Facing History and Ourselves

Its courses often present the history of the United States as one rife with racial injustice. ³ The material provided for teachers generally casts race relations in the United States in a negative light, claiming that voter integrity laws are examples of racial injustice and advocating core changes to the United States immigration system to address alleged historical injustices. ³

Background

Facing History and Ourselves is a left-of-center organization that provides professional development programs to educators to teach students to think critically about issues of racism and prejudice. Its courses are informed by the critical race theory concepts of systemic racism and inequity and aim to excite activist inclinations in its students through heavily politicized educational material. ^{1 2}

Facing History and Ourselves has a private foundation counterpart, Friends of Facing History and Ourselves, the primary activity of which is to provide support to Facing History and Ourselves. ⁴

Finances

In 2018, Facing History and Ourselves received $30,218,120 in contributions and $32,179,133 in total revenue through program service and investment income. ⁵ In 2018, the organization reported $52,624,548 in net assets. ⁶

In 2022, Facing History and Ourselves reported total revenue of $26,198,098, total expenses of $33,309,516, and ended the year with net assets of $66,578,965. ⁷

Funding

In 2018, Facing History and Ourselves received $193,250 from the Boston Foundation,⁸ $10,000 from the Bank of America Charitable Foundation,9 $5,000 from the A.G. Cox Charitable Trust,⁹ $5,000 from the Bindler Family Foundation,⁹ $3,000 from the Banks Baldwin Foundation,⁹ $2,500 from the Adams Cowan Foundation,⁹ $2,500 from the Bernstein-Maslansky Fund,⁹ $2,000 from the Allen and Franka Charlupski Foundation,⁹ $1,000 from the Cail Family Foundation,⁹ and $1,000 from the Arzak Foundation. ⁹

Activities

Facing History and Ourselves offers professional development programs for educators. These cover “innovative” teaching strategies, “new scholarship around identity, history, and equity,” and “curricular resources” based in its “unique approach” to education that involves an “equitable and student-centered learning environment.” The programs involve workshops, webinars, and courses on “history, ELA, justice, equity” among other topics. ¹⁰

Facing History defines its “unique approach” to classroom teaching as a pedagogy that brings together “intellect, empathy, and ethics” in the pursuit of truth, stressing the importance of questioning traditional beliefs. Its courses often scrutinize the legacy of the United States and Western philosophy, with examples on its website including “the danger of a single story,” “the legacy of the eugenics movement in the United States” and how it “affects us today,” and the stereotypical implications of using “identity and labels” in speech. ²

Facing History and Ourselves boasts that classrooms which have implement its programming produce “active civic participants.” According to its report, 93 percent of its students “agreed that it is important to work for positive social change,” 92 percent of its teachers agree that the program encourages students to challenge the opinions of others, and 77 percent of students agreed that the course material “increased their capacity to think critically about issues of racism and prejudice.” ¹

Portrayal of Race Relations

Policing

Facing History and Ourselves teaches students that modern policing in the United States is rife with racial bias and is an extension of racial prejudice from previous generations. ¹¹ Teaching modules instruct teachers to introduce the idea that racial prejudice is central to modern policing by asking students to journal how they would like the police to behave and compare racial bias with their desired form of police conduct. ¹¹ Students are introduced to a variety of readings that contextualize police conduct as prejudicial by nature. For example, Facing History and Ourselves teaches students that pretextual stops, the practice of a police officer electing to investigate a minor infraction because he believes there may be more wrongdoing at play, will always reinforce racial prejudice. ¹²

Voter Integrity Laws

Facing History and Ourselves teaches students that Shelby County v. Holder, a 2013 Supreme Court case that returned the power to administer and protect elections to the states, created unjust voting limitations. Facing History and Ourselves claims that requiring particular types of voter identification, barring felons from voting, implementing ballot security laws, and maintaining voter registries count as illegitimate voting limitations, referring to these voting safeguards as “voter suppression.”  ¹³

Immigration Policy

Facing History and Ourselves teaches students that opposition to increasing immigration levels today is comparable to support for the National Origins Act of 1924 (Johnson-Reed Act), which created national-origin quotas that sharply limited the number of immigrants from Southern and Eastern Europe. The lesson casts supporters of the Johnson-Reed Act as eugenicists and racists and asks students to draw comparisons between them and modern opponents of increased immigration. ¹⁴

Leadership

As of 2025, Desmond K. Blackburn was the president and CEO of Facing History and Ourselves, a position he has held since April 2023. Previously, Blackburn was the Deputy Chancellor of School Leadership for the New York City Department of Education as well as the CEO of the New Teacher Center, a nonprofit organization dedicated to combating “educational inequities for systemically underserved students.” Blackburn has worked for the Florida Association of District School Superintendents (FADSS) and Chiefs for Change. In 2025, he sat on the board of Educational Resource Strategies, was a fellow at the Broad Academy and the Pahara Institute, and an advisor to the Broad Center at Yale School of Management. ¹⁵