Last week, I had the great pleasure of attending the Annual Meeting of the American Council of Learned Societies. Many of you may know ACLS as a grant-making organization, but for me, it is a critical resource of information and support, because of the LS in ACLS. Twice each year, all of the Executive Directors of the eighty-one ACLS societies gather for a conference where we discuss trends in the humanities, best-practices for non-profit management, and issues that affect our members. This year, it was the latter that occupied our attention, as you can imagine.
As the Chair of the Executive Committee of the Conference of Executive Officers, I sit ex officio on the ACLS Board of Directors. The weekend began with an all-day Board meeting, and while I am not free to discuss the details of that meeting, I can tell you that the Board is thinking carefully about how ACLS can best advocate for its member societies in response to recent cuts in Federal programs and is considering all options. I will have more to report on that front soon.
The Annual Meeting itself was attended by the Board, the Conference of Executive Officers, and the Society Delegates – our ACLS Delegate is Afrodesia McCannon (New York University). Afrodesia and I attended a plenary conversation between ACLS President Joy Connolly and AAAS President Laurie Patton, heard Joy’s Annual Report, and took part in breakout discussions on topics such as strategies for public outreach (a panel I co-chaired), reforming doctoral education, and building community among scholars. We were treated to presentations by several Mellon ACLS Community College Fellows about their research (which led to a fruitful discussion between Afrodesia and myself about how the MAA might improve its outreach to community college faculty). Later in the afternoon, I took part in a plenary panel on Major Trends and Debates in Humanistic Inquiry, chaired by Joy Connolly, in which I summarized the history of Medieval Studies in order to introduce the Global Turn in the field and the historical and historiographical trends that have led to the modern (mis)appropriation of medieval narratives and imagery to serve the goals of white supremacy (this panel was recorded and will soon be available on the ACLS YouTube channel). At the end of the day, the 2025 Charles Homer Haskins Lecture was delivered by Judith Butler.
The meeting of Conference of Executive Officers, which I chaired, took place on the last day of the Annual Meeting. The central component was a two-hour presentation and discussion with non-profit attorney Dorothy Deng, who advised us to conduct risk assessments of our programming in order to protect ourselves from potential lawsuits by “watchdog” organizations such as the American Alliance for Equal Rights. Such organizations are known to search non-profit websites for examples of non-compliance with the recent anti-DEI executive orders so that they can file suit as well as harass grant-winners who have been part of diversity initiatives. Like my fellow Executive Directors, following Deng’s explicit and direct legal advice, I have now conducted a detailed risk assessment and have taken steps to protect the MAA from potential liability and our grantwinners from harassment while challenges to these EOs make their way through the courts.
We have all been shocked and dismayed by recent cuts in Federal programs that have directly impacted MAA members in ways that have caused, or will cause, real and direct harm. Please join us on May 6 at 1 PM EDT for a Town Hall meeting to discuss these cuts and other threats, and to learn about what actions can be taken, and are being taken, in response. See below for more information, and click here to register.
In solidarity,
Lisa
Lisa Fagin Davis
Executive Director
LFD@TheMedievalAcademy.org
