Peach Tree Times

Georgia lawmakers are pushing back after the National Archives on announced last month that it would be attaching a "harmful content warning" to the online catalog of U.S. historical records.

“Some of the materials presented here may reflect outdated, biased, offensive and possibly violent views and opinions," stated a letter released by the National Archives. “Some items may reflect racist, sexist, ableist, misogynistic/misogynoir and xenophobic opinions and attitudes; be discriminatory toward or exclude diverse views on sexuality, gender, religion and more; include graphic content of historical events such as violent death, medical procedures, crime, wars/terrorist acts, natural disasters and more; demonstrate bias and exclusion in institutional collecting and digitization policies."

Christianity Daily reported that a racism task force determined that America’s founding documents "laud wealthy white men in the nation's founding while marginalizing BIPOC [Black, Indigenous, People of Color], women and other communities." The report added that the rotunda’s “reverential, quasi-religious treatment of the Declaration of Independence, Constitution and Bill of Rights does not adequately reflect a full history of the founding of the United States."

Christianity Daily further reported that the National Archives held a meeting with 800 of its employees on May 11 with its racism task force. During that meeting, a member presenting "told a story about a black congressional staffer who objected to the 'charters of freedom' label assigned to the historical documents" displayed in the NARA Rotunda in Washington D.C., saying that he felt “alienated” because they were not his charters of freedom.

Many members of Congress recently signed a letter addressed to the head of the National Archives stating that they are “deeply concerned” with the new harmful content warning on American historical documents, “including on seminal documents such as the Declaration of Independence, the Bill of Rights and the U.S. Constitution.” Georgia Republican Representatives Andrew Clyde, Barry Loudermilk, Earl “Buddy” Carter and Jody Hice have all signed the letter.

Politifact reports that the archives include the warning on all documents across its collection of records of the U.S. federal government. The founding documents were not singled out, Politifact reported. 

The warning automatically appears on every page of the online catalog, according to the National Archives communication staff. None of the documents are altered or censored in any way.

"NARA's records span the history of the United States, and it is our charge to preserve and make available these historical records," the Archives explainer said, according to Just The News. "As a result, some of the materials presented here may reflect outdated, biased, offensive and possibly violent views and opinions."