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“These Rights are Self-Evident, Not Self-Executing”
17 Plays8 months ago
For this special Constitution Day episode, SpeechMatters is joined by Dr. Colleen Shogan, the former Archivist of the United States, to reflect on the enduring legacy of America’s founding documents. From the urgent need for a national “civics renaissance” to the risks of political interference in how we teach history, the conversation offers powerful insights into what it means to safeguard our democratic ideals in an era of polarization, misinformation and rapid technological change.
Episode Resources:
- America needs a civic education moonshot, before it’s too late
- The Declaration of Independence | National Archives
- https://www.inpursuit.org/
Recommended
Transcript
Exploring Free Speech and Justice
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I think what we need to do is explain how our principles of free speech, free inquiry, will help serve the cause of justice.
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The First Amendment, the constitutional freedom of speech and freedom of conscience that is the bulwark of our democracy.
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There was a passion in what was being said affirming this, what people consider a sacred constitutional right, freedom of speech and freedom of association.
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From the UC National Center for Free Speech and Civic Engagement, this is Speech Matters, a podcast about expression, engagement, and democratic learning in higher education.
Significance of Constitution Day
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I'm Michelle Deutschman, the Center's Executive Director and your host.
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Today is Constitution Day, which marks the signing of the U.S. Constitution on September 17, 1787, 238 years ago.
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The seven articles and 27 amendments of this document established the fundamental framework of our system of government.
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This includes separating the powers of the government into three branches, the legislative branch, which makes the laws, the executive branch, which executes the laws, and the judicial branch, which interprets them.
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This system allows for checks and balances between the three branches in order to prevent any one branch from becoming too powerful.
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The Constitution protects rights and freedoms of citizens and divides power between national and state governments.
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The campaign to have a day marking the importance of the Constitution began in 1997 as a grassroots campaign by Louise Lee, a retired medical technologist.
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And reflecting on her motivation, Lee told the LA Times that she, quote, spoke on university campuses and schools and service clubs and realized how little people knew about the Constitution, close quote.
Educational Mandates on the Constitution
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In December 2004, Congress established Constitution Day under 36 U.S. Code 106,
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which requires that each educational institution that receives federal funds for a fiscal year shall hold an educational program on the United States Constitution on September 17th of such year for the students served by the educational institution.
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The UC Center is doing that today, and we have the privilege of discussing the legacy of the Constitution
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civic education efforts, and how our democratic values and ideas are being shaped by today's technology and politics with the former archivist of the United States, Dr. Colleen Shogan.
Impact of Recent Events on Free Speech
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But before we dive in, let's turn to class notes, a look at what's making headlines.
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On Wednesday, September 10th, right-wing commentator and activist Charlie Kirk was assassinated while speaking to a crowd at Utah Valley University, the first stop on Kirk's American Comeback Tour.
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Kirk founded the conservative group Turning Point USA in 2012 at the age of 18.
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He regularly visited college campuses to answer questions and engage in heated debates.
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His appearances often drew protesters.
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This shocking incident, one in an ongoing string of politically motivated violence in the United States, casts a dark shadow over the First Amendment and our ability to live out its principles.
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There is no place for violence in American society, especially as a response to ideas with which people disagree.
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I'm also deeply troubled by the growing ability of the Second Amendment to chill First Amendment rights.
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We extend our condolences to Kirk's family and hope that this horrific tragedy will bring people together rather than further divide us.
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In other news, the president of Texas A&M University fired a senior lecturer and removed both the head of the English department and the Dean of Arts and Sciences after a video of a student challenging the lecturer's teaching of classroom material on gender identity went viral.
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Responding to demands from state officials, including the governor of Texas, that the professor be terminated, the university administration justified the removals by arguing that the course content did not match the course's official description.
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Critics of the dismissals contend they constitute a serious threat to faculty speech, especially amid growing political oversight of what is taught and discussed in college classrooms.
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The case raises broader concerns that state pressure and viral social media moments may increasingly dictate what professors teach, chill open inquiry, narrow which topics are deemed acceptable, and undermine academic freedom on public campuses across Texas and beyond.
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Hundreds of students from four Washington, D.C.
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universities, Georgetown, Howard, George Washington, and American, staged coordinated walkouts last week in protest of the deployment of federal officers and the presence of the National Guard in D.C.
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Students explained that heightened security makes communities feel less, not more safe.
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Student leaders also urged university administrations to resist cooperation with the Trump administrative directives, arguing it creates a chilling environment for free expression, protest, and academic inquiry.
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The walkouts underscore escalating tensions between students and university leadership over safety and speech rights on campus.
Leadership and Civic Education
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Now back to today's guest, Dr. Colleen J. Shogun served as the 11th archivist of the United States, the first woman in American history to lead the National Archives and Records Administration, also known as NARA, a noted author and political scientist.
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Colleen is deeply committed to civics education and prioritized sharing the records of the National Archives to a wider audience.
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Under her leadership, NARA launched numerous strategic initiatives to enhance services and make its holdings more accessible, both in person and online, with the goal of cultivating public participation and strengthening our nation's democracy.
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Prior to becoming archivist, Colleen served in several cultural heritage leadership roles.
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She was senior vice president and director of the David M. Rubenstein Center at the White House Historical Association,
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worked in the United States Senate and served as a senior executive at the Library of Congress and its Congressional Research Service.
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She was the vice chair of the Women's Suffrage Centennial Commission and currently serves as the co-chair of the board of directors at the Women's Suffrage National Monument Foundation and as a senior advisor at More Perfect.
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A native of the Pittsburgh area, she holds a BA in political science from Boston College and a PhD in American politics from Yale University, where she was a National Science Foundation graduate fellow.
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Colleen is the 2024 recipient of the American Political Science Association's Hubert Humphrey Award for Outstanding Public Service.
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Welcome, Colleen.
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It is truly an honor to have you join us.
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Thank you so much.
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I'm really happy to be here this morning to talk with you.
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So we are recording this episode the morning after the assassination of Charlie Karp.
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And I think we have to start there.
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And I want to ask you about what you think that means for speech and for constitutional protections.
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Yes, I agree.
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That's where we should start.
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It is a horrific
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incident that happened yesterday, the murder of really the public murder on a college campus of Turley Kirk.
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And I'll just say to start, I want to extend condolences obviously to his family, his wife and children, and of course, all of his colleagues that worked along with him who were very close to him.
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I think that this has a chilling effect for political discourse.
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particularly on college and university campuses.
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When I was the Archivist of the United States, some of my most favorite moments and some of my most favorite days that I spent were on college campuses.
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I traveled around to a lot of different universities and would do public events and interact with students.
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And the discourse that happened on those campuses was
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terrific because people ask me hard questions about some of the decisions that I made and some of my priorities.
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And I was able to think about the feedback and provide answers, which is really what we should be fostering in a democracy.
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And if we can't disagree, if we can't have that civil discourse on a college or university campus without political violence, then I think
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It threatens the safety and the sanctity of our constitutional democracy and the rights that we hold that really undergird the fact that we live in a representative government.
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So I will continue to speak on college campuses.
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I think I have five or six trips booked for this fall, and I will continue to do that.
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And I will continue to enter dialogue with people on campus.
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those campuses.
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And I encourage other people to do the same because we cannot normalize this violence.
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Once we normalize the violence, then we've certainly ceded important ground.
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Thank you for those thoughts.
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I could not agree more, both in terms of the horrific nature of the assassination, the condolences, and also just needing to double down on education and prioritizing the values that go along with open expression in a democracy.
Colleen's Journey to U.S. Archivist
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This is so much of what the center talks about and educates people about that we may not like the speech of others and that there are many, many ways, including civil disobedience to show that we disagree with other people's viewpoints, but there's just no place for violence in our society.
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And I think, you know, this just reminds us how important I think it is about civics and about what the foundations of this country are.
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And I think we'll go from there.
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I was telling you before we started that I'm a little starstruck.
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You know, my job at the center is to think and talk about the First Amendment.
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to be interviewing the person who actually physically and metaphorically was safeguarding our nation's founding documents.
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That's the legal eagle in me.
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That's very excited.
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And I'm wondering if you can start by telling our listeners a little bit about your journey.
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I don't imagine, or maybe I'm wrong, that you necessarily strived to be the United States archivist and kind of how you got there.
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That's a great question.
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I wish that I was able to say that this was a childhood dream and somehow I figured out the way to fulfill it.
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But it was not.
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Although, you know, I've been in this line of work for quite some time.
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I always like to start by telling people, and you mentioned this in my biography, very kind biography of me.
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But I am a political scientist.
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So coming to the National Archives, I came to the archives from that side of the equation.
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I was a user of the National Archives.
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I was a user, a researcher, of particularly presidential records and documents through the presidential library system.
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And that was my entry point to becoming the archivist of the United States, not that I was a trained librarian or archivist
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myself.
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That being said, I spent over a decade at the world's largest library, the Library of Congress.
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And even though I didn't work directly in collections or library science management, I worked alongside many talented librarians at the Library of Congress and understood how that institution worked, a collection-based agency
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whose mission is similar to the National Archives, to share knowledge, to share American history.
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And no matter what my particular job was, whether it was at the Congressional Research Service or many of the other jobs that I had at the Library of Congress along the way, or at the White House Historical Association, where I led our educational and programming unit at the association,
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They were all nonpartisan jobs.
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And I think that was a really important component of my path to becoming the archivist of the United States.
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Because I will say this, when I was interviewed for the job by the Biden White House personnel team, they were very focused on the fact that this appointment, whoever President Biden chose, was a little different.
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than the other positions they were searching for, you know, whether it was in other departments or agencies, they were very focused on the fact that the archivist was actually a nonpartisan role.
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So they wanted to find someone, according to the statute, actually what it says, someone that could best fulfill the role and the duties of the job, but without regards to
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partisan or political affiliation.
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So they took a very strict view of that whenever they were looking for someone for the job.
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And because I had had so much experience in a variety of nonpartisan roles, I ended up being a good candidate.
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I always love to hear people's stories and their journeys.
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So when you were sworn in in 2023, as you mentioned, after you were appointed by President Biden and confirmed in the Senate, you took an oath to protect and uphold the U.S. Constitution.
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And I'm wondering if you could talk a little bit about how you lived out that oath as archivist and also how you articulate the Constitution's significance currently.
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Well, I take that oath very seriously, and I took it several times because you take that oath of office no matter what position you are entering into federal service.
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I actually started my federal service in the United States Senate many years ago, and every new place that you work, you take the oath again, including at the Women's Suffrage Commission.
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And this last time that I took the oath, though, publicly, I took it at the National Archives, and Chief Justice Roberts swore me in.
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And I was so, I don't know, like proud of the fact that he swore me in, so enamored by the fact that the chief justice swore me in that I got the oath from him, which he used, and he signed it for me.
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And I hung that in my office.
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And I now have it in my office at home, framed and sitting there.
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I look at it every day.
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So I never forget that oath of office.
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I think it's really important.
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Because when you look at that oath, as you said, you don't swear to uphold the office of the presidency or Congress or any particular branch of government or any particular elected official.
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You're swearing to uphold the Constitution, the principles of the Constitution.
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That is your oath.
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focus and priority.
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And for me, I would say in a day-to-day basis at the National Archives, what that meant was underscoring the importance of the rule of law.
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And a lot of people, you shouldn't be surprised.
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I mean, any agency that you run, there's many laws that govern that agency.
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There's many authorizing laws that govern how you operate that agency.
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And I'm not a lawyer by training, but I had good lawyers that worked for me.
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And I was very focused on when decisions came to me about records or decisions came to me about how to operate the agency or what priorities.
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For me, I went back to the law and would have dialogues with my senior staff about what I could do and, of course, what I was supposed to do.
00:16:33
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And I think that's really important because the whole premise of the agency, the National Archives, once again goes back to nonpartisanship, is premised upon the idea that the archivist will serve in a nonpartisan capacity.
NARA's Mission and Accessibility
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And what that meant to me was that who I had to really listen to was the law that was before me.
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And I had to have that as my guidance.
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And of course, the constitution being the encapsulation of the rule of law
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for the United States and what it enables us to do and the rules of the game, not necessarily the principles of government as that's more than the declaration, but then how we execute upon those principles.
00:17:18
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I'm feeling a little bit emotional, just obviously, I mean, as someone who's a lawyer and who works on these issues, just hearing you talk about the seriousness of the oath and of the responsibilities to uphold the law.
00:17:31
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You know, I was very moved by an interview you did with Stand Together, where you talked about how you visited the Declaration of Independence every day, literally, the physical document.
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And I'm wondering if you could talk a little bit about why having physical...
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or digital access to these documents is so critical to our democracy?
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Because I could see how someone might say, oh, yeah, I've seen that before, you know, or.
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Yes, I think it's incredibly important.
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And I think the way you phrased it is important as well, physical and digital, because some people are very focused on the physical, which is important.
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But we know that not everybody can travel to the National Archives in Washington, D.C.
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for many different reasons.
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Not everybody can afford to do that.
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Not everybody has the accessibility to be able to do that.
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So we are blessed today in the United States that we're able to have the technology to be able to have digital recreations or digital copies of many of these records, including the Declaration of Independence, that we can share with everyone, all
00:18:40
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US citizens can see a great digital copy of the Declaration of Independence online if they can't come to the National Archives in person.
00:18:48
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But since I worked there, and most days in Washington, DC, I traveled around a lot as archivist, but the days that I was working in the National Archives facility where the Declaration of Independence is housed, I would go out.
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And a lot of times I went in the morning
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I would take a few minutes and without doubt, and I would walk over to the Rotunda and it was only about a two or three minute walk from my office.
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And I didn't take anybody with me.
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I just like to go by myself.
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And if there was a group there, then I was obviously respectful of that.
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But most of the time there wasn't.
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And I like to go over and talk to the security guards who were there and then just spend a few minutes thinking about it because it reminded me why I
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had taken the job in the first place, why I wanted the job and why this was an important job, because these are the principles of the United States.
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It's our creed in the United States, for the lack of a better word.
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It's something that as Americans, we should all agree upon.
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Now we can differ on how we apply those principles.
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And that's really what politics is all about.
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And that's how the constitution negotiates
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and mediates those disputes about how we apply those principles.
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But these are the principles that make us Americans.
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And I took that very, very seriously.
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So much so that, you know, the Declaration is quite faded today because it was exposed to the elements, particularly light for many, many decades, not when it was at the National Archives, but when it was in previous locations in Washington, D.C.
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And because of that, it's when you look at it, it's very, you can see the signatures, but it's very hard to actually read the document.
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If you want to read, you know, that those first couple of paragraphs that are so important.
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I expressed this, I knew this, but I expressed this after I became the archivist.
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And so what we did was take a copy of the declaration, which was made in the 1830s, actually did more damage to the declaration, unfortunately, because
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It created a template of the declaration and probably removed some of the ink in order to create that template.
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But then because we have that template, we have an exact replica in order to be able to make exact copies of the declaration.
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And so we took a copy of that version of the declaration and we blew it up to be really, really big.
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I mean, a really big version of it.
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And we hung it right outside of the rotunda.
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so that people could see the declaration even before they walked into the rotunda.
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And we put a little explanatory text underneath it saying, hey, basically, this is a copy of the Declaration of Independence.
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We blew it up so that you can stand here and read it, so that you can understand these principles.
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And when I would come and walk around, you know, at lunch, I usually took a little walk around the building to see how many people were there that day and
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and to talk to a lot of our staff that were working on the floor that day, I would always see visitors standing in front of that enlarged copy of the declaration.
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And sure enough, they were reading it.
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So it served its purpose.
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And I encourage all Americans, even if you can't go see the declaration in person, pull it up online from the National Archives website and actually read it and think about what it means to you and what it means to be an American.
00:22:29
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And I'm thinking as I hear you talk that perhaps in our episode notes, we can put a link to the declaration so people can have access when they're listening to you talk.
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I was ready to quote you back to you, but you already said what I was going to ask about, which is the declaration is our nation's creed.
00:22:46
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And then a number of times you have written about how, even though the truths are self-evident, they are not self-executing, which really struck me.
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And so I was hoping that you could talk a little bit about the distinction between those two things.
Jefferson's Principles and Democratic Vigilance
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So of course Jefferson asserts that these truths that he talks about or principles in the document are self-evident.
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So they should be apparent to all rational people, right?
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Of course he's a product of the enlightenment and so that's the epitome of the enlightenment.
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But he's also, Jefferson, a great student of social contract theorists and particularly John Locke.
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And we know this, that
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Even though we are endowed with these rights by our creator or by nature's God, we are in a state of nature in which we have to appeal to government in order to protect those rights.
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And since we are living in a democratic government in the United States, it is our job to be vigilant to make sure that the government indeed is holding up its end of the bargain and is protecting and
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those rights that are self-evident.
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So we have to stand up because we were in a democracy.
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We have to stand up for ourselves because we are in control ultimately of that government.
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It is not self-executing if we just let it go on autopilot, you know, you know, like a cruise control that you can put on your car when you're driving, you know, down the highway or the freeway and there's no cars in sight so that you can kind of relax if you're on a long road trip.
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We cannot put ourselves on cruise control in a democracy because ultimately we are responsible for making sure that government is protecting those rights.
00:24:36
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Thank you.
00:24:37
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I want to now ask you a question which I imagine you've been asked many times before.
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And it's a question that I'm often asked when I go and facilitate conversations and workshops about the First Amendment, which is that even though the language of the charters of freedom, which I learned preparing for this, that charters of freedom include the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and the Bill of Rights, even though the language is so sweeping and stirring,
00:25:00
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Many groups, including women and people of color, were not counted for the purposes of these documents.
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And we celebrate and revere them in spite of their significant limitations and omissions.
00:25:12
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And I would like to know, how do you address this tension when you discuss our founding documents, especially today when we have such a pluralistic society?
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I think that the principles or the truths that are in the Declaration of Independence, I view them as promises.
00:25:33
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I don't view them as, you know, just because Jefferson and his co-authors from the Declaration, because he did have some help from Ben Franklin, John Adams, and others, just because they asserted it back in 1776 and they aspired to
00:25:50
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these ideals did not mean obviously in any way, shape or form that they were in existence, that they were a reality then or for a very long time.
00:26:02
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And I would argue still today.
00:26:04
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So what we think about the American experiment, what is the American experiment for me?
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It is about the fulfillment of the promises that were made in the Declaration of Independence.
00:26:18
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We are certainly further along on those promises than we were 250 years ago, but we're not done yet.
00:26:25
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Remember the phrase in the Constitution is a more perfect union.
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And that's a really curious formulation, you know, that phrase.
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I think about it all the time.
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It's not a perfect union.
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It is a more perfect union.
00:26:38
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And when you think about that, how is something that's more perfect?
00:26:41
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I mean, how could that anything ever be more perfect?
00:26:44
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It doesn't, you know, in some ways doesn't make a lot of sense.
00:26:46
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What it means is the government always must be in motion to try to achieve something that is more perfect.
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So even if we think we're done and we've achieved all there is to achieve from a perspective of the fulfillment of liberalism or rights-based government, in actuality, our framers of our constitution are saying, no, you're not.
00:27:09
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You're not there yet.
00:27:10
Speaker
It's always got to keep going.
00:27:12
Speaker
It's a perpetual cycle.
00:27:14
Speaker
And as archivist, I really thought a lot about this because I spent a lot of time in the rotunda.
00:27:19
Speaker
Like I said, it was my favorite place and I went there a lot.
00:27:22
Speaker
And I looked around that rotunda and only been there for a few months.
00:27:27
Speaker
And I realized we had an anniversary coming up, the 250th anniversary of the United States.
00:27:32
Speaker
So one of my earliest announcements as archivist was after checking with our people that are preservationists and conservationists at the National Archives,
00:27:44
Speaker
I made an announcement that we were gonna be adding the Emancipation Proclamation to the Rotunda for 2026, because there was gonna have to be a lot of work done to get the document ready.
00:27:56
Speaker
And we'd also gonna have to raise money for a state-of-the-art case that could match the casing for the other charters of freedom.
00:28:04
Speaker
And then about a year later, I went on 60 Minutes and I announced we were gonna add the 19th Amendment to the Rotunda.
00:28:10
Speaker
Of course, the amendment
00:28:12
Speaker
that enables women to vote in this country, prevents discrimination for voting on the basis of sex.
00:28:20
Speaker
And when I think of those two together, along with our declaration and our constitution and the Bill of Rights, I feel like that is, it's not the whole story of American history.
00:28:30
Speaker
It's not the whole story of the 250 years, but those are two great examples of how we have moved forward to try to fulfill the promises
00:28:41
Speaker
in the Declaration of Independence.
00:28:44
Speaker
And Lincoln was a great, right?
00:28:47
Speaker
Lincoln was the great articulation of the Declaration of Independence, of the principles in the Declaration of Independence.
00:28:53
Speaker
He viewed the Declaration as our most important document.
00:28:57
Speaker
And it kind of always bothered me that we didn't have any representation of Lincoln in the Rotunda.
00:29:02
Speaker
And so the Emancipation Proclamation brings the conversation of Lincoln into the Rotunda.
00:29:08
Speaker
And then of course, the 19th Amendment
00:29:11
Speaker
was the largest single enfranchisement in American history.
00:29:15
Speaker
So in some ways, the largest extension of the most important right in a democracy, which is, of course, the right to vote.
00:29:23
Speaker
And so that made sense to me to add that document as well.
00:29:26
Speaker
And I can't report this because I check in every once in a while, but those, I raised the money successfully for both of those cases for the Emancipation Proclamation and the 19th Amendment.
00:29:36
Speaker
They were actually
00:29:38
Speaker
purchased and ordered when I was still archivist of the United States.
00:29:41
Speaker
And as far as I know, that is proceeding.
00:29:44
Speaker
So those two documents will be on permanent display starting in early 2026 at the National Archives, joining the other three charters of freedom, I think, for their rightful place for display and reflection.
00:30:00
Speaker
That's incredible.
00:30:01
Speaker
And you anticipated where I was going, which was to ask if that's still the plan.
00:30:05
Speaker
And I'm glad to hear that it is.
00:30:07
Speaker
And I will be in D.C.
00:30:09
Speaker
in early 2026.
00:30:10
Speaker
And I will get online as soon as I can to see how one gets to see those editions.
00:30:17
Speaker
So I want to move a little bit from sort of the more kind of aspirational to a little more of sort of the brass tax, which is, you know, every year, I'm sure you're aware, the Annenberg Public Policy Center at the University of Pennsylvania conducts a civics knowledge survey to mark Constitution Day.
00:30:34
Speaker
And in their most recent survey, only 65% of U.S. adults surveyed could name all three branches of government,
00:30:41
Speaker
Only 7% could name all five First Amendment rights and only just over 50% knew which party controls each of the houses of Congress.
Civic Education Revitalization
00:30:50
Speaker
And so before we get to the part about how to improve civic knowledge and we're headed there, I'd like to hear your thoughts on kind of how did we get here?
00:30:59
Speaker
It's a great question.
00:31:00
Speaker
It's a complicated question.
00:31:02
Speaker
And you probably would ask different people.
00:31:03
Speaker
They might have different answers.
00:31:05
Speaker
I think a good chunk of it is that there was a focus starting in the 1990s or so on what is called STEM education, science, technology, and math education.
00:31:22
Speaker
And for good reason, because the test scores were really bad for American kids comparatively when compared to other countries, the youth in other countries.
00:31:31
Speaker
So for the future of the United States and to continue having
00:31:35
Speaker
an advantage in science and math and technology.
00:31:39
Speaker
There was a concerted effort really on many, many different levels in order to enhance science and math education.
00:31:48
Speaker
So it's certainly at the federal level with no child left behind, but also at state level and localities.
00:31:56
Speaker
And there was a lot of philanthropic support for this as well.
00:32:00
Speaker
So when you look at how kids spent their time, right, in classrooms,
00:32:05
Speaker
the shift went a lot had to go towards science and math because there was this focus on it.
00:32:13
Speaker
And there's only, I mean, you know, time is finite.
00:32:16
Speaker
It's like money, you know, you can't create more of it.
00:32:20
Speaker
So there's a scarcity.
00:32:22
Speaker
And we know that social sciences, civics, history, those types of classes
00:32:31
Speaker
did suffer as far as the amount of time spent in a given week, let's just say, in the classroom.
00:32:38
Speaker
I read one statistic recently that elementary students, they took a survey and K through five, so elementary students, are spending right now, most of them, 30 minutes or less on social sciences in a given week.
00:32:54
Speaker
And you'd say, well, it's not so important for K through five not to be getting education in social sciences or civics, the basics of citizenship.
00:33:03
Speaker
And I would say, oh, it is.
00:33:05
Speaker
And I actually think that we should really focus on K through five, because if we don't have those discussions and those teachings with kids at the youngest age when they're in school, it's going to be very, very difficult to then start those discussions in middle school and in high school.
00:33:24
Speaker
So that's a large problem.
00:33:25
Speaker
And then I think the other thing is that there wasn't as much emphasis on providing good resources and training for teachers that did teach civics or history education.
00:33:42
Speaker
There was an emphasis on making sure, you can imagine someone that teaches, let's say chemistry in high school, they're probably gonna have had a science background of some sort when they went to college
00:33:54
Speaker
or they have some sort of science education background and training that they have taken, and they may continue that training in order to be able to teach chemistry.
00:34:03
Speaker
But we don't see those same, we haven't seen those same opportunities afforded to our teachers that teach civics and history.
00:34:13
Speaker
And I think that that deprioritization
00:34:17
Speaker
has been, you know, had large ramifications.
00:34:20
Speaker
And we've done this for now several decades, okay?
00:34:23
Speaker
So it's not just like we've done this for five years or 10 years.
00:34:27
Speaker
This has happened for several decades.
00:34:29
Speaker
And so that has compounded the problem.
00:34:32
Speaker
And I think that's where we're at today.
00:34:36
Speaker
I appreciate those perspectives.
00:34:38
Speaker
They're not ones that I have necessarily heard before, and they're very interesting.
00:34:42
Speaker
And now I'm going to ask you the million-dollar question, which is, what are some of the steps that we can take to engage educators and students in primary, secondary, and post-secondary education to reprioritize and further engage in a quote-unquote civics renaissance?
00:34:59
Speaker
And there I'm quoting you and John Bridglin, the CEO of MorePerfect.
00:35:05
Speaker
I think if, yes, and I don't actually, I can't remember if it was myself or John Bridgeland who came up with that word because we wrote that op-ed really synergistically with each other.
00:35:17
Speaker
I think it's a good term because that's exactly what we need.
00:35:21
Speaker
We need to have a groundswell.
00:35:22
Speaker
This isn't just going to be, oh, you know, we'll provide a few good resources to, you know, the teachers that are the ones that teach civics to our high school students.
00:35:34
Speaker
That's really not going to cut it.
00:35:36
Speaker
It's gotta be a national effort, not unlike what we saw for STEM education back in the late 80s, 90s, and the early 2000s.
00:35:44
Speaker
It's gotta be that same type of level of effort at the federal level, at the state level, and at the local level.
00:35:51
Speaker
And I think also at the philanthropic level.
00:35:55
Speaker
And I have seen a movement in the past couple of years recently where we have seen philanthropy
00:36:06
Speaker
really get behind the idea of civics education and bigger and bigger investments in organizations like the organization I work for, More Perfect, who has as one of its five democracy goals, universal civics education.
00:36:24
Speaker
So we need more funding and support for it.
00:36:27
Speaker
We need insistence on more training.
00:36:30
Speaker
for the teachers who actually engage in civics education needs to be taken seriously.
00:36:37
Speaker
And we also need to rely upon our colleges and universities.
00:36:41
Speaker
And we have seen movement at colleges and universities who are creating civic centers, schools of civic thought, and they're creating democracy centers or focuses across the United States in a lot of different areas, not just, you know, a school's private, public,
00:36:59
Speaker
we're seeing that type of a groundswell occur all over in higher education.
00:37:05
Speaker
One area that I haven't seen it at, which I think would be really important, is our community colleges.
00:37:10
Speaker
Because we know a lot of our college students today start their education in community colleges.
00:37:17
Speaker
And we oftentimes leave community colleges out of the equation.
00:37:23
Speaker
So if we're thinking about a place that we could really focus on,
00:37:27
Speaker
to help with either civics education courses or civics education curriculum or centers or dedicated faculty.
00:37:36
Speaker
One place I would say we have to think about is community colleges.
00:37:42
Speaker
That's really thoughtful and interesting.
00:37:46
Speaker
And I also just as someone who's very into speech and words, I really like the language you're using about a groundswell and a movement and a renaissance.
00:37:56
Speaker
To me, they're very empowering words where people can be part of it.
00:38:01
Speaker
And we're going to talk a little more about how, you know, towards the end of the episode, how individuals in the higher education space, which is where our listeners are, can be part of it.
00:38:11
Speaker
You know, you sort of, you mentioned more perfect and it's interesting because now that you've talked about a more perfect union, I feel I know a little more, I understand more about the actual name of the organization.
00:38:22
Speaker
But since you mentioned it, I think I'll turn to the fact that, you know, obviously I definitely don't want you to be telling me any state secrets, but I know that later today there will be an official public announcement of In Pursuit, which is the history-based civics initiative that you're leading from We're Perfect.
00:38:39
Speaker
And I'm wondering if you could just tell us a little bit about what the initiative is directed, who it's directed toward and what the goals are, and then we can kind of move from there.
00:38:48
Speaker
Absolutely.
00:38:49
Speaker
So this it is in pursuit is going to debut is debuting on Constitution Day, which is perfectly appropriate.
00:38:57
Speaker
And after I left the National Archives, I got a call from some of the leaders at More Perfect and said, we have this idea for this new history based civics initiative, but we don't have anybody to run it.
00:39:11
Speaker
Would you come over and run it?
00:39:13
Speaker
And, you know, at first I said, well,
00:39:15
Speaker
You know, I think I might take a few months off.
00:39:17
Speaker
And this has been, you know, a little bit of a stressful time.
00:39:20
Speaker
I think maybe a break is in order.
00:39:23
Speaker
And to their credit, they kept at me.
00:39:25
Speaker
And I got on a phone call and then I got on the Zoom.
00:39:28
Speaker
And before you know it, you know, I was agreeing that I was going to come on board to do this.
00:39:32
Speaker
But I'm really excited that I did because it is exciting.
00:39:36
Speaker
a perfect initiative for me to work on.
00:39:40
Speaker
So what in pursuit endeavors to do, of course, that comes from the Declaration of Independence, is to try to figure out, this is a really tall order, is to try to figure out how we can uncover and discover the most relevant lessons that we can learn from the past 250 years of American history.
00:40:00
Speaker
What can we learn from the past 250 years of the American experiment?
00:40:05
Speaker
or can we debrief the American experiment and think about it in a productive way?
00:40:12
Speaker
And you might say, well, that's, you know, that's very ambitious, but how are you going to do that?
00:40:16
Speaker
And in the first phase of this project, which will debut in starting in 2026 on President's Day in 2026 and run the entire length of our celebratory year, our 250th anniversary,
00:40:31
Speaker
We've asked some of the nation's most prominent public leaders, journalists, thinkers, historians to write short essays about our presidents and first ladies.
00:40:46
Speaker
And their assignment is very simple, but very challenging.
00:40:49
Speaker
We want them to uncover one lesson that is relevant to all Americans that we can learn
00:40:57
Speaker
from each of these public leaders.
00:40:59
Speaker
Only one lesson.
00:41:00
Speaker
Now you can't have multiple lessons, we're being very strict on that.
00:41:04
Speaker
One practical and relevant lesson we can learn from these people that were so influential in American history.
00:41:13
Speaker
And some of these lessons are going to be successes.
00:41:16
Speaker
Some of these lessons are going to be failures or responses to crises or challenges.
00:41:24
Speaker
but I think it's gonna be absolutely wonderful.
00:41:27
Speaker
Substack has come on as a partner for us and they're gonna help us disseminate these essays.
00:41:32
Speaker
They're gonna be very short.
00:41:33
Speaker
You're gonna be able to read them in one sitting in about 10 minutes.
00:41:37
Speaker
So only 1200 words.
00:41:39
Speaker
And I think that people are gonna be really excited about some of the parents we have.
00:41:43
Speaker
President Bush is gonna kick us off on President's Day and he's writing about George Washington.
00:41:49
Speaker
President Obama is writing about Abraham Lincoln.
00:41:53
Speaker
President Clinton on Teddy Roosevelt, Laura Bush on her fellow Texan, Lady Bird Johnson, Michelle Obama on something that may break the internet.
00:42:03
Speaker
I don't know.
00:42:03
Speaker
Michelle Obama on Jackie Kennedy, which I think a lot of people are going to want to read.
00:42:09
Speaker
And then Hillary Clinton, of course, on one of her heroes, Eleanor Roosevelt.
00:42:14
Speaker
And then we have a whole bunch of other people as well.
00:42:16
Speaker
Those are some of the highlights that I think people are going to love.
00:42:18
Speaker
But Chief Justice Roberts is part of the project.
00:42:21
Speaker
He's writing
00:42:22
Speaker
not surprisingly on William Howard Taft, you know, respected journalists like Judy Woodruff and David Brooks and historians, John Meacham, Annette Gordon-Reed, Richard Norton Smith.
00:42:35
Speaker
This is a nonpartisan project and we've deliberately picked people from across the political spectrum.
00:42:42
Speaker
And what we're trying to do is to also show Americans that history is not the third wheel.
00:42:49
Speaker
We can talk about history in a productive way.
00:42:52
Speaker
It does not have to be ideological.
00:42:54
Speaker
It does not have to be polarizing.
00:42:56
Speaker
And we're going to start a national conversation about American history and get people excited about learning about our history, both the successes and the failures of our history.
00:43:08
Speaker
And if you want to sign up, you can go to inpursuit.org.
00:43:12
Speaker
That's our website.
00:43:13
Speaker
It is live.
00:43:16
Speaker
And we will also have a page available on Substack.
00:43:19
Speaker
If you're a Substack subscriber, you can sign up there.
00:43:23
Speaker
All of these essays are going to be provided free of charge.
00:43:26
Speaker
And if you sign up, you will get them every week starting on President's Day 2026.
00:43:32
Speaker
I'm watching our producer and I know she's signing up right now.
00:43:35
Speaker
And I'm gonna do that as soon as we're done.
00:43:37
Speaker
First of all, your best problem would be that if you break the internet, having people rush to learn about the lessons of American history.
00:43:46
Speaker
So I honestly, I hope that's the case.
00:43:48
Speaker
And I also just wanted to say I love that you included first ladies.
00:43:51
Speaker
And I also really like that you've included not just successes, but failures, because I think that's such an important lesson of our country, but also to remind people that failing is part of learning and growing and how important that is.
00:44:05
Speaker
I also, as someone who's still kind of analog, I hope after the celebration, you compile them all into a book.
00:44:11
Speaker
Well, yes, that's coming.
00:44:13
Speaker
I was like, I can have you sign my copy of it, right?
00:44:16
Speaker
Yes, right, right.
00:44:17
Speaker
We're talking to publishers now, so I don't have anything that I can announce or share right now, but I think that we're very confident.
00:44:24
Speaker
This will also be provided as a book.
00:44:27
Speaker
That will probably be in 2027.
00:44:29
Speaker
OK, well, I'll preorder.
00:44:31
Speaker
So I want to take two of the things that you mentioned and sort of pull on them.
00:44:35
Speaker
One is to talk about one of More Perfect's other democracy goals that has to do with ready access to trusted news and information.
Preserving Local News and Nonpartisan Institutions
00:44:44
Speaker
And I want to talk about the challenges of working to meet this goal in light of the ongoing targeting of media that's been happening, including revoking funding for NPR and PBS.
00:44:56
Speaker
And how does More Perfect struggle with that and that goal?
00:45:02
Speaker
The way that More Perfect is addressing what we call a news desert crisis in this country, where there are areas of the country that because the
00:45:14
Speaker
Models are failing as far as local newspapers and local news, finding it very difficult to make that happen and be profitable for a lot of the changes that have gone on in how we get our information and how we learn about our information.
00:45:33
Speaker
Board Perfect is working with philanthropies and philanthropic organizations all across the country to really figure out what are the new models.
00:45:44
Speaker
that can be applied that can help save and preserve local news and in some ways possibly transform some of these local news outlets so that, yes, they're doing the same things that they did before, covering school board meetings, covering the town selectmen or mayor's races or whatever's
00:46:07
Speaker
you know, the school debates that are going on in a community, everything that would, the sports that are going on in the community, but also serving as community engagement mechanisms in a community as well.
00:46:19
Speaker
So fostering dialogue, so doing things even beyond what traditional local newspapers or local media outlets have been doing.
00:46:29
Speaker
And this is very important because as you said, we are seeing some of our trusted news sources that people have relied upon
00:46:37
Speaker
particularly at the local level, PBS, with the removal of funding for PBS, that's where it's going to have the most impact, PBS, not on the national level, but on the local level and the local level for NPR as well.
00:46:50
Speaker
So how can there be, in some cases, funding to come in to support some of these member stations so they can stay afloat?
00:46:57
Speaker
And in other cases,
00:46:59
Speaker
how can new models based upon philanthropy and really a bottom-up solution, how can they replace some of these news outlets so that we don't have local news deserts in the United States?
00:47:12
Speaker
Okay.
00:47:13
Speaker
Thank you.
00:47:14
Speaker
I certainly have an image now of, it kind of looks like Joshua Tree, but with news, right?
00:47:20
Speaker
But it's empty.
00:47:22
Speaker
Another thing I want to go back to, which you were talking about as you talked about in Pursuit, is about history and the importance of history.
00:47:30
Speaker
And you talked about this in that Hill piece that you and John Bridgeland wrote when you said, reductionism is the enemy of an educated democratic citizenry.
00:47:39
Speaker
And yet there's been a flood of state legislative attempts to control curriculum, especially with regard to teaching U.S. history, a movement to ban books in classrooms and libraries.
00:47:48
Speaker
And very recently, the president criticized the Smithsonian Institution, which is the world's largest museum, you know, education and research complex for, among other things, focusing too much on, quote, how bad slavery was, unquote.
00:48:00
Speaker
And I want to know if you can talk.
00:48:02
Speaker
I understand that your role is nonpartisan, but how does that happen when we're dealing with people who are attempting to use politics to influence the way that we teach American history?
00:48:16
Speaker
And how do we keep the political and the historical separate from one another?
00:48:20
Speaker
And I know this is a big and hard question.
00:48:23
Speaker
No, it's a relevant one.
00:48:25
Speaker
Absolutely.
00:48:26
Speaker
I believe very strongly
00:48:29
Speaker
that I can speak for the federal institutions because that's where I've had the most experience.
00:48:35
Speaker
But I view that there to be three institutions that are responsible for preserving and sharing our nation's history.
00:48:42
Speaker
And that is the Smithsonian Institution, of course, the Library of Congress and the National Archives.
00:48:49
Speaker
And there's many commonalities amongst those three institutions and there's many differences as well.
00:48:55
Speaker
But one of the things that they have in common is that all
00:48:58
Speaker
three of those institutions pride themselves on the fact that they are nonpartisan institutions.
00:49:06
Speaker
And that puts them aside deliberately in how they were created, how they were structured to keep them apart and insulated from political or partisan influence.
00:49:22
Speaker
You might say, well, why?
00:49:23
Speaker
I mean, why is that such a big deal?
00:49:26
Speaker
And I think the reason why it's such a big deal is that these institutions collectively, these three institutions are charged once again with preserving our nation's history.
00:49:38
Speaker
And they're there for all Americans, all Americans, no matter what your political beliefs are, your geographic, where you live, what your background is, they're there for all Americans.
00:49:50
Speaker
The only way they can be there for all Americans, that Americans can have confidence
00:49:55
Speaker
and what these institutions collectively do is if they remain a part and not influenced or not controlled by politics.
00:50:07
Speaker
So trust is a key component in everything that these three institutions do and how they operate.
00:50:14
Speaker
And if you don't have the public trust in the execution of that mission, then really the impact of these three institutions collectively
00:50:25
Speaker
greatly diminishes.
00:50:27
Speaker
So I would say it, I said it until I was literally blue in the face at the National Archives when I was the archivist.
00:50:34
Speaker
We are here at the National Archives for all Americans because we provide the records of the United States so that people can understand their history, but also so they can hold their government accountable for the decisions that were made.
00:50:50
Speaker
And the only way to preserve that accountability
00:50:54
Speaker
is if we remain nonpartisan and independent, strongly independent.
00:51:00
Speaker
So you see Secretary Lonnie Bunch of the Smithsonian talking a lot about the importance of the Smithsonian institutions independence.
00:51:11
Speaker
And that's why I think Secretary Bunch thinks this is such an important criteria
00:51:18
Speaker
for the Smithsonian and its continued vitality as an institution that preserves and shares our nation's history for us.
00:51:27
Speaker
That's a really important distinction.
00:51:29
Speaker
And I had never thought about how those three entities are really, like you said, independent in a different way than other federal agencies and institutions.
Empowering Through Civics Education
00:51:40
Speaker
I still am going to follow up, though, on one more question about sort of this idea of, is civics education nonpartisan?
00:51:47
Speaker
Because even though polling in the last couple of years has shown an increase in bipartisan support for civics,
00:51:54
Speaker
In our very politically polarized climate, there are some who argue that teaching about our government and encouraging citizens and individuals to learn, participate and vote is no longer a nonpartisan pursuit.
00:52:06
Speaker
Rather, it's a quote unquote liberal endeavor.
00:52:08
Speaker
And I think that's a very damaging claim.
00:52:12
Speaker
And I want to know how you respond to it, because sometimes perception can become reality for certain people.
00:52:20
Speaker
It's really, truly mind boggling to me because, you know, now I want to be clear in civics education, we are not telling people how to vote or what to think or what to believe or even, you know, in history education, you should not be telling students how to interpret history either.
00:52:42
Speaker
I mean, I know as archivists in the United States, my goal was to get as many records into the hands of the American people as possible.
00:52:49
Speaker
whether that was digitally in person, all the different ways we could showcase the records and make that a place where people felt welcome to come and learn about American history.
00:52:59
Speaker
Because I really wanted Americans to look at the records, learn about history, and then decide for yourself about what you think about various episodes or various challenges or various periods in American history.
00:53:12
Speaker
So we should never be giving people the answers
00:53:16
Speaker
in civics or history education.
00:53:18
Speaker
We should be providing them with the skills and the tools and the critical thinking skills to be able to operate as citizens and function as democratic citizens as they become adults and throughout their lives, providing them with that information.
00:53:36
Speaker
So that is not a partisan or a political endeavor in any way, shape or form.
00:53:43
Speaker
That is something that is good for the health of our continued democracy and the continued vitality of the republic in which we all live.
00:53:54
Speaker
So I fundamentally disagree with people who would say that.
00:53:58
Speaker
And I just I don't understand actually where they're coming from.
00:54:05
Speaker
I appreciate that answer.
00:54:06
Speaker
And I also appreciate how generous you've been with your time, especially with less than a week to go for actual Constitution Day.
00:54:14
Speaker
So as much as I could keep asking you questions, I will close it.
00:54:18
Speaker
And this is a question that we ask all of our guests.
00:54:22
Speaker
The idea is to leave our listeners with an action.
00:54:25
Speaker
It can be small, it can be large, that they can take towards progress, you know, to make progress on what we've talked about.
00:54:30
Speaker
And so I think on this, you know, Constitution Day 2025, what actions do you hope others in the higher education space might take to further civics education and further our democracy?
00:54:42
Speaker
Right.
00:54:43
Speaker
So I think it's a great question.
00:54:44
Speaker
I think that first, all your listeners, no matter what community you're part of, you can
00:54:51
Speaker
take steps to support your local or your university, libraries, archives, and museums, because these institutions, as we talked about here today in this podcast, these institutions are facing some challenging times.
00:55:09
Speaker
Yes, at the national level, but at all levels, we know there's threats to funding, there's threats to independence, there's threats to, as you alluded to earlier,
00:55:19
Speaker
the potential censorship or availability of books or resources at some of these places.
00:55:26
Speaker
And we need to be vocal and supportive at all levels.
00:55:31
Speaker
So yes, it's important to advocate at the national level and let your elected representatives know what your thoughts are, but it's also important at the local level and the community level, because that's where it starts.
00:55:44
Speaker
And that's very, very important.
00:55:46
Speaker
The other thing I would say is, I mean, I'll just,
00:55:49
Speaker
Give a shout out to a lot of our parents out there today and or people that are taking care of kids, whether that's other caregivers or grandparents or brothers or sisters or anyone else, godparents, all are included here.
00:56:07
Speaker
You know, take the opportunity, if you can, to talk to your kids about democracy and talk to your kids about what it means to be a citizen.
00:56:18
Speaker
We've had just, unfortunately, a terrible tragedy happen in the United States.
00:56:23
Speaker
If it's appropriate for your kids, talk to them about what that means as well.
00:56:29
Speaker
I was very lucky.
00:56:30
Speaker
I came from a first-generation college household.
00:56:33
Speaker
I was the first generation in my family to go to college.
00:56:36
Speaker
My parents were emphasized to me all the time the importance of what it means to be a citizen in a democracy, why it was important to be engaged as a citizen.
00:56:48
Speaker
why it was important to know what was going on.
00:56:50
Speaker
Now, of course, this was many, many years ago.
00:56:53
Speaker
So, you know, my parents would read the newspaper, like the paper newspaper that arrived on the doorstep every day, you know, or they watched the news on television.
00:57:02
Speaker
And we would talk about it when I had questions.
00:57:05
Speaker
And they took me to vote with them and explained to me why it was important to vote and why it was, my mother always said it was the duty and responsibility.
00:57:15
Speaker
for a citizen and a democracy to vote.
00:57:17
Speaker
And it was her duty to know, to understand who to vote for, to educate herself.
00:57:23
Speaker
So she knew when she went in the voting booth that she was making the choice that she felt was best.
00:57:29
Speaker
So I would urge, we want to rely upon all of the things that we talked about, our schools and our philanthropies and our nonprofits to be able to help us along the way.
00:57:42
Speaker
But I also want to urge parents and caregivers not to shy away from these conversations because, and I also have said this before, read the Declaration of Independence on the 4th of July.
00:57:53
Speaker
Before you go out to your barbecue, please have your parties and your barbecues that it's a day to celebrate.
00:57:59
Speaker
But I also urge parents to maybe read the first paragraph of the Declaration of Independence if you have age-appropriate kids and talk to them about what that means.
00:58:10
Speaker
as well, because we can't start too early and too often.
00:58:15
Speaker
Our democracy, like I said, these rights are self-evident, but they're not self-executing.
00:58:21
Speaker
This is where we can start to make sure that we ensure the vitality of our democracy for many, many years to come.
00:58:29
Speaker
Well, I'm very moved by how personal your story and experience of democracy is, and I imagine that
00:58:37
Speaker
Everybody who's listening can probably draw upon some aspect of how democracy has impacted them personally.
00:58:46
Speaker
I know certainly I am reflecting on certain things.
00:58:49
Speaker
And so I'm very appreciative of your perspective and your thoughts and of your hopefulness about where we've come as a country and where we can go.
Optimism for Democracy's Future
00:59:01
Speaker
And with that, I'll just ask if there's anything else you want to say.
00:59:04
Speaker
Thank you for inviting me to be on this podcast.
00:59:07
Speaker
And yeah, that's how I think I would like to end.
00:59:09
Speaker
I mean, I will say this to people, even given the events of recent days, I do remain an optimist about American democracy.
00:59:18
Speaker
I always say I'm bullish on the American experiment.
00:59:21
Speaker
And I hope we can take 2026 as a time to reflect upon the past 250 years and think about how what we've learned and how can we use those lessons
00:59:34
Speaker
to inform our present and to inform our future.
00:59:37
Speaker
We have the opportunity to do that next year, and I would urge as many people as possible on college campuses and all across the United States to take this seriously.
00:59:47
Speaker
And I will be out there doing it with you, absolutely.
00:59:50
Speaker
Well, out of tragedy, hopefully we can find opportunity.
00:59:53
Speaker
This was such a pleasure.
00:59:54
Speaker
Thank you again.
00:59:55
Speaker
Thanks, Michelle.
00:59:56
Speaker
Well, that's a wrap.
00:59:57
Speaker
Another big thank you to Colleen for joining us, sharing our insights, as well as for the exciting new initiative at More Perfect.
01:00:04
Speaker
Don't forget to head over to inpursuit.org to sign up for updates and stay connected.
01:00:09
Speaker
Next month, we'll dive into the growing number of First Amendment clashes unfolding between the administration and campuses across the country when we talk with William and Mary Law professor Timothy Zick.
01:00:20
Speaker
In the meantime, be sure to explore the center's latest fellowship research and sign up for one of our upcoming fellows in the field workshops.
01:00:27
Speaker
You won't want to miss the chance to learn more.
01:00:30
Speaker
Thank you for listening and we'll talk to you next time.