Most history professors these days come from the intellectual left, and what they teach is usually meant to bring students over to their views. The horrors of life under collectivist regimes, e.g., are ignored.

In today’s Martin Center article, David Randall of the National Association of Scholars argues that the American Historical Association has managed to kill viewpoint-neutral teaching of history.

The AHA’s standards do say that professors shouldn’t indoctrinate students, but that’s meaningless boilerplate because there is no way to discipline those who do. Moreover, the AHA is fine with colleges hiring no one but leftists.

Randall writes:

Historians — and, indeed, professors as a whole — have never in practice engaged in any substantial professional self-regulation. The AHA now has adopted in its professional standards a conception of history that makes it difficult or impossible even in theory to adopt any meaningful conception of professional self-regulation. For want of a better alternative, America’s citizens and policymakers must take on the job of regulating university professors’ conduct.

I think he’s right about that.