'Sanctioned Ignorance': The Assaults on Free Speech, Freedom of Thought, and Cultural Institutions in the United States

In the organizer's words:

In his keynote address, David Blight (Yale University) will place in historical context the many attacks by the Trump administration and their allies on historical practice in universities, museums, and at public historical sites. The title derives from Toni Morrison's Nobel Prize speech in 1993, where she warned about "statist control" of language, thought, and especially history. What is occurring in America is censorship of various kinds, open and subtle. It has affected the free press, the presentation of history and broader cultural and scientific knowledge in classrooms, museums, and in the public square. Many efforts are underway to combat these assaults but often with meager resources. But we have not lost the fight. Even as a great deal of damage has already been inflicted upon institutions and individual careers, it is no small task to seize control of a nation's heritage, history, and the creation of knowledge.

This keynote address is part of the Bavarian American Academy annual conference. The 24th BAA Conference will take place from Thursday, July 09, 2026, through Saturday, July 11, 2026, at the Amerikahaus under the theme "Free Speech: Promises, Meanings, Controversies."

About the Speaker:

David W. Blight is Sterling Professor of History and Director of the Gilder Lehrman Center for the Study of Slavery, Resistance, and Abolition at Yale University. In 2020, Yale President Peter Salovey appointed him as chair of the Yale and Slavery Working Group. With his Working Group colleagues, Blight authored the book Yale and Slavery: A History, a narrative study of Yale's historical involvement and associations with slavery and its aftermaths, published by Yale University Press in February of 2024. He is the immediate past president of the Organization of American Historians (2024-2025). Blight previously taught at North Central College in Illinois, Harvard University, and Amherst College. He is the author or editor of a dozen books, including Frederick Douglass: Prophet of Freedom; American Oracle: The Civil War in the Civil Rights Era; Race and Reunion: The Civil War in American Memory; and annotated editions of Douglass's first two autobiographies. He has worked on Douglass much of his professional life, and been awarded the Pulitzer Prize, the Bancroft Prize, the Abraham Lincoln Prize, and the Frederick Douglass Prize, among others. He frequently writes for the popular press, including the Atlantic, the New York Times, and many other journals. In 2020 David Blight was elected to the American Philosophical Society and awarded the Gold Medal for History by the American Academy of Arts and Letters.

Please register via following link: https://eveeno.com/227257905.

The event will be livestreamed on YouTube. Please note that no registration is necessary for watching the livestream.

Organizer: Bavarian American Academy

Partners: Melior Foundation, Friedrich Naumann Foundation, Thomas Dehler Foundation

Price information:

Admission is free.