I, Beckerman, not Robot

In late April, I had the privilege to attend the Society for American Archaeology Meetings, in Denver.  I wondered why I was attending not only this meeting but the Association of American Archaeologists (ATA) meeting on Tuesday and Wednesday prior.  I had been retired from PennDOT for 7 years and had recently ended my term as President of the Pennsylvania Archaeological Council.  What was I doing there? Fortunately, the answer awaited down in the bowels of the massive convention hotel, in a series of windowless rooms.

The ATA meeting always refreshes my batteries, and it is good to reconnect with professional colleagues, even if you are the only one in the room drawing a pension.  The mood in the room was not unlike that of a gathering storm.  Federal probationary employees were being terminated right and left, even those that had worked for a year or more and had come to FHWA, or FRA, or FTA service from lengthy service at state DOT’s, or consulting firms.  Permanent federal employees were being pushed out, but the DOGE reaper hadn’t pushed in the doors at FHWA, yet.  Yes, the mood in the room was like a gathering storm.  Typically at ATA meetings, it is larded with crisp, black humor.  It’s what archaeologists do, so that the meeting outwardly did not present as anything different from any other ATA meeting: playful abuse of the FHWA Preservation Officer, David Clarke (although David could only participate remotely due to one of many travel bans); preservation success stories, especially from the host state DOT; endless sidebar conversations over seemingly insoluble 106 problems, begging other state professionals for reaction, input, solutions.  This time, the conversation included queries over firings and who’s left in the offices, both at USDOT Agencies and at the Advisory Council.  The ATA chair had figured out how to hold a hybrid meeting on zoom. This was both good and bad. Good insofar as more archaeologists could attend. Bad insofar as the meeting was recorded and folks were talking on eggshells. The proverbial elephant in the room sat patiently in the corner as we conducted our business.

On Thursday, the SAA Meetings began in earnest. The elephant relocated, but did not leave.  Using the SAA Meeting App, I had booked a steady dose of “Whither Archaeology” sessions.  The membership was clearly alarmed over goings-on from the Federal Administration.  Everyone wanted some providential guidance on what to do, but none was forthcoming.  Opinions divided along classic lines.  In one camp, members argued for full-on resistance to Administration actions and executive orders, summarized by a t-shirt that appeared during the meetings- red with the image of an arm holding an upraised trowel and the message, “Resist.” Workers of the World Unite meets Orozco. For solutions, specificity seemed lacking.  The other camp argued care and caution.  Fighting back against the Administration required measured actions, to fight smart- legal action, avoiding DEI-tagged language, talk in code, etc. Again, for solutions, specificity seemed lacking.  Thursday was cry-in-your-beer day.

I had hoped the SAA leadership would seize the moment and provide some specific actions that membership could take. Thursday brought several sessions dealing directly with the existential crisis. Discussion, but not action. Thursday turned into Friday, with the main General Membership Meeting that evening. Again, no action. Discussions continued into Saturday with further discussions.  When the Meeting ended, we slow-walked our way to the airport and flew home.

In mid-March, I sent the Pennsylvania Archaeological Council my last President’s blog.  This one was unusual insofar as I focused on the Administration’s attacks on both history and science.  Nothing between mid-March and late April had altered my views, and even in mid-May, I believe the comments stand on their own. Here is an edited version (cleaned up only a little bit):

President’s Report

(My apologies for not talking about all of the different orders and initiatives from the current Administration that give me heartburn, such as climate policy, environmental policy, foreign policy, domestic policy, tax policy, Ukraine, USAID, Israel, DOJ, LGBTQ rights, immigrant rights, human rights, DOGE, general chaos, etc., etc. I need to focus.)

Let me open this post as clearly as I can. There is no Republican science. There is no Democratic science. There is no Republican history. There is no Democratic history.  There is science. There is history.  Now this may be easily misconstrued. History is after all written by the victors and there is history of Republicans and history of Democrats.  Still, one history doesn’t blot out another one. And any single history from a single perspective simply fails to tell the full story.

Science and history have been weighing on my mind lately for two reasons.  First, archaeology could be framed as history told through scientific methods and techniques. We rely on both. Secondly, the current Administration appears to be waging war on both science and history.  In the national scheme of things, we are a flyspeck, an afterthought, a trifle.  But I find it inescapable that the current Administration is waging war on us, whether they know it or not.

The anti-scientific position of the current Administration is documented in who they are selecting to lead the important national scientific and educational institutions (Kennedy, Jr. for HHS, McMahon for Education, etc.), severe and arbitrary cuts in indirect cost reimbursements for research, staffing cuts at Federal scientific agencies (with a particular vengeance toward climate science), and even word censorship that permeates national policy.  The anti-history position is commensurate. And by anti-history, I mean anti- any history other than white (usually male) protestant history, something more in favor a century ago.  The Advisory Council on Historic Preservation has been gutted. One anecdote summarizes DOGE’s Ministry of Truth’s approach toward history.  In the Pentagon’s purge of DEI-related materials from its memory banks, photos of military firsts for women, Blacks, and Hispanics were scrubbed.  And of course, the LGBTQ icon of WWII, the B-29 that dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima, the “Enola Gay.”

Under the guise of pushing back on DEI, I believe the current Administration’s goal is to erase the past, at least the past not in synch with its politics. Erase it to be able rewrite it to suit their needs and advance a particular political agenda. This is Authoritarianism 101.  Our job is to tell the past and expand on the telling, not erase it.

I could go on, but we don’t have time. Think for a moment on what the archaeological economy is built: the three-legged stool of academia, museums, and CRM.  Universities are already under attack for supposedly allowing antisemitic activities and DEI on campus.  Columbia is just the first and most prominent.  Understand that none of this has to do with actual antisemitism or diversity, equity, or inclusion policies or activities, and everything to with forcing universities to bow to the Administration’s power and Project 2025 goals. What does that have to do with us?  Check down some of the terms that are being scrubbed from national databases: anti-racism, cultural competence, cultural differences, cultural heritage, cultural sensitivity, culturally appropriate, historically, identity, indigenous community, intersectionality, multi-cultural, native American, race and ethnicity, sociocultural, socioeconomic, tribal, etc. 

Will our professional communication amongst each other be reduced to grunts and hand signals? And as universities feel the pinch from dried-up federal funding and pressure to give fealty to the current Administration, Departments like Anthropology will be even more at risk than they were a year ago.  The same holds for Museums.

CRM has proven to be the backstop of archaeological employment for nearly 50 years. Many good archaeologists, some who I know personally, have been fired from Federal government agencies for no cause other than being probationary. At the current pace, many others will be on the chopping block. The bigger threat will be the gutting of NEPA and Section 106, which governmentally can be done in ways other than Federal staffing reductions and changes to the law. CEQ regulations, which used to regulate NEPA are now just guidance. Large parts of 36CFR800 are not spelled out specifically in the National Historic Preservation Act, but have evolved and been adopted over the last 40 years. That and $3.50 will now get you a cup of coffee.  Two years ago, Terry Klein and Jeff Altschul declared an impending staffing shortfall in CRM.  Two years later, I guess we can thank the President for solving that problem, not by adding trained archaeologists, but by eliminating jobs.

What do we do?  In full confession, there have been days in the last 4 months where I just want to doomscroll, or curl up with a good scotch and binge-watch Ken Burns documentaries (Huey Long is still the gold standard and still relevant). That is not very helpful. So let me propose a few things:

1. Stay informed. As painful as it may be, the political and economic environment is rapidly changing, almost day to day. At the very least, be informed of changes to the Advisory Council, NEPA, Section 106, and any Federal Agency that you may work with. Lately, I have found that Linked-In has more information, especially through Allyson Brooks; Marion Werkheiser, Ellen Chapman and Cultural Heritage Partners PLLC; the SAA newsletters and e-mails.  Find reliable news sources that covers science and culture and follow them.
2. Stay engaged.  Whatever level of action you might have undertaken, please continue.  If protesting in the streets is your thing, great. If letter writing is more to your tastes, write. But there are two things we all could and should be doing. First, find out who your congressional representatives are in the House. Your Pennsylvania senators are John Fetterman and David McCormick.  Let them all know how you feel on specific executive orders that may be illegal under Article I, Section 9 of the Constitution, and proposed legislation.  Tell them the importance of both science and history and by extension, archaeology.  Secondly, talk to your friends and acquaintances, especially the ones that aren’t archaeologists. Make the case for why what you do is important and then ask them to write their representatives and tell their friends. (In discussions in Denver, it became clear that Job 1 for archaeologists is to explain to the public why what we do is important.)
3. Stay defiant but stay positive.  The current Administration wants you to submit to the new status quo as quickly as possible. You can choose to not submit, but to do so you need hope and a vision for a better future (another definition of hope). Don’t give up.  Perhaps Elie Weisel offered the best perspective, “The greatest evil in the world is not anger or hatred, but indifference.”