of the national government.”

Sunstein traces the key Supreme Court cases and legal precedents related to executive authority.

He asserts that “the best historical research throws the whole idea of a unitary executive into serious doubt. In the Federalist Papers, Alexander Hamilton, who rejected a plural executive, also insisted that the president lacks unlimited removal power.”

So, Alexander Hamilton and other architects of the U.S. Constitution (1789) refused to embrace the notion of a unitary executive. The presidential power of appointment does not extend to a power to remove federal government officials at a whim.

“And defenders of the unitary executive appear to have misunderstood the Decision of 1789. The most careful evidence suggests that, at the time, a majority of members of Congress did not embrace but actually rejected the view that Congress lacks power to protect subordinate officials in the executive branch from presidential control. Indeed, independent agencies are hardly a creation of the New Deal — they have been with us since the founding era.”

The First Federal Congress of the United States passed legislation creating the Departments of War, State, and Treasury during 1789. The U.S. Senate confirmed the President George Washington’s nominees to head those departments the same year, establishing the precedents for presidential cabinet nominations.

Sunstein concludes that “there are decent arguments in favor of reforms that would increase presidential control over the administrative state. But the broadest current claims about executive authority are a creation of the 21st century, not the 18th. They are a form of hubris. They strike at the heart of our founding document.”

Sunstein, Cass R. “This Theory Is Behind Trump’s Power Grab.” The New York Times (26 February 2025).

Several of the legal and political science studies of unitary executive theory are:

Barilleaux, Ryan J. and Christopher S. Kelley, eds. The Unitary Executive and the Modern Presidency. College Station, TX: Texas A&M University Press, 2010.

Birk, Daniel D. “Interrogating the Historical Basis for a Unitary Executive.” Stanford Law Review 73 (January 2021): 175-236.

Crouch, Jeffrey, Mark J. Rozell and Mitchel A. Sollenberger. The Unitary Executive Theory A Danger to Constitutional Government. Lawrence, KS: Kansas University Press, 2020.

I have not had a chance to read these books and articles and cannot vouch for them.

Posted in Civil Rights Issues, Democracy, Human Rights, Legal history, Political History of the United States, Political Theory, Republicanism, State Development Theory, United States History and Society | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Legal Opinion on Department of Education Letter

Posted on February 26, 2025 by briansandberg

Sonja B. Starr, Professor of Law (University of Chicago) offers a legal opinion on the incendiary “Dear Colleague” letter issued recently by an Acting Assistant Secretary at the Department of Education.

Starr assesses the “Dear Colleague” letter: “The Department of Education issued a threatening letter this month addressed to all educational institutions that receive federal funds. The letter offers an extreme and implausible interpretation of the law governing diversity, equity and inclusion policy. It demands that schools abandon not just affirmative-action-like programs that consider the race of individuals but also policies that are blind to individuals’ race if those policies were adopted, even in part, to promote racial diversity.”

“The letter also claims that federal law prohibits schools from teaching or promoting certain ideas about race that the department deems unacceptable,” Starr notes.

“The department gives schools until Feb. 28 to comply with this interpretation of the law or risk losing their federal funding, which would endanger the existence of many colleges and universities. This threat is a brazen attempt to bully schools into making policy changes that the law does not require,” according to Starr.

The Trump-appointed officials at the Department of Education are indeed attempting to bully colleges and universities into abandoning their critical higher education missions of providing an education based in scientific research and academic knowledge.

This is a clear assault on the principles of academic freedom, university autonomy, faculty governance, and faculty-driven curricula. Professors are researchers and teachers who are trained to have expertise in their disciplinary fields. Professors, not politicians, should determine what subjects are taught and how the curricula are composed within their disciplinary programs.

“The primary legal authority the letter cites is the Supreme Court’s 2023 decision in Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard, which effectively ended affirmative action in university admissions. Some of the letter’s demands, such as getting rid of scholarship programs that consider an applicant’s race, are reasonable extensions of the court’s decision. But the letter goes beyond those demands, misreading the law in a way that further imperils racial diversity in schools.”

Starr argues that “The Department of Education’s letter also overreaches in its attempt to police schools’ communication of certain ideas about race. It cites ‘D.E.I. programs’ that teach, for example, ;that certain racial groups bear unique moral burdens that others do not.’ That passage of the letter is brief, and what exactly it prohibits is left vague. But the implication is that the department interprets Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 as restricting what schools can teach students.”

Sonja B. Starr provides advice to universities and colleges on how to respond to the “Dear Colleague” letter, stating emphatically that “schools should not cave to the Department of Education’s indefensible further demands, and the courts must curtail this blatant overreach.”

Starr, Sonja B. “The Department of Education Threatens to Pull the Plug on Colleges.” The New York Times (26 February 2025).

Posted in Academic Freedom, Civil Rights Issues, Higher Education, Human Rights, Humanities Education, Information Management, Political History of the United States, United States History and Society | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Jeff Bezos Declares War on Democracy

Posted on February 26, 2025 by briansandberg

I have cancelled my subscription to The Washington Post today.

The reason why? Jeff Bezos has declared war on democracy, free speech, and independent journalism.

Today’s actions by Jeff Bezos have destroyed The Washington Post as a credible news organization. I can no longer subscribe to what is now an oligarch’s personal ideological rag.

The Washington Post reports: “Washington Post owner Jeff Bezos said Wednesday that the newspaper’s opinions section would now be focused on ‘personal liberties and free markets’ and won’t publish anything that opposes those ideas. With the shift, opinions editor David Shipley has resigned, and The Post is searching for a successor.”

Bezos has dismantled the independence of the opinion office, making the opinion section and the entire news organization untrustworthy.

According to The Washington Post: “‘We are going to be writing every day in support and defense of two pillars: personal liberties and free markets,’ the billionaire Amazon founder wrote in an email to Post staffers that he also published on X. ‘We’ll cover other topics too of course, but viewpoints opposing those pillars will be left to be published by others.'”

The Washington Post Headquarters in Washington, D.C.

“In his memo, Bezos wrote that he offered Shipley a chance to continue in ‘this new chapter’ but that Shipley instead ‘decided to step away.'”

“Bezos said that The Post no longer needs to offer a ‘broad-based opinion section’ because of a diversity of opinions available online.”

This is an absurd statement meant to mask Jeff Bezos’s clear desire to control The Washington Post’s entire opinion section’s commentaries on politics and current events. It is a corporate takeover of opinion section to advance the opinions of a single oligarch, Jeff Bezos.

This represents a clear assault on independent journalism and democratic values. Opinion sections at real news organizations provide anyone with the ability to submit opinion columns and essays for evaluation for potential publication. Bezo’s actions violate democratic principles, destroy free speech, and threaten civil rights in the United States.

Many friends and colleagues have already cancelled their subscriptions immediately following Jeff Bezos’s acquisition of The Washington Post in 2013. Others cancelled in 2023, following Bezos’s changes in the news organization.

I had maintained my subscription until now, hoping to be able to support the vital reporting of Washington Post reporters and their investigative reporting on federal government issues.

As a Professor of History at Northern Illinois University, I rely on quality news reporting to relate historical events and patterns to the contemporary world. I sometimes use quality news articles and expert opinion pieces as sources on contemporary history and public history issues that relate to the themes of my classes.

I have often used news articles and opinion pieces from The Washington Post and other major news organizations as readings with my undergraduate and graduate students, especially when examining the echoes of previous historical periods in the contemporary world. My professional website and blog has a section on History in the Media that features many of these news publications.

I had hoped that the wall between the news office, opinion office, and the business office at the news organization could be maintained under Bezos’s ownership.

However, this is clearly not possible in the new age of Trumpian domination in Washington, D.C.

Farewell to The Washington Post. It has died a shameful death.

I will watch All the President’s Men (1976) as a funeral tribute.

On Bezos’s dismantling of The Washington Post, see:

“Post owner Bezos announces shift in opinions section; Shipley to leave.” The Washington Post (26 February 2025).

Mullin, Benjamin. “Bezos Orders Washington Post Opinion Section to Embrace ‘Personal Liberties and Free Markets.'” The New York Times (26 February 2025).

Mullin, Benjamin and Katie Robertson. “A Decade Ago, Jeff Bezos Bought a Newspaper. Now He’s Paying Attention to It Again.” The New York Times (2023).

Posted in Academic Freedom, Civil Rights Issues, Democracy, Human Rights, Humanities Education, Information Management, Political Culture, Political History of the United States, Political Parties and Organizations, United States History and Society | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

American Federation of Teachers Lawsuit vs. Dept. Ed.

Posted on February 26, 2025 by briansandberg

The American Federation of Teachers (AFT), Democracy Forward, and their allies have filed a lawsuit against the Department of Education and its Trump-appointed leaders.

“A lawsuit filed Tuesday accuses the Trump administration of trying to radically rewrite well-established civil rights law when it issued a sweeping directive barring colleges and K-12 schools from considering race in virtually any way,” according to The Washington Post.

This lawsuit is a direct response to the “Dear Colleague” letter issued by an Acting Assistant Secretary at the Department of Education who was appointed by President Trump.

The Washington Post reports that “the guidance from the Education Department’s Office for Civil Rights was sent as a “Dear Colleague” letter to school officials throughout the country Feb. 14. It threatened to deny federal funding to any school or college that considers race in hiring, discipline policy, scholarships, prizes or any other aspect of campus life. It gave schools a two-week deadline to comply, setting off confusion and panic on campuses nationwide.”

I have written a previous essay on “Subversion of Civil Rights by Trump’s Education Dept.” This essay assesses the “Dear Colleague” letter and provides links to additional reporting on it (see link below).

As a faculty member of Northern Illinois University, I am a proud member of the NIU United Faculty Alliance, the union representing tenure-track and tenured faculty at Northern Illinois University.

The NIU United Faculty Alliance is affiliated with the American Federation of Teachers and fully supports its lawsuit.

The NIU United Faculty Alliance provides this information on its affiliations:

“The Northern Illinois University United Faculty Alliance (NIU-UFA) is a chapter of the University Professionals of Illinois (UPI), Local 4100. The UPI represents seven of the 12 public universities in Illinois. As a UPI chapter, the NIU-UFA is also affiliated with the Illinois Federation of Teachers, the American Federation of Teachers, the Illinois AFL-CIO, and the AFL-CIO. The Illinois Federation of Teacher’s explains the relationship among affiliated unions and the benefits of these local, state, and national connections.”

More information regarding the NIU United Faculty Alliance is available at its website.

The AFT and Democracy Forward lawsuit is available at the Democracy Forward website.

Meckler, Laura. “Teachers union files lawsuit over Trump’s crackdown on race, DEI in schools.” The Washington Post (25 February 2025).

Sandberg, Brian. “Subversion of Civil Rights by Trump’s Education Dept.” Brian Sandberg: Historical Perspectives (21 February 2025).

Posted in Academic Freedom, Education Policy, High School History Teaching, Higher Education, Human Rights, Humanities Education, Legal history, Political Activism and Protest Culture, Political Culture, Political History of the United States, Public History, The Past Alive: Teaching History, United States History and Society | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Cold War Still Shapes Elections in Germany

Posted on February 26, 2025 by briansandberg

The Cold War continues to shape current German society and its voting patterns over 30 years after the Fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 and the beginning of German Reunification.

This past weekend’s German Elections demonstrate that the frontiers of the Iron Curtain continue to bifurcate Germans into sharply separate spheres and voting blocs, despite decades of efforts at German Reunification and reintegration.

The New York Times reports that “Three and a half decades after reunification, a line runs through Germany where the Iron Curtain once stood. Instead of barbed wires and dogs, that line now divides Germans by measures like income and unemployment — and increasingly by the willingness to vote for extremist parties.”

The electoral map of regions with majority support for the Alternative für Deutschland (Alternative for Germany, or AfD) political party corresponds almost precisely with the boundaries of the former East Germany.

Map: The New York Times.

DW reports that “the big winner of the election in terms of voter gains was the right-wing populist AfD, which nearly doubled its voter share over the previous federal election in 2021. The party, whose chancellor candidate Alice Weidel received praise from Elon Musk for her hard stance on migration, was particularly strong in the East.”

An analysis of voter preferences by DW indicates that “nationally, the AfD achieved roughly 20% of the vote, but in eastern Germany, the AfD is the strongest force. In the states of Brandenburg, Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, Saxony, Saxony-Anhalt and Thuringia, the AfD won the largest portion of the second-ballot vote, which determines the strength of the party’s representation in the Bundestag. In many constituencies, over 30% of the second vote went to the AfD. The CDU and SPD trailed far behind.”

Meanwhile, at the regional level, there were some surprises. DW points out that “in the state of Thuringia, home to Björn Höcke, who was convicted for using banned Nazi slogans, the party received more than 38% of the vote, double the number of votes for the CDU.”

And, the Linke (Left) Party grew in the Berlin region: “The city-state of Berlin is the exception in Germany’s former East. Here the Left Party won the most votes.”

A more detailed electoral map reveals the shifts in voter preferences by region between the 2021 and 2025 German Elections.

Map: Politico.eu

Geographers, political scientists, sociologists point to deep social patterns that still divide the regions of the former East Germany from the rest of Germany.

Several maps published by The New York Times indicate some of the deep social and economic fault lines in German society.

Map: The New York Times.

Lunday, Chris and Hanne Cokelaere. “German Election 2025: Who Won Across the Country.” Politico.eu (23 February 2025).

Schuetze, Christopher F. “The Iron Curtain Casts a Long Shadow Over Germany’s Election.” The New York Times (25 February 2025).

Zeier, Kristin and Gianna-Carina Grün. “German election results explained in graphics.” DW (25 February 2025).

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