 Dear Colleague Letter (2025) |
|
This letter, sent to the departments of education in all 50 states, summarizes the Trump administration's position on diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI). While the letter does not carry the force of law, it states that any institutions of higher education who do not comply with the administration's interpretation of existing nondiscrimination requirements may lose federal funding.
|
| Debt Recovery Act (1732) |
|
The Debt Recovery Act of 1732 was a British law that allowed enslaved people to be used as collateral for loans. This sharply contrasted the Spanish colonial policy that prevented enslaved people from being used as collateral.
|
| Defining Race & Lifelong Servitude in the Colonial Americas |
|
This module links Spanish colonial documents from the turn of the sixteenth century to British colonial innovations in the seventeenth and early-eighteenth centuries, demonstrating how European colonists developed a racialized hierarchy that justified the widespread enslavement of Africans and their descendants.
|
| Dorinda v. John Simonds Jr. (1826) |
|
In this case, an enslaved woman named Dorinda sued for her freedom in a Missouri court, claiming she had become free due to being taken to reside in Illinois for a time.
While her suit was pending, Dorinda wrote to her attorney with concerns that her enslaver had violated the court's order not to remove her from its jurisdiction. Her suit was eventually dismissed, and it is unknown whether she was able to obtain her freedom.
|
| Dred Scott v. Sandford (1857) |
|
Dred Scott was owned by Dr. John Emerson. Emerson took Scott into Wisconsin, a free state. While living in a free territory, Scott got married and had children, believing he and his family were free. He was later taken back to Missouri where he sued for his freedom. The case ultimately decided that black people could not sue in federal court, and Justice Robert B. Taney said that black people were never meant to be included in the body politic. Dred Scott was later central to the Lincoln-Douglas debates.
|
| Edward Gantt v. Thomas Baldwin (1836) |
|
This case centers on the whereabouts of a mixed race woman named Fanny who was enslaved by Edward Gantt. Gantt claimed that while aboard a steamboat captained by Thomas Baldwin, Fanny went missing. Gantt brought an action in trover against Baldwin to recover the monetary value of Fanny, $1,500. Witnesses deposed on behalf of Baldwin claimed that no such woman was ever on board, and also described the people of color who worked on the boat as well as those enslaved by passengers.
|
| Elective Franchise and Qualifications for Office (1887) |
|
This act passed by the Virginia General Assembly in 1887 places few restrictions on voting. Compare it to the act of 1902, which added literary and property ownership requirements meant to disenfranchise African Americans, resulting in entrenched Jim Crow segregation.
|
| Elective Franchise and Qualifications for Office (1902) |
|
This act passed by the Virginia General Assembly in 1902 contains literary and property ownership requirements for potential voters in an attempt to disenfranchise African Americans. Compare it to the 1887 act which placed few restrictions on voting. Application of statutes such as this one resulted in entrenched Jim Crow segregation.
|
| Emancipation Proclamation (1863) |
|
The Emancipation Proclamation was a wartime measure that freed the enslaved people in territories occupied by confederate forces. Given by President Abraham Lincoln on January 1, 1863, the document represents the first step in ending American slavery by declaring those enslaved within confederate territories free and protected by the United States military.
|
| Emmanuel Downing to John Winthrop (1645) |
|
Downing's letter to Winthrop shows changing colonial attitudes to race and practices of enslavement.
|
| Enforcement Act of 1870 |
|
The Enforcement Act of 1870 was enacted to enforce the 15th Amendment during Reconstruction. It explicitly prohibited the use of terror, force, or disguise to violate a voter's constitutional right. This law was intended to protect the voting rights of Black Americans and penalize state officials and violent groups like the Ku Klux Klan who interfered.
|
| Enforcement Act of 1871 |
|
The Enforcement Act of 1871 revised the Enforcement Act of 1870 to further protect Black Americans' right to vote and hold office. It added more severe punishments to those who violated the constitutional rights of Black Americans. This act specifically called for federal oversight of national elections and empowered federal judges and marshals to supervise local polling places.
|
| Equal Protection, Reconstruction, and the Meaning of the 14th Amendment |
|
This teaching module discusses the 14th Amendment and the implications of equal protection under the law, featuring a webinar with Kate Masur, author of the 2021 book, Until Justice Be Done: America's First Civil Rights Movement, from the Revolution to Reconstruction.
|
| Executive Order 10925 - Establishing the President's Committee on Equal Employment Opportunity (1961) |
|
This executive order by President John F. Kennedy directed government contractors to use affirmative action to ensure people of any "race, creed, color, or national origin" were given equal treatment and opportunity for employment. This executive order also established the President's Committee on Equal Employment Opportunity.
|
| Executive Order 11246 - Equal Employment Opportunity (1965) |
|
This executive order by President Lyndon B. Johnson created equal opportunity for federal employment and contracts, ending discrimination on race, creed, color, or national origin.
|
| Executive Order 11246 - Equal Employment Opportunity (1965) |
|
This executive order enacted by President Lyndon B. Johnson was repealed by a January 2025 executive order from Donald Trump. The original order was written to ensure equal opportunity in government employment and limit discrimination based on race. It required employers to furnish documentation of nondiscriminatory practices upon request.
|
| Executive Order 11478 - Equal Employment Opportunity in the Federal Government (1969) |
|
This executive order from President Richard Nixon ensured the continuation of affirmative action and increased directives to limit discrimination in the workplace. Nixon added that this order intends to prevent discrimination based on sex as well as race.
|
| Executive Order 12432 - Minority Business Enterprise Development (1983) |
|
This executive order from President Ronald Reagan sought to protect minority business owners and provide regulations to prevent discrimination. This was one of a series of executive orders to ensure affirmative action issued by every president across the second half of the twentieth century.
|
| Executive Order 14151 - Ending Radical And Wasteful Government DEI Programs And Preferencing (2025) |
|
This executive order by President Donald Trump directs the Office of Management and Budget to terminate all mandates, policies, programs, preferences, and activities relating to diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility. It also requires federal agencies to report a list of all employees in DEI positions within 60 days. As a result, these employees were terminated.
|
| Executive Order 14173 - Ending Illegal Discrimination and Restoring Merit-Based Opportunity (2025) |
|
This executive order by President Donald Trump takes aim at diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility initiatives in private institutions, especially institutions of higher education receiving federal funding. It also revokes several longstanding executive orders related to equal employment opportunity and affirmative action.
|
| Fugitive Slave Act of 1793 |
|
The Fugitive Slave Act of 1793 gave power to Article IV Section 2 Clause 3 of the Constitution that stated slave owners were allowed to recover escaped slaves. The Fugitive Slave Act required anyone who found a fugitive to return them, across state lines to the slave owner. It put fugitive slaves at risk of recapture for the rest of their lives. This fugitive slave policy was later superseded by the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850.
|
| Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 |
|
The Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 was a part of the Compromise of 1850. The act addressed weaknesses in previous fugitive slave acts by penalizing officials who did not aid in returning escaped slaves. The Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 rendered Habeas Corpus irrelevant.
|
| George Quander versus the Law (1897-1908) |
|
George Quander was the nephew of Felix Quander. Like his uncle, George had run-ins with Fairfax County officials, culminating in 1908, when he was shot and killed by a deputy sheriff serving a warrant. The Alexandria Gazette is unsympathetic in its coverage of George Quander's encounters with the court, its officers, and the racist white citizens of Fairfax County.
|
| Gradual Abolition Laws, Race, and Freedom in the Early Republic |
|
This module highlights the complexities of gradual abolition legislation in the Early Republic, focusing on a lawsuit to reestablish the freedom of an African American teenager from New York City named John Johnson. Johnson's experience demonstrates the new opportunities and distinct challenges that gradual abolition laws created for African Americans.
|
| I Did Not Want to Go: An Enslaved Woman's Leap into the Capital's Conscience (2015) |
|
This essay details the ordeal of Anna, or Ann Williams, a victim of human trafficking in antebellum Washington, D.C. The essay also offers an analysis of the evolution of her narrative during the nineteenth century.
|