Over the summer, Purdue President and ex-Governor Mitch Daniels reentered the national spotlight for his attempts to force the works of historian Howard Zinn out of classrooms.  A series of emails requested by the Associated Press revealed that  Daniels referred to the then recently deceased historian as a “terrible anti-American academic.”  Beyond simply rejoicing in his death, the emails clearly show an attempt to remove the Zinn’s writings from any Indiana curriculum.

Is that nickname fitting? Not really.  Does that even matter?  Again the answer is no.

When Daniels makes the claim in his emails that Zinn’s most famous work, A People’s History of the United States, “misstates information on every page,” he does so without challenging a single specific idea. He also ignores the fact the book is just what what it says in the title, a history of individual people and their experiences in America. It’s worth noting of course that the American Historical Association came to Zinn’s defense, explaining that  Zinn’s sources were accurate but the conclusions he drew from them can be questioned in a meaningful dialogue.

Historian Howard Zinn passed away in 2010. Zinn can be seen here giving a speech in a photo from his official website.

None of this is to say that there isn’t disagreement about the material in question. A People’s History was written as a reaction to its contemporaries, so it shouldn’t particularly surprise anyone that people would have a response to something that made direct attempts to change the status quo. Moreover,  it shouldn’t be shocking that any book brought forth responses, that’s the nature of academia and will happen regardless of what was published.

More importantly, un-American  is not a real quality.  An idea neither can nor should be classified as un-American, especially not when it’s just to shut down people you disagree with.  To those most romantically inclined, “American” is all about a variety in ideas and values,  which is why throwing the phrase about in places of “things I disagree with,” makes so little sense.  It isn’t relevant if a writer like Zinn asks their audience to be critical about an element from America’s past, not when you should always prefer examining those issues in the first place.

The type of Cold War era thinking displayed here is exactly what we as members of the West Lafayette school community should be trying to avoid.  This happened next door to us.  We need to hold ourselves to a higher bar than that.  If we want to receive the best education possible, then we should focus on the places we as a students, teachers and people disagree.

Education is never equal to learning if we start the process afraid to discover something new.