Ignorance of history and civics, long neglected, is helping Trump push autocracy | Opinion

You reap what you sow is a theme running throughout the Bible. It also serves as a reminder today that how and what we teach our students about American government and history will either come back to serve us well as they mature into responsible citizens, or it will wreak destruction on the civic tapestry that holds together a democracy.

The latter seems our present course. From where I sit, we are failing at the job of educating a citizenry that can support and defend our democracy.

State legislatures across the nation, controlled by the far right, are removing courses and studies that document our history, the good and the bad. Any discussion of our slave-holding past, for example, is now off-limits and described as “critical race theory,” even though most legislators who throw the term around have no idea what they’re talking about. Their objective is simply to remove any mention of the most despicable deeds of some of our forebearers.

The far right is not the only culprit in cleansing the university and high school curriculum of history and government courses. The professoriate across America has dumbed down the general studies curriculum in college, usually offered in the first two years of the undergraduate experience.

For example, Brown University’s Open Curriculum allows students to wander across the curriculum with no required courses, claiming it allows students to tailor their education to their interests. So much for the traditional Ivy League education, and Brown is hardly alone in catering to students’ personal interests instead of requiring an education deemed essential for the functioning of a democracy.

A survey conducted by the American Council of Trustees and Alumni in 2000 found that four out of five college seniors tested from the top 55 colleges and universities in the United States received a grade of D or F on history questions drawn from a basic high school curriculum. A follow-up student survey released in 2024 found that 72% of students did not know that the 13th Amendment was the action that ended slavery and that 77% of students did not know that the Gettysburg Address is the source of the phrase, “Government of the people, by the people, for the people.” ACTA’s analysis of core curriculum requirements at over 1,100 liberal arts colleges and universities also found that only 19% of these institutions require a single foundational course in United States history or government.

As a university president, I witnessed the dumbing down of the general studies curriculum as history and government were tossed out in favor of what I called pop sociology or pop psychology courses. Faculty and administrators finally responded by reorganizing general studies to deliver more rigor, but I have not followed how it measures up to criticisms that students have been left wandering in the desert with no requirements in history or government.

It’s not just a problem to be solved at the university level. High schools must also introduce students to the fundamentals of government and American history. Too many high schools have fallen into the same trap as colleges and universities, moving away from the basics and introducing students to popular subjects and issues far removed from coursework that teaches about democracy.

Here’s a challenge for school district boards: Have a conversation about the curriculum’s coverage of civics and history.

Required coursework critical for the success of future citizens in comprehending and protecting our democracy from those who commandeer our federal government and ignore fundamental guardrails like the rule of law and due process is essential if we are to hold these charlatans responsible for trashing democratic practices.

President Donald Trump talks daily about his unlimited power by virtue of a mandate he thinks he received, first ignoring it wasn’t much of a mandate and then completely ignoring the constitutional checks and balances that protect Americans against a tyrannical takeover of the federal government.

Equally ignorant of the basic foundations of American democracy are millions of voters who never come close to a course in American government or American history either in high school or college. It is no wonder we witness daily the excesses of the executive branch of government with so many Americans incapable of understanding the checks and balances that protect us from tyranny and, therefore, unwilling to banish the culprits from public office.

In the vernacular, too many Americans are just plain ignorant when it comes to the operation of our democracy. Charlie Sykes, commentator and author of the Substack newsletter “To the Contrary,” was reminded by one of his followers of Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s writing while in prison before he was executed by the Nazis for failing to conform to Hitler’s ruthless regime.

“Stupidity is a more dangerous enemy of the good than malice. One may protest against evil; it can be exposed and, if need be, prevented by use of force. Evil always carries within itself the germ of its own subversion in that it leaves behind in human beings at least a sense of unease. Against stupidity we are defenseless.”

With all due respect to Bonhoeffer, Americans are not defenseless to the lies and distortions that Trump feeds daily to anyone who will listen. It will require boards of trustees of our universities and colleges and high school districts to override curriculum decisions that do not include the education of a responsible citizenry. Faculty have objected to state legislatures that have rewritten American history to exclude any coverage of slavery or oppression of minorities, but they do not go far enough.

They must also address the challenge of assuring that the curriculum teaches its young citizens how our democracy works. Whether it’s a high school, community college or a four-year college or university, the study of history and government must be taken more seriously if America is to wrest control of its government from oligarchs and tyrants who prey on the ignorant, ill-equipped to understand the basic obligations of citizenship in a democracy.

Trump’s cuts to higher education grants are freaking out universities and colleges, and distracting them from looking inward and laying the groundwork for the long run, the coursework that will rectify the miserable results of students tested on history and government. A recent Trump executive order, entitled “Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History,” rewrites American history to erase slavery of our past, wars against Native Americans, America’s own brush with Nazism in the 1930’s and so much more students must learn so we never repeat.

Are required courses in history and government likely to build a stronger foundation of support for our democracy? Are they the silver bullets likely to move the needle toward a better understanding of how democracy works and how it must be practiced by our elected officials? That will only be known once we improve our young citizens’ grasp of democratic principles that tests show are missing from their coursework. A democracy cannot expect to protect itself against tyrannical behavior if its citizens are ignorant of the underpinnings of democracy and, therefore, clueless as to how to defend our United States Constitution.

The Bible has it right. You reap what you sow. If we fail to sow the seeds of democracy as our educational institutions have done to date, the ground in our nation’s capital and the states as well will remain fallow, incapable of sustaining a democracy, and its schools will graduate students who can offer little or no defense against autocratic rule.

This story was originally published April 6, 2025 at 4:00 AM.