A stack of history books used in Virginia schools. (Mechelle Hankerson/ Virginia Mercury)
As Virginians prepare for the beginning of President-elect Donald Trump’s second term, Republicans, according to the party’s 2024 platform, plan to reinstate the President’s Advisory 1776 Commission, an initiative created by Trump in 2020 to “better enable a rising generation to understand the history and principles of the founding of the United States in 1776.”
The commission’s creation came after the publication of a series of essays in The New York Times dubbed the 1619 Project, whose namesake reflects the first year enslaved Africans were brought to the shores of what would become the United States.
At the same time, national debate was brewing about how history concerning slavery and Black Americans’ contributions to the country was taught, a discussion that manifested in Virginia after Gov. Glenn Youngkin’s administration authorized a rewrite of Virginia history and social science education standards that critics said lacked important context but included bias.
The 1776 Commission’s background
Trump has not mentioned plans for the commission since his re-election over Democrat Vice President Kamala Harris on Nov. 5, despite his party’s affirmation of their intent to reinstate it. The former president created the commission during his previous term via an executive order issued on Nov. 2, 2020.
It came after the Trump administration and some conservatives accused the 1619 Project and critical race theory college courses of teaching students to “hate their own country.”
“This radicalized view of American history lacks perspective, obscures virtues, twists motives, ignores or distorts facts, and magnifies flaws, resulting in the truth being concealed and history disfigured,” the order reads. “Failing to identify, challenge, and correct this distorted perspective could fray and ultimately erase the bonds that knit our country and culture together.”
In 2021, the 1776 Commission published a 41-page report that received criticism from historians and educators largely because it was developed by experts from Hillsdale College, a Christian school in Michigan, politicians and conservatives. Detractors said the report attempted to downplay how the institution of slavery shaped U.S. history.
A statement by the American Historical Association, joined by 47 organizations, said the report attempted to “elevate ignorance about the past to a civic virtue.”
The AHA said the report included “an homage to the Founding Fathers” that was “a simplistic interpretation that relies on falsehoods, inaccuracies, omissions and misleading statements.” It also said the report featured “a screed against a half-century of historical scholarship, presented largely as a series of caricatures, using single examples (most notably the ‘1619 Project’) to represent broader historiographical trends.”
Beau Dickenson, executive board member and former president of the Virginia Social Studies Leaders Consortium, said the 1776 Commission’s report tried to rewrite history and insulted social studies teachers by suggesting they don’t want to be patriotic, which he said was contrary to their motives.
“We want those dispositions in our students, but we want them to have a balanced view of our past,” Dickenson said. “And even within the topics that these folks would prefer us to overlook, I see a very compelling story of agency and resilience and people overcoming despite these odds and making this country stronger as a result. It’s a testament to our people that we can be a flawed country and make it a better one, but the 1776 Commission seeks just to overlook that history or rewrite it entirely.”
There were also some educators, like Carol Swain, defending the commission. Swain, former commission vice chair and retired political science and law professor at Vanderbilt and Princeton Universities said “No parts of history were taken out in the report, and the people from the left attacked it because it was the Trump administration that put it together.”
Soon after the commission published the 1776 Report in January 2021, the group was disbanded by President Joe Biden through an executive order focused on advancing racial equity and supporting underserved communities on Jan. 20, 2021.
Virginia parallels
In his first year as Virginia’s governor in 2022, Youngkin began addressing and reforming public education, and, in his first executive order, prohibited “inherently divisive concepts,” including critical race theory (CRT), in K-12 education. CRT is a graduate-level framework focusing on racial inequity that has not been found in Virginia’s curricula. Youngkin also signed off on revamping the state’s history and social science education standards.
The administration faced criticisms after state historians, lawmakers and education groups learned that Hillsdale College was involved in the rewrite of Virginia’s standards, which outline the commonwealth’s expectations for student learning and are assessed through the Standards of Learning tests.
Virginia lawmakers, educators and community organizers wrote on Nov. 5, 2022 that they were “alarmed” to hear of Hillsdale’s involvement with the draft history standards following accusations that the college, in its work with other states, did not provide feedback on public education systems’ social studies standards, but instead created a curriculum for them.
The group also pointed out that experts found the 1776 curriculm’s pedagogical framework had “content inaccuracies” and was “lacking” in inquiry, critical thinking and analysis of primary sources.
“We are highly concerned that Hillsdale College, a private liberal arts college in Michigan, has the potential to dictate and influence what Virginia educators teach and what Virginia students learn,” the group wrote.
In Virginia, school boards will be the primary deciders on AP African American studies
In response to the outcry, Youngkin’s administration pulled the department’s draft standards from further review. It replaced it months later with a draft missing influential figures and events, a flaw historians said was similar to missing information in the 1776 report. Educators, lawmakers, and community organizers also voiced concern about the process’s lack of transparency regarding who authored the changes.
Swain, a native of Southwest Virginia, disagreed with the claim that no professional historians were involved in creating the 1776 report. She did say she’s pleased that the governor’s administration may have included elements from the report in the draft standards.
“One of the things that we argued and were pushing was for history to be taught using original documents, to get the young people to read the Declaration of Independence, to read the Constitution … (and also) the constitutions of their states for themselves,” Swain said. “And so that was one of the things that I know we were united on, and I believe that the best schools, the private academies, that’s what they do.”
However, historians and educators continued challenging the Youngkin administration and the Virginia Board of Education on the draft standards over several months. By April 2023, the Board of Education adopted the updated standards, which had been changed to include more of the historic context and content lawmakers, educators and advocates had sought.
Dickenson said there are similarities between how the 1776 Commission’s report and the Youngkin administration’s proposed education standards were created.
Missing context, political bias: Some of critics’ objections to Virginia’s new history standards
Like the 1776 report, Dickenson said professional historians were “sidelined” in favor of conservative groups such as Hillsdale College in the early development of Virginia’s standards. The efforts also shifted from inquiry-based learning to a rote, fact-focused approach emphasizing memorization over critical thinking and analysis.
“This directly contradicts Youngkin’s claim that students should ‘learn how to think, not what to think,’ and it limits opportunities for students to explore, question, and engage deeply with historical content,” Dickenson said.
The report and draft standards both aimed to frame the removal of critical race theory as a way to change or remove parts of history that discuss racial issues, colonialism and the struggles of marginalized groups, Dickenson said.
What’s next?
Plans for reorganizing the 1776 Commission are uncertain, since it was housed under the U.S. Department of Education, an agency that Trump has vowed to disband.
According to the 2024 national Republican platform, “Republicans will reinstate the 1776 Commission, promote fair and patriotic civics education, and veto efforts to nationalize civics education. We will support schools that teach America’s founding principles and Western civilization.”
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