CURRICULUM VITAE1/2006
JAMES W.LOEWEN
ADDRESS:4116 13th Pl. NE
Washington, DC 20017
(202) 269-6655
CONTENTS OF VITA:
Personal Data 2
Educational Background 2
Positions Held 2
Awards 3
Multicultural Education: Mississippi: Conflict and Change 4
Studies of American History Education 5
Other Publications, Consultations, and Presentations on
Multicultural Education12
Studies of American Public History 13
Publications, Consultations, and Presentations
on Standardized Testing15
Publications, Consultations, and Presentations on School and
Residential Desegregation 17
Consultations, Testimony, and Presentations on
Civil Rights and Discrimination20
Publications on Voting Rights 22
Publications, Consultations, Presentations on Race Relations 23
Publications, Consultations, Presentations on Law and Social Science 25
Publications on Visitation Fathering 26
Additional Publications, Consultations, and Presentations27
PERSONAL DATA
Born: February 6, 1942, Decatur, Illinois. Citizenship: United States.
Health: Good.
EDUCATIONAL BACKGROUND
Undergraduate education: B.A., 1964, cum laude, with distinction in sociology, Carleton College, Northfield, MN, minors in psychology and American history. One term of junior year in "independent study" at Mississippi State University.
Graduate education: M.A., 1967; Ph.D., 1968; Harvard University, sociology (Department of Social Relations).
POSITIONS HELD
Assistant Professor to associate professor of sociology, Tougaloo College, 1968-1975, tenured. Chair, Department of Sociology-Anthropology, 19691972. Chair, Social Science Division, 19721974.
Assistant Professor, Harvard University, summer, 1969.
Adjunct Professor, Millsaps College, 19691974.
Associate Professor of Sociology, University of Vermont, 19751983, tenured.
Director of Research, Center for National Policy Review, 19781980.
Visiting Professor of Sociology, La Trobe University, Melbourne, Australia, 1981.
Professor of Sociology, University of Vermont, 198397, emeritus, 1997.
Senior Postdoctoral Fellow, Smithsonian Institution, 1990-1991, 1993, 1997-2002.
Visiting Professor of Sociology, Catholic University of America, 1997-.
AWARDS
Distinguished Teacher Award, Tougaloo College, 19701971 and 19721973.
NSF Postdoctoral Fellowship in Science Applied to Societal Problems, 1975.
Lillian Smith Award for Best Southern Nonfiction, 1975, for Mississippi: Conflict and Change (coauthored by Charles Sallis).
First annual Sydney Spivack Award, American Sociological Association, for sociological research applied to the field of intergroup relations, 1978.
Fulbright Fellowship to Australia, 1981, to study and teach law and race relations.
Senior Postdoctoral Fellow, Smithsonian Institution, 1990-1991, 1993, and 1997-2000, for research on the sociology of American history.
American Book Award, 1996, for Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your High School History Textbook Got Wrong (from the Before Columbus Foundation)
Oliver Cromwell Cox Award for Distinguished Anti-Racist Scholarship, 1996, for Lies My Teacher Told Me (from the American Sociological Association, Section on Racial and Ethnic Relations)
Critics Choice Award, 1996, for Lies My Teacher Told Me (from the American Educational Studies Association).
Distinguished Lecturer, Organization of American Historians (OAH), 2002.
Outstanding Book for 2005, Gustavus Myers Center for the Study of Bigotry and Tolerance, for Sundown Towns.
MULTICULTURAL EDUCATION: MISSISSIPPI: CONFLICT AND CHANGE
In the early 1970's I led an effort to write an accurate history of the state of Mississippi, owing to the inaccuracies of thenavailable materials and their dismal effect on students. The result amounted to the multicultural history of the state.
Mississippi: Conflict and Change (New York: Pantheon Books, 1974, with coauthors). This book, called by Lawrence Goodwyn "the best history of an American state I have ever seen," won the Lillian Smith Award for Best Southern Nonfiction of 1975. It was rejected for publicschool text use by the State of Mississippi, leading to the lawsuit described below.
Lead plaintiff in lawsuit, Loewen et al.v.Turnipseed, et al. (488 F.Supp. 1138), filed in 1975, finally won in 1980. This lawsuit involved three school systems, teachers, parents, and schoolchildren, as well as the two senior authors; we sued the Mississippi State Textbook Board and its Rating Committee on First Amendment and Fourteenth Amendment grounds; as a result the state was ordered to adopt our text book for six years beginning in 1980 and make it available to all districts choosing to use it during that time. I coordinated the recruitment and preparation of expert witnesses for this trial, who included an anthropologist, professor of Southern literature, reading specialist, content analyst, professor of Black studies, journalist, three historians, and an expert in the area of racism and literature. The success of the Turnipseed lawsuit led to Mississippi: Conflict and Change, Second Edition (Pantheon, 1980, with coauthors).
Our earlier edition prompted the Southern Education Foundation to underwrite an elevenitem kit, If Your State History is Dull and Biased, Here's How to Fix It A Packet of Resources, in 1977. Its purpose was to disseminate our successful project to other states. In this same vein, I wrote "Revising State and Local History Books," for the Public Administration Series of Vance Bibliographies, 1980.
I also delivered several papers on the subject:
"The Theft of the Past and its Effect upon Students and Libraries," plenary session talk, Central Mississippi Association of Librarians, 1974;
"Revising Mississippi History," campus-wide college speaker, Tougaloo College, 9/74; Millsaps College, 11/74; Jackson State University, 1/75, with Dr.Charles Sallis.
Plenary panelist regarding multicultural textbooks, Workshop on Children's Literature, University of Wyoming, 1975;
"Rewriting the South's History," presented at Southern Sociological Society, 1976; and "High School State History as a Teaching Vehicle for Sociology," presented at Southern Sociological Society, 1978.
STUDIES OF AMERICAN HISTORY EDUCATION
My Mississippi experience led to examinations of American history, as I realized that accurate multicultural history was not common anywhere in the nation. I have now finished two books and related projects that expand this critique of high school social studies, civics, and American history textbooks and courses. I list the books first, then articles and chapters, then a listing of some of my presentations at universities, professional meetings, etc.
The Truth About Columbus (New York: The New Press, 1992). A spinoff of Lies My Teacher Told Me (below), this poster-book is directed toward secondary school teachers and students. It invites them to critique their American history textbooks, by comparing textbook treatments of an early topic, Christopher Columbus, with primary source material. In the process, the book raises issues of historiography and the sociology of knowledge, intending that learning history never again be a rote process.
Lies My Teacher Told Me (New York: The New Press, 1995; Simon and Schuster, 1996). Lies has gone through nine hardbound and fifteen paperback printings and has been distributed by the History Book Club, Quality Paperback Book Club, and Book-of-the-Month Club.
"U.S.in the Third World: Challenging the Textbook Myth," by David Shiman and James W.Loewen, T.M.Thomas, et al., eds. Chapter 11, 175195 ofGlobal Images of Peace: Transforming the War System (Kottayam, India: Prakasam Publications, 1985; reprinted as Global Images of Peace and Education (Ann Arbor: Prakken, 1987).
"The Real First Thanksgiving," Vermont Sunday Magazine, cover story 11/25/90.
"Christopher Columbus," Vermont Sunday Magazine, cover story 10/13/91.
"History Textbooks and the First Thanksgiving," Radical Historians Newsletter, 11/91.
"Columbus in High School," 90-103 of John Yewell, Chris Dodge, and Jan DeSirey, eds., Confronting Columbus (Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 1992).
"Columbus in History and High School," 28-36 of Akwe:kon (formerly Northeast Indian Quarterly),v. 9 #1 (Spring 1992).
"The Truth About the First Thanksgiving," Monthly Review, 10/1992.
"By the Book," The American School Board Journal, 1/1995, 24-27.
"A Textbook Case: Helen Keller in the Classroom," CUNY Matters, Winter, 1995, 10-11.
"Eurocentric History Prevails in Textbooks," Multicultural Messenger, v. 2 #5 (4/1995).
"History: Our Worst-Taught Subject," Christian Science Monitor, 5/12/95, 18.
"The Last Innocents: The Civil Rights Movement and the Teaching of History," Southern Changes, v. 17 #2, Summer, 1995, 14-17.
"The Politics of What We Tell Ourselves About the Past," Radical Historians Newsletter, #73 (11/95), 1, 3-4, 13.
"How American History Textbooks Mis-Teach Civil Rights — And the Difference It Makes," Peacework, 2/1996, 18-19.
"Teaching with and 'Against' American History Textbooks," Oregon Social Studies, 4/1996, 19-21.
"Revising Bad History," interview with Neil Miller, UUWorld, 9/1996, 20-25.
"American History Textbooks and Race Relations," Teaching Tolerance, winter, 1996-97.
"Plagues & Pilgrims," in Bill Bigelow and Bob Peterson, eds., Rethinking Columbus (Milwaukee: Rethinking Schools, 1998).
"Lies My Textbook Told Me: Racism and Anti-Racism in U.S. History," in Enid Lee, et al., Beyond Heroes and Holidays (DC: Network of Educators on the Americas, 1998), 118-124.
"The Vietnam War in High School American History," in Laura Hein and Mark Selden, eds., Censoring History (NY: M. E. Sharpe, 2000), 150-72.
"Who Controls the Past Controls the Future," The Crisis107 #3 (5/2000), 8-10.
"Lies, Damned Lies, and History" (with David Hicks), Social Education64 #4 (5/2000), 212-16.
"War and the Military in Textbooks," in Oxford Companion to American Military History (NY: Oxford University Press, 2000).
"The FBI, COINTELPRO, and the Repression of Civil Rights," in Jonathan Birnbaum and Clarence Taylor, eds., Civil Rights Since 1787 (NY: NYU Press, 2000), 745-52.
"Amnesia in America," in Russ Kick, ed., You Are Being Lied To (NY: Disinformation Co., 2001), 202-04.
"The Content Crisis in K-12 Social Studies and History Courses," in Educational Horizons80 #1 (fall 2001), 20-23.
"The Louisiana Purchase in Textbooks," in J. P. Rodriguez, ed., The Louisiana Purchase: a Historical and Geographical Encyclopedia (Santa Barbara: ABC-CLIO, 2002).
Review of Lynne Cheney, America: A Patriotic Primer, in The Nation, 5/2002.
"Introduction" to Glenn Whitman, Dialogue with the Past (Lanham, MD: AltaMira, 2004).
"James W. Loewen on Teaching U.S. History," in Brian Lamb, ed., Booknotes on American Character (NY: Perseus, 2004), 527-34.
"Afraid of the Past?" in Iowa Council for the Social Studies Journal18 #1 (Fall, 2005), 5-9.
I gave presentations about Lies My Teacher Told Me and related topics at:
City University of New York (10/87)
New School for Social Research (10/87)
American Educational Research Association (AERA) (New Orleans, 4/88)
New England Sociological Society (10/89, 5/90, 4/97)
Georgia Tech (5/89)
Michigan State University (3/90)
University of Illinois (Urbana, 4/90, 4/97, 4/2000, 10/2000, 7/2002, 9-10/2002, 1/2003, 2/2005; Chicago, 9/95, 4/97, 11/98, 4/2000, 10/2001, 7/2002, 10/2002, 1/2003)
Teaching for Democracy Conference (Ohio University, 6/90)
New York State Council on the Humanities Institute for Teachers (7/90)
National Museum of American History Colloquium (Smithsonian Institution, 11/90, 6/93, 4/97, 7/98)
Life Cycle Institute (Catholic University of America, 2/91, 3/97)
University of Vermont, workshop for teachers on "Columbus and the Legacy of 1492" 10/92)
Central Vermont Ecumenical Council (Montpelier, 10/92)
Quality Education for Minorities Network (Washington, D.C., 7/93)
Conference on "The Power of Words" (Atlanta, Southern Regional Council, 11/93)
Resident Associates Program (Smithsonian Institution, 11/93)
Fraunces Tavern Museum (NYC, 3/95, 7/95)
Southern Sociological Society (Atlanta, 4/95)
National Coalition of Educational Activists (NECA) (M.I.T., 8/95)
Resource Center on The Americas (Minneapolis, 9/95, 3/99)
Association for Study of Afro-American Life and History (Atlanta, 9/95)
Boston Public Library/Leslie College (10/95)
Vermont Education Association (Burlington, 10/95)
New England Asian Studies Association (University of Massachusetts Amherst, 10/95)
Lyndon State College (10/95, 10/2002)
New England Teachers Conference (Springfield, Mass., 11/95)
Vermont Alliance for the Social Studies (Burlington, 12/95)
American Historical Association (AHA) (Atlanta, 1/96; Chicago, 1/2000; San Francisco, 1/2002)
Champlain College (1/96)
Johnson State College (1/96)
Siena College (2/96)
North Adams State College (3/96)
Day Middle School, Newton, MA (3/96)
Brandeis University (3/96)
Timulty Middle School, Boston, MA (3/96)
Woodstock (VT) Historical Society (3/96)
New England Labor History Conference, Providence (3/96)
Oceanside High School, Long Island (4/96)
University of Texas (5/96)
General Assembly, Unitarian Church (Indianapolis, 6/96)
St. Michael's College (10/96)
Burlington (VT) Public Schools (10/96)
Vermont Historical Society (1/97)
Manchester (NH) Public Library (1/97)
Thomas Jefferson Region, Unitarian Church, Charleston (SC) (1/97)
Skidmore College (4/97)
Pace University (4/97)
Centennial High School (Urbana, IL) (4/97)
Martin Luther King Library (DC, 5/97)
Peterborough Lyceum (NH, 8/97)
SUNY Plattsburgh (9/97)
Charlotte (NC) Latin School (9/97)
Monmouth College (9/97)
San Francisco Public Schools (10/97)
University of California (Berkeley) (10/97)
Granite Beach Middle School (CA, 10/97)
California Polytechnic University (10/97)
Rio Honda College (10/97)
Concord College 10/97)
Manchester College (11/97)
New Hampshire Council for the Social Studies (11/97)
Keene State College (11/97)
South Dakota State University (12/97)
University of Minnesota American Indian Program (12/97)
St. Cloud State University (12/97, 2/2000)
Pennsylvania State University (Middleton, 1/98, 11/2002; State College, 5/99; Hazleton, 9/2002)
Cuyahoga Falls National Recreation Area (OH) (1/98)
Hampden-Sydney College (1/98)
Des Moines Area Community College (2/98)
University of Tennessee (3/98)
Averett College (4/98)
Villanova University (4/98)
Rethinking Education Conference, Dallas (5/98, 5/2000)
Second Union, Melungeon Conference, Clinch Valley State College (7/98)
Albion College (9/98)
St Mary's College (10/98)
Greensboro (NC) History Museum (10/98)
Laredo Junior College (11/98)
Hamline University (3/99)
Northern State University (3/99)
University of Northern Iowa (3/99)
University of Wisconsin, La Crosse and Stout (3/99); Stevens Point (4/2004)
Carroll College (3/99)
University of Maine (3/99)
Johnson County Community College (4/99)
San Jacinto Community College (9/99)
Collin County Community College (9/99)
Richland College (9/99)
Texas A & M University — Commerce (9/99)
University of Texas (9/99)
Asheville, NC, sponsored by Mars Hill College, UNC-Asheville, Warren Wilson College, and several community organizations (10/99)
Skyline College (10/99)
Michigan Association of School Boards (10/99)
University of Michigan, Dearborn (10/99)
College of Charleston, S.C. (10/99)
Conference on teaching about slavery, Columbia University Teachers College (11/99)
Parsons College (11/99)
Clarion University (11/99)
Oregon State University (11/99, 5/2005)
University of Maryland (12/99, 4/2001, 5/2003)
Kent State University (1/2000, 10/2002)
Western Reserve Academy (1/2000)
Colby College (1/2000, 9/2000)
University of Wyoming (1/2000)
Lexington (MA) HS (2/2000, 4/2002)
University of Massachusetts, Boston (2/2000); Amherst (7/2001)
Virginia Tech (2/2000)
MN Council for the Social Studies (3/2000)
National Service Learning Conference, Providence (3/2000)
Tomkins-Cortland Community College (3/2000)
St. Andrews School, Delaware (4/2000)
U. S. Army Corps of Engineers, CERL (4/2000)
Castleton State College, VT (5/2000, 6/2005)
Philadelphia Public Schools workshop (5/2000)
Washington, DC, Sociological Society Banquet Speaker (5/2000)
Prince William County (VA) Multicultural Institute (6/2000)
National Education Association Conference (6/2000)
California Home-Education Conference (8/2000)
Tulsa Hope Unitarian Church (10/2000)
Cornell University (10/2000)
Columbus Academy (10/2000)
Eastern Illinois University Teachers Conference (10/2000)
St. George's Academy (RI) (11/2000)
Duchess County Community College (11/2000)
Western Michigan University (11/2000)
Bethel College (11/2000)
Kansas City Harmony (11/2000)
National Council for the Social Studies (NCSS) (San Antonio, 11/2000; keynote, Washington, DC, 11/2001)
Columbia University (1/2001)
Case Western Reserve University (2/2001, 8/2001)
Bradley University (2/2001)
Drake University (2/2001)
Western New England College, (2/2001)
Chico State Univ. (3/2001)
North Carolina State Univ. (3/2001)
SUNY Oswego (3/2001)
Rider Univ. (3/2001)
Near East/South Asian Schools (NESA), Istanbul (4/2001)
Southern Missouri State College (4/2001)
The Citadel (6/2001)
San Antonio Northside Publ. Schools (6/2001)
Indianapolis Publ. Schools (8/2001, 10/2004)
Wartburg College (9/2001)
Concordia College (IL) (10/2001)
Georgetown College (KY) (10/2001)
Lexington Community College (10/2001)
Transylvania University (10/2001, 11/2002)
DePauw University (10/2001)
Decatur (IL) Writers Fair (10/2001)
Millikin University (10/2001)
Tougaloo College (10/2001)
Millsaps College (10/2001)
University of Southern Mississippi (10/2001)
Southern Arkansas University (10/2001)
U.S. Dept. of Defense schools, Brussels, Germany, Netherlands (12/2001)
Volusia County, FL, Public Schools (1/2002)
Xavier University, OH (2/2002)
University of Washington University Prep. Academy (2/2002)
Seattle Chamber of Commerce and Center for Community Service (2/2002)
Yakama Nation (2/2002)
Marietta College (4/2002)
Millersville Univ. (4/2002)
Ripon College (4/2002)
Lakeland College (4/2002)
Organization of American Historians (OAH), Keynote Speaker, Teachers' Luncheon (4/2002)
Great Lakes Council for the Social Studies, Keynote Speaker, (4/2002)
Lincoln School System (NE), workshops (4/2002)
Doane College (4/2002)
Moravian College (4/2002)
Rose Tree Media School System (PA), workshops (4/2002)
Stoneleigh Burnham School (4/2002)
I.D.E.A.S., organization of K-12 school supts., principals, and other administrators, Atlanta, Green Bay, and Denver (7/2002)
George Mason University (7/2002)
Natl. Council for Teachers of English, Whole English Umbrella "Dessert Speaker" (7/2002)
Hartford Public Schools (NE), workshops (8/2002)
Howard County Public Schools (MD), workshops (8/2002)
University of the Ozarks (9/2002)
Illinois Council for the Social Studies (9/2002)
Northern Illinois University (10/2002)
Central Michigan University (10/2002)
Monroe Public Schools (MI), workshops (10/2002)
Colby-Sawyer College (10/2002)
Northern Kentucky University (11/2002)
Washington (state) ACLU Banquet Speaker (11/2002)
Brookwood School, MA (1/2003)
University of the Incarnate Word (2/2003)
University of Houston (2/2003)
Washington University, St. Louis (2/2003)
Fall River, MA, Public Schools (4/2003)
University of Louisville (4/2003)
North Dakota State University (4/2003)
Combined Indian Tribes of Utah (4/2003, 8/2004)
California State Univ. at Sacramento (4/2003)
Black Hills State University (4/2003)
University of Cincinnati (4/2003)
Antioch College Commencement Speaker (4/2003)
Delaware Library Association (5/2003)
Vermont Alliance for the Social Studies (Lyndonville, 6/2003)
Champaign (IL) Public Schools (8/2003)
Weber State University (9/2003)
Saginaw Chippewa Indian Tribe (9/2003, 3/2005)
Temple University (9/2003)
Illinois State History Workshop (10/2003)
Quinnipiac University (10/2003)
Central Connecticut State University (10/2003)
Norwich (CT) Free Academy (10/2003)
NAME (Natl. Assn. for Multicultural Educ.), Connecticut meeting (10/2003)
Connecticut College (10/2003)
Coast Guard Academy (10/2003)
Ohio Center for Law-Related Education (10/2003)
Urbana (IL) Public Schools (1/2004)
Assn. of Indep. Maryland Schools (AIMS) (2/2004)
Willamette College (3/2004)
Goshen College (3/2004)
Bluffton University (9/2004)
Anoka (MN) Public Schools (10/2004, 8/2005)
Indiana U./Purdue U. of Indianapolis (IUPUI) (10/2004)
DelSea (NJ) Public Schools (11/2004)
Indiana University of Pennsylvania (11/2004)
University of North Dakota (11/2004)
Trial Lawyers Assn. of Indiana (11/2004)
Reading (PA) Community College (11/2004)
Washington International School (2/2005)
Shippensburg (PA) University (2/2005)
Thomas Jefferson Region, Unitarian Church, Columbia (SC) (2/2005)
University of North Carolina Asheville (3/2005)
Hartwick College (4/2005)
SUNY Geneseo (4/2005)
Columbus, Ohio, Public Schools (5/2005)
Salinas (CA) Public Schools (5/2005)
Palm Beach County (FL) Public Schools (6/2005)
County College of Morris (NJ) (9/2005)
Iowa Council for the Social Studies (9/2005)
California State U. Northridge (9/2005)
Central College (IA) (10/2005)
Salt Lake City Community College (10/2005)
NAME (Natl. Assn. for Multicultural Educ.), National meeting, Atlanta (11/2005)
Rutgers University, Camden, 11/2005
Community College Humanities Assn., 11/2005
Danbury (CT) Public Schools (12/2005)
and other venues.
OTHER PUBLICATIONS, CONSULTATIONS, AND PRESENTATIONS ON MULTICULTURAL EDUCATION
Plenary speaker regarding school practices for multicultural education, Sumter County, SC, Public Schools, Sumter City Public Schools, and Sumter YWCA, 1973.
"History for and against Minorities," Clearinghouse for Civil Rights Research, 8 #2 (Summer, 1980), 24.
"How Multicultural Educational Materials Affect Children," Clearinghouse for Civil Rights Research, 8 #2 (Summer, 1980), 410, with coauthor Neil J.Kressel.
Panelist, Ford Foundation Conference, "Reading, Writing, and the Law," cosponsored by the American Society of Textbook Publishers, 1980.
"The Social Responsibility of Museums," guest lecture for graduate seminar of museum science, Winterthur Museum, Winterthur, Delaware, 1976, 1977, 1979, 1980, regarding the need for museums to be multicultural and multiclass.
"Review of E.P.Alexander, Museums in Motion: An Introduction to the History and Functions of Museums," Winterthur Portfolio, 15, #1 (Spring, 1980).6566.
"Getting Gender On Their Minds," with Samuel F. Sampson, Teaching Sociology, v. 14 #3 (7/1986), 185-187.
"Teaching Race Relations Through Feature Films," Teaching Sociology, v. 19 (1/91), 82-86, reprinted in Diana Papademas, Visual Sociology (Washington, DC: ASA, 1994).
1993-94, consultant and expert witness for plaintiffs in Ayers v. Fordice (seeking desegregation of Mississippi state higher education system). I testified on Mississippi history and race relations and how these impact on higher education policies, on comparative measures of college-going by state, and on why white students choose to attend black colleges. (See also standardized testing.)