(LifeSiteNews) – The University of Pennsylvania’s selection of courses it chose to highlight for the impending 250th anniversary of the United States of America largely neglects the founding of the nation being celebrated, according to historians who have examined the offerings.
The university’s Penn Libraries website features a page highlighting courses “relating to America 250 themes” available for the Spring 2026 semester, billed as a “wide range of Revolutionary-themed courses to choose from on science, storytelling, slavery, women, economics, race, and culture.”
The list consists of:
- “American Race: A Philadelphia Story”
- “American Slavery and the Law”
- “Political Economy of Early America” (from British settlement to 1820)
- “Writing and Printing the Revolution” (with a focus on the writings and influence of Thomas Paine)
- “Revolutionary Papers” (concerning “protest print forms produced by anticolonial movements” around the world)
- “The American Revolution” (introductory history)
- “History of American Law to 1877”
- “Wives, Workers, Widows and Wenches: Women in the Law of Early America”
- “A Nation of Immigrants Reconsidered” (which “roots the structures of modern immigration and border enforcement in Native dispossession and histories of slavery”)
- “The Civil War and the Legacy of American Democracy”
- “Revolutionary Stories: Philadelphians and the American Revolution”
- “Revolutions in Three Kingdoms: England, Ireland, Scotland”
- “Printing, Publishing & Reading in Europe & Americas, Ages of Revolution”
- “Slavery and Disease: Medical Knowledge in the Atlantic World”
- “Global Human Rights & US Immigration: Implications for Policy & Practice”
While several of the courses explore major themes in the creation, early days, and pivotal events of America, the course descriptions indicate that many of them either view those subjects through a contemporary “social justice” lens or instead focus entirely on modern left-wing grievances.
“Only a small minority of the 15 recommended courses offer a broad scope of American history or institutions,” American Council of Trustees & Alumni academic affairs fellow Veronica Bryant observed in comments to Campus Reform. “Almost all these courses barely mention the founding documents of this nation, with none focused on the Constitution or Declaration of Independence.”
“I expect universities to stretch the claim that their courses are related to the 250th anniversary of America,” National Association of Scholars research director David Randall added. “What this list reveals is how few professors they have who are remotely qualified to teach such a course. The University of Pennsylvania ought to be able to teach such material every year, as a central component of its educational function, and not just for the 250th anniversary.”
“Universities should use the 250th anniversary to ensure that students develop a serious understanding of the principles underlying American democracy,” Madison Marino Doan of the Heritage Foundation’s Center for Education Policy argued. “Strong civic education is essential not only for informed citizenship but also for the long-term preservation of constitutional government.”
American institutions of higher education have long been recognized as heavily dominated by left-wing bias and historical revisionism, conditioning students to reject religion, traditional morality, and free markets, and to view America as a uniquely malignant force in the world, a society systemically rigged against the poor and minority groups.
This bias has also made them breeding grounds of intolerance for dissenting views, the extent of which has been grimly highlighted over the past year by the alarming number of professors who have publicly mocked or celebrated the murder of Turning Point USA leader Charlie Kirk.
The toll of such an activist bent often extends well beyond politics. In 2024, insiders from the University of California-Los Angeles’ (UCLA’s) prestigious David Geffen School of Medicine warned that the school’s diversity fixation had led to a crisis in which more than half of students in various cohorts admitted since 2020 fail standardized tests for basic medical knowledge of subjects ranging from emergency medicine and family medicine to internal medicine and pediatrics.
In response, the Trump administration has issued executive orders to deny federal funds to educational entities that indoctrinate students through Diversity, Equity, & Inclusion (DEI) programs, among other executive actions to combat so-called “woke ideology” in education.
