On Inauguration Day 2021, President Joe Biden surprised many Americans when he issued 17 executive orders, including one that rescinded President Trump’s creation of the 1776 Commission, established in November 2020 to study and make recommendations to the president on how American history should be taught in K-12 schools. As Vice-Chair of the Commission, I was surprised and disappointed that an initiative geared at designing a strategy to remedy educational deficiencies among America’s children would be deemed so controversial. It was eliminated within six weeks of its creation – but not before we could produce a preliminary report for the nation.
The 1776 Commission Report – released two days before Biden’s inauguration – became a lightning rod for critics. They pounced on the report and dismissed distinguished academics with degrees in political science and other fields as unqualified to make recommendations about how American history should be taught. Critics knew that our report stood as a frontal assault on The New York Time’s revisionist history of America that placed the nation’s founding at 1619 rather than the true founding in 1776. The 1619 Project’s false narrative also proclaimed, among other things, that the Revolutionary War was fought in part to preserve slavery in North America. Other claims suggested that anti-black slavery was part of the nation’s DNA. What was produced and is now in thousands of American classrooms is a false narrative influenced by the radical philosophy of critical race theory.
With limited time and heroic effort, the 1776 Commission produced a report that included sections on the meaning of the Declaration of Independence, the U.S. Constitution, and how these documents enabled Americans to face challenges to authentic American ideals. Our Constitution and Declaration of Independence have allowed us to eliminate slavery, survive a civil war and two world wars, and prevail against the threats posed by Communism, fascism, and the many racial injustices that lingered until the 1960s when our leaders advanced against systemic racism by passing a series of major civil rights acts. These included the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Voting Rights Act of 1965, and the Open Housing Act of 1968. Collectively, these laws prohibited discrimination against persons based on race, ethnicity, national origin, or sex in areas of public life such as employment, hotels, restaurants, voting, and housing.
Our report discussed the need for national renewal and how it can be accomplished. We proposed a focus on strengthening the family structure, teaching civics to our children, resisting anti-Americanism at colleges and universities, and educating the American public in our history – all through the writings of great statesmen and literary giants. Our report also discussed the importance of the rule of law in maintaining a civilized society.
Americans need to remember from whence they have come. The United States is now approaching the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, and the nation is in disarray with attacks upon the core values and principles that have been the glue that has held Americans together for over two centuries. The 1776 Commission Report was intended as a remedy for these troubles.
Although there are revisionist forces that would like to rewrite American history, the 1776 Commission – as well as the values and principles that led to its establishment – lives on as its members continue their work outside the auspices of the federal government. Our work has just begun.
Carol Swain, Ph.D. is a former professor of political science and professor of law at Vanderbilt University.
