Andrew Feight, Ph.D.

"An analysis of the Ohio House Republican budget proposal shows it would result in more than $565 million in lost funds for Appalachian school districts over the next two years and a loss of $2.75 billion for public schools statewide." #shameful #appalachia

Fascists are going to fascist. If it walks like a duck, looks like a duck, quacks like a duck, salutes like a duck, then .... Damn! WTF? Pardon my French. But, how can any true American support book bans in our nation's libraries?

Endnotes or footnotes? #ChicagoPope

Sad and pathetic, but that's what the MAGA cultural revolutionaries want; they aim to destroy our cultural institutions and defund community efforts that are preserving and promoting local history. It's shameful. #AmeriCorps

“Interior Sec. Doug Burgum signed away significant control of the Interior Department in a secretarial order Thursday night. The order gives a DOGE operative, Tyler Hassen, the power to oversee the Interior Department for “consolidation, unification and optimization of administrative functions.”

“It’s disturbing. These grants like ours are going to small museums who are doing good work in communities. And to think that the history of African Americans in the South, the history of slavery, does not align with the priorities of the United States is very concerning.” - Ashley Rogers

More of this, please. “The Japanese American National Museum will “scrub nothing,” Fujioka said, and instead will highlight the importance of DEI. “Our community is based on diversity, equity is guaranteed to us in the Constitution, and inclusion is what we believe in.”

“Extensive changes were made to multiple NPS pages about the UGRR, and a landing page directing children to educational materials about it has been offline since last month. Since 1998, the NPS has been required by federal law to recognize the UGRR and to produce educational materials about it.”

Like many others I am dismayed by the effort to end IMLS. I know IMLS matters to so many people. I put together the following site to collect and share stories of how "IMLS matters" to people. Please consider submitting a story. forms.gle/MAocZZMsoUu7... imls-matters.github.io/imlsmatters/

Every hundred years

A clearinghouse for gathering info on NEH (see second post) and a toolkit for advocacy. ⬇️

Campus of University of California, Berkeley, California. Students assembling for Peace Day address of General Smedley Butler #California #PeaceDay #SmedleyButler #undefined #photography #DorotheaLange https://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/2017771855/

Among the grants canceled was one helping fund a documentary about the Underground Railroad in southern Ohio. Defunding NEH is a devastating blow to local history societies, museums, colleges, and universities. Our cultural heritage is being sacrificed to provide tax cuts for American oligarchs.

Folks are going to freeze to death next winter if #HEAP funding is eliminated. #Fact

Picked a great time to teach my Practicing Public History course. With Executive Orders impacting the practice and profession on the daily, the field definitely appears more dynamic than ever, but its prospects (and public funding), in the short term, look very dark. #KeepHistoryAlive

No surprise these cuts are hitting Appalachia hard, but politically you gotta wonder how well this is going to go over with some of his base in the region. Nothing more dangerous than an Appalachian betrayed.

AASLH and the @ncph.bsky.social will hold a joint conference in 2026. Save the date to join us in September in Providence, Rhode Island to explore public history and "The Work of Revolution." We will begin accepting proposals for this conference in July.

Trump's EO "hints at the return of statues and monuments of Confederate figures, many of which were taken down or replaced around the country after the police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis in 2020 and the rise of the BLM movement, which is detested by Trump and other conservatives."

"Like detective work, doing history is a rigorous, complex, and ongoing process. .... Attempting to disregard this process and instead promote a false, sanitized narrative hinders our efforts to become a more perfect union through the study of the nation’s past." #AASLH

And so begins the destruction of higher education in Ohio. Can’t wait to see how students respond to being required by the government to read 5 complete Federalist Papers.

I will not go silently. I will not stop teaching the truth about American history in all its glory and all its blemishes. Learning from our past is what enables us to understand the present and face our problems with the courage needed to maintain our constitutional republic.

They are arresting people on the streets, terminating their visas, and disappearing them for writing things they disagree with. This is where we are. Two months in. Right now. If you think they won’t begin coming after citizens soon, you are mistaken.

New Editor Commentary: A nation abandoning academic freedom, policing thought in the classroom, persecuting freedom of expression on campus, dismantling education, ripping down its own pillars of research, this is a nation in the wild-eyed throes of moronic and shameful madness.

John Ullyot, Pentagon Press Secretary, argues that Jackie Robinson's blackness should not be included in accounts of his heroism, dedication, and courage. Colorblindness like this erases the history and the struggle that Americans have fought to expand liberty and equality in the US.

"Victory through Christ" Society holding its Sunday Morning Revival in a garage. Dos Palos, California. Testimony: "He's such a wonderful savior, Glory to God. I'm so glad I came to home. Praise God. His love is so wonderful..." #DosPalos #California #photography #DorotheaLange

Apparently the history of the great Branch Rickey and Jackie Robinson is “too woke” for Pete Hegseth and Donald Trump.

A series of emails sent to national parks workers provided instructions on how to describe staff cuts to visitors. They were told to avoid the word “fired” and not blame closures on staffing levels. By @anjeanette-damon.bsky.social

Defunding the #IMLS - Institute for Museum and Library Services - is a blow to US information technology, not just your local museums, public libraries, and research archives. IMLS funded the development of OMEKA, which is the software basis of the Scioto Historical mobile app. #IMLSgrant

Among the historical walking tours that were scrubbed from the Arlington National Cemetery website on the orders of President Trump included one on "Women's Military Service," which honored among others, Frieda Hardin, who is recognized as Scioto County's First Female Veteran for her service in WWI.

Trump defunds libraries and archives. “An executive order issued by the Trump administration on Friday night, March 14, calls for the elimination of the Institute of Museum and Library Services, the nation’s only federal agency for America’s libraries.”

Spent the day in Cbus, pitching an Underground Railroad mural project on behalf of the City of Portsmouth to a panel of funders hosted by the Ohio Governor’s Office for Appalachia. Fingers crossed! 🤞 #publichistory #undergroundrailroad #appalachia #portsmouthohio

“Effective immediately after this sentence, the university will no longer use the word “trans” since that’s not really a thing. (The history department has informed us that [REDACTED] people do exist and always have.) The history department has been dissolved.”

The NFL Spartans story as it has never been told before! Foothill Features at WOUB Public Media kicked it straight through the uprights with this one! Bonus: in-depth interview with yours truly. #NFLspartans #portsmouthspartans #detroitlions #ironmen #shawneestateuniversity #explorescioto

This morning at Dept of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) HQ in DC as mandatory return to office began, this video played on loop for ~5 mins on screens throughout the building, per agency source. Building staff couldn’t figure out how to turn it off so sent people to every floor to unplug TVs.

“This ruling is a crucial victory for higher education and academic freedom and also vindicates the legitimacy of the efforts by individuals, institutions, and organizations nationwide to foster inclusion in ways that have been uncontroversially legal for decades.”

🟡 SCOOP: The New York Times is greenlighting the use of AI for its product and editorial staff, saying that internal tools could eventually write social copy, SEO headlines, and some code.

Will the NEH survive DOGE and Trump’s budget cuts? Or will it be kept around to fund only “patriotic educational” programming? If @tadstoermer.bsky.social is right, NEH funding will continue, but it won’t fund the type of programming that respects and reflects the true diversity of our nation.

"S.B. 1 would ban diversity and inclusion efforts, prevent faculty from striking, set rules around classroom discussion, put diversity scholarships at risk, shorten board of trustees terms from nine years down to six years, and require students take an American history course, among other things."

This ain't right. But these are the federal workers that MAGA and MUSK have come to blame for all our woes. Trump 2.0 is finally giving MAGA what they crave -- mass firings of government workers by their main man whose TV show motto was "You're Fired."

Trophy worthy. Perhaps Portsmouth, Ohio’s oddest and most thought-provoking exhibit is the last passenger pigeon seen in Scioto County, shot by Arthur H. Bannon c. 1882. Now on display in the Local History Dept. Of the Scioto Co. Public Library. #publichistorypost #extinctbird #PortsmouthOhio

Good news, everyone! You get to do whatever you want! As long as you say you were trying to save the country, it’s all legal now.

Getting excited for this "feature" to drop on WOUB in the next week or so! The full-length feature will be over 17-minutes long and includes an in-depth interview with yours truly. #NFLhistory #PortsmouthSpartans #DetroitLions #Ironmen #PortsmouthOhio