HIS 317: Public History: Race and the American College

The Core Values of Archivists and the Code of Ethics for Archivists are intended to be used together to guide individuals who perform archival labor or who work in archival environments. These aspirational values and ethical principles help shape SAA’s expectations for professional actions and engagement.

This Statement on Standards of Professional Conduct addresses dilemmas and concerns about the practice of history that historians have regularly brought to the American Historical Association seeking guidance and counsel. Some of the most important sections of this Statement address questions about employment that vary according to the different institutional settings in which historians perform their work. Others address forms of professional misconduct that are especially troubling to historians. And some seek to identify a core set of shared values that professional historians strive to honor in the course of their work.

This Code of Ethics sets forth guidelines of professional conduct expected of all members of the National Council on Public History. Recognizing that public historians practice in a variety of specialized professional fields, this code incorporates reference to other codes and guidelines as appropriate. The purpose of this code is to articulate expectations of conscientious practice, not to set thresholds for certification, investigation, or adjudication. The National Council on Public History promotes ongoing discussion of ethics and professional conduct in classrooms, conferences, workshops, and professional literature as a best practice of the profession as a whole.

Oral historians have ethical obligations that are both specific to oral history methodology and shared with other methodologies and practices, ranging from anthropology to archival work. Ethics encompasses the principles that should govern the multiple relationships inherent in oral history. Everyone involved in oral history work, from interviewers and narrators to archivists and researchers, becomes part of a web of mutual responsibility working to ensure that the narrator’s perspective, dignity, privacy, and safety are respected. This statement draws upon the decades of thoughtful work concerning the appropriate way to engage with humans as participants in research projects.
Here we offer general principles for practicing oral history in an ethical way. These points represent the beginning of the path toward becoming an ethical oral historian, rather than its culmination.

**(Read August 2, 2021, letter BEFORE August 5, 2021.)**
The AHA has written a letter seeking clarity on the National Archives and Records Administration’s planned reopening following pandemic closures and to offer the AHA’s “help in communicating with the community of history researchers.” The AHA recognizes “the difficulties of operating facilities around the country during a pandemic” and encourages NARA to maximize equitable access to its collections while continuing to make the health and safety of NARA staff its highest priority.