Redesigning for Justice: Rethinking Our Curriculum and Enlarging the Purposes of History Education

In the summer of 2020, the members of the history department at Eastern Illinois University (eiu) found ourselves reflecting on our mission in light of the racial reckoning taking place after the murder of George Floyd by Minneapolis police officers.At a meeting in June, with an agenda already full of COVID-19 pandemic planning practicalities, members decided to draft a statement that spelled out our commitment to antiracism.In August, we adopted a statement that recognizes the historic role of our discipline in perpetuating systemic and institutional racism; the role history should play in identifying and addressing oppression; and the steps the department would take to fulfill its commitment to antiracism.This commitment required a review and revision of our curriculum. 1 The department at eiu shared these values with many departments across the country.eiu is a regional comprehensive institution in east-central Illinois, with a student population of about six thousand full-time students.Ours is a midsized department with eleven full-time faculty members, including the department chair.In the fall of 2020, we had ninety-seven majors, the majority (71 percent) in history education, and the rest in history or history with international studies.Only 15 percent were students of color.Even before the events of summer 2020, we had concerns about who we were not drawing to our courses and what we offered students once they were in our classrooms.Students in the introductory general education courses reflected the demographic profile of the institution, but our majors reflected little (visible) diversity, despite increased representation of minoritized groups on our campus (from 10.5 percent students of color in 2015 to 31.5 percent in 2019).Students of all cultural and affinity groups-but especially students of