What U.S. Politicians Say About the Humanities:
White Paper on the Humanities in Political Discourse, 2009-2015

By Austin Yack
Prepared for 4Humanities.org
March 1, 2016
Table of Contents
Introduction…………………………..……………..……………………………………..2
Research Sources and Methods……….…………...……………..……………………….3
Analysis…………………………..…………………………..…………………………...4
Conclusion (with ideas for extending scope of research)..……...……………………….11
Sources and References…..…………….………………………………………………..12
Appendix: Data Collection Process……………………..……………………………..……13
Author Biography……………………………………………….......……………………15
Abstract: This study examines United States political discourse during 2009 to 2015 in thelegislative and executive branches of the federal government and also the legislative branch of
one state (California) to discover how politicians talk about the humanities. After analyzing
records from the White House, Congress, and the California State Legislature, 4Humanities
concludes that while the Obama administration has tried to promote the humanities using limitedmeans (such as encouraging public-private partnerships and youth programs), neither thefederal nor state legislatures studied, whatever the good will of particular politicians or parties,
has moved for substantive improvement in the humanities. Legislators primarily mention thehumanities in simple resolutions, thus conferring recognition without altering the status quo. The
humanities figure in U.S. political discourse mainly in a drama of “recognition.”
Citation: Austin Yack. “What U.S. Politicians Say About the Humanities: White Paper on the
Humanities in Political Discourse, 2009-2015.” 4Humanities.org, 1 March 2016.
http://4humanities.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/yack-white-paper.pdf. For the HTML versionof this paper, see: http://4humanities.org/austin-yack-what-u-s-politicians-say-about-thehumanities-2016/.
About 4Humanities: 4Humanities is an international initiative for advocacy of the humanities,
drawing on the technologies, new-media expertise, and ideas of the international digital
humanities community. Digital methods have an important role to play in effectively showing the
public why the humanities need to be part of any vision of a future society.
About the Author: Austin Yack is a student majoring in Political Science and minoring in
English at the University of California, Santa Barbara. He has intern experience covering politics
in Washington, D.C. See his full biography at the end of this paper.
This document is part of the 4Humanities.org site distributed under the CC BY NC 3.0 license.

2
Introduction
United States political discourse relating to the humanities often involves recognition
rather than action. An analysis by 4Humanities of publications and proceedings issued by the
Obama administration, Congress, and (as an initial case study at the state level) the California
State Legislature shows that politicians discuss the humanities but implement very few laws
striving to augment them in the educational and cultural sectors. In federal legislative actions
since 2009, for example, even the Democrats inCongress, who were primarily responsible for bills orother speeches and documents mentioning thehumanities, rarely did more than talk. The majority ofCongressional legislation went no further than simply
being introduced. What passed in each house consisted

Augment, v.
“to add something to (something)in order to improve or completeit”---Merriam-Webster Dictionary“To make greater in size, number,amount, degree, etc.; to increase,enlarge, extend”---Oxford English Dictionary

mainly of resolutions without the force of law.1 The useof resolutions merely to recognize also occurred in the
California State Legislature. By contrast, the administration of President Obama more actively
promoted the humanities through the President’s Committee on the Arts and Humanities, theNational Endowment for the Humanities (NEH), and the First Lady’s political agenda regarding
youth education. However, the executive branch could only influence the humanities to a certain

1

The two major forms of legislation—bills and resolutions—differ because bills have theability to become law, whereas “simple resolutions relate to the operations of a single chamber or
express the collective opinion of that chamber on public policy issues.” (“Bills and Resolutions,”
Library of Congress: American Memory, accessed November 23, 2015,
http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/amlaw/lwhbsb.html).

3extent because Congress has the power of the purse. Few pieces of substantive legislation
corresponded with the president’s education agenda.

Research Sources and Methods
For this study, 4Humanities examined four sources of contemporary U.S. political
discourse available in online form:
Federal legislature
1. Congress.gov
2. Gpo.gov

Federal executive branch
3. Whitehouse.gov

State legislature (California)
4. Legislature.ca.gov

Congress.gov is maintained by the Library of Congress and contains records of all federal
legislative information dating back to 1973. It includes material from committee hearings,
congressional records, legislation, and more. Users can access thousands of bills in HTML
format. Due to a limitation of the search engine on Congress.gov, 4Humanities also drew for
research on the federal legislature on the Government Publishing Office’s site, Gpo.gov, whichcontains documents from all branches of the federal government, including congressional bills in
PDF and HTML format. Whitehouse.gov is a site maintained by the president’s administration,and is designed to be the public-facing online presence of the executive branch. The site includes
material such as statements and releases, press briefings, presidential actions, and more. Since
the site currently promotes the Obama administration’s agenda, the material dates back to 2009
when Obama began his tenure. The main emphases of the site are the president’s signature
policies, especially on climate change, the economy, and education. Users can read thousands of
documents in HTML or PDF format as well as watch interactive videos. Legislature.ca.gov,
finally, is the California State Legislature’s site. Consolidating information from both the state
Assembly and Senate, the site provides a substantial amount of information on bills, budgets,

4committees, hearings, leadership, caucuses, and more dating back to 1993 in HTML and PDF
format.
The research 4Humanities collected from these sources is presented in a set of
spreadsheets that include metadata and annotated summaries of all documents referring to thehumanities between 2009 and 2015. (For the live, full spreadsheets, see
http://bit.ly/4humpoliticsdata. For selected, filtered views of the spreadsheets presented in tableformat with explanations, see http://bit.ly/4humpoliticsdataviews).

Analysis
Beginning with the legislative branch of government, 4Humanities examined documents
related to the humanities issued by the U.S. Congress in legislation, executive communication
records, and articles—some of which was at the level just of congratulatory resolutions foruniversities, fraternities, and arts education. Some of the most consequential pieces ofCongressional legislation included appropriations bills because Congress authorizes expenditures
for the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) and the National Endowment for the Arts
(NEA), which were established by the National Foundation on the Arts and Humanities Act of1965. For example, a House bill of 2015 allotted $146,021,000 to the NEH.2 Bills that went
further than allocation (however contested) for standing government programs in an effort toaugment the humanities were rare, but did exist. One sought to “improve the teaching andlearning of American history and civics,” giving grants to agencies that partner with higher

2

Department of the Interior, Environment, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act of
2016, H.R. 2822, 113th Cong., http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/BILLS-114hr2822rh/html/BILLS114hr2822rh.htm

5education facilities, humanities organizations, libraries, or museums.3 Another bill incentivizedresearch competitiveness and included the humanities in its definition of “basic research.”4
However, there is one thing in common in all these “improving” bills: not one was signed into
law or even passed out of the legislature. More characteristic were all the congressional record
articles mentioning the humanities in congratulation but not as something to be acted on. For
example, in an article titled “Honoring the 40th Anniversary of Humanities Washington and the15th Anniversary of its Bedtime Stories Gala,” Representative Jim McDermott (D) congratulated
the humanities as follows: “The humanities—including history, literature, philosophy, ethics,
law, and other fields of inquiry—encourage us to investigate, speak, listen, read, reflect,question, think, grow, and act.”5
In general, Congress acted in a minimalist role in passing laws to enhance the humanities,
yet continued to recognize and praise the humanities through resolutions, congressional record
articles, and similar publications. Most actual bills to augment the humanities were only
introduced, never reaching the floor for a vote. Of the total number of bills related to thehumanities during 2009 to 2015, 68 percent failed to make it out of committee. Thirty percent
were passed in one branch of the legislature or the other but did not make it through thelegislative process to become law. (Just two percent of the total number of bills related to the3

Improving the Teaching and Learning of American History and Civics Act of 2009, S. 659,
111 Cong., http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/BILLS-111s659is/html/BILLS-111s659is.htm
th4

Research and Development Tax Credit Act of 2009, H.R. 717, 111th Cong.,
http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/BILLS-111hr717ih/html/BILLS-111hr717ih.htm.
5

Honoring the 40th Anniversary of Humanities Washington and the 15th Anniversary of its
Bedtime Stories Literary Gala, 113th Cong., 1st sess., Congressional Record 159, No. 118(September 10, 2013): E1272-E1273, https://www.congress.gov/congressional-record/2013/
9/10/extensions-of-remarks-section/article/e1272-3?q=%7B%22search%22%3A%5B%22%5C%22humanities%5C%22%22%5D%7D&resultIndex=319.

6humanities were signed into law, but that two percent—a single bill—consisted of theConsolidated Appropriations Act of 2014, which was essential for funding federal departments
and agencies in general.) The entirety of what passed in the Senate or House thus consisted onlyof resolutions without the effect of law. Inefficiency was the mark of Congressional action on thehumanities, where only symbolic celebration in the form of resolutions was prolific.
Drilling down into legislative logic at the state level, 4Humanities also examined theCalifornia State Legislature’s online documents, which include resolutions and bills within thestate’s bicameral legislature. Forty-three percent of all legislation in California that mentioned
the humanities during 2009 to 2015 consisted just of resolutions, almost all of which (91 percent)were repetitious forms of two resolutions. Indeed, over the six years of legislation, two
resolutions—one on LGBT Pride Month and another on Asian and Pacific Islander American
Heritage Month—appeared repeatedly and together made up 39.6 percent of legislation related tothe humanities. The LGBT Pride Month resolution began with a litany of recognition that
included the humanities as follows: “Whereas, Lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people
have made important and lasting contributions to our great state and nation in every field of
endeavor, including, but not limited to, business, medicine, law, humanities, science,
literature…that enrich our national life...”6 The resolution on Asian and Pacific Islander
American Heritage Month began with a similar mention of the humanities amid a chorus ofrecognition: “Whereas, Asian and Pacific Islander Americans continue to cultivate, advance, and6

Relative to Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender (LGBT) Pride Month, H.R. 24, 20152016 sess. (California State Legislature), http://www.leginfo.ca.gov/pub/1516/bill/asm/ab_0001-0050/hr_24_bill_20150622_amended_asm_v98.htm.

7lead in the fields of art, fashion, business…humanities, medicine, sports, and entertainment...”7
Such repeated resolutions served a celebratory purpose, but from another point of view blocked
new ideas that could benefit the state.
Beyond resolutions, actual bills relating to the humanities proposed in California werealso characterized by repetitious content with micro effects. Many were just amended versions of
the only kind of bills that allocated funds for humanities programs or infrastructure:
appropriations bills for the entire fiscal year. For example, the 2009 California appropriations billstated that funding would go to Monterey Peninsula College and College of the Redwoods for
new facilities. (Monterey Peninsula College would receive $403,000 for preliminary plans andwork drawings to “Modernize Humanities, Business, and Student Services Buildings,” andCollege of the Redwoods would receive $27,304,000 for construction of the “New
Science/Humanities Building Seismic Replacement.”8) Here, one contrast with the U.S.
Congress comes to light. Whereas Congress talked a lot about the humanities in resolutions andother documents outside actual bills, the California State Legislature issued little legislationreferring to the humanities outside omnibus appropriation bills. State legislators rarely mentioned
the humanities in either a positive or negative light. Rather, they often mentioned the humanities
just in a law’s “findings” section and in capital outlay funding for colleges and universities. Suchlack of attention to the humanities had the effect of emphasizing the sciences instead by default,
as instanced in various bills seeking to amend the Revenue and Tax Code’s definition of “basic

7

Relative to Asian and Pacific Islander American Heritage Month, SCR 52, 2015-2016
sess. (California State Legislature), http://www.leginfo.ca.gov/pub/15-16/bill/sen/sb_00510100/scr_52_bill_20150610_chaptered.html.
8Budget Act of 2009, SBX3 1, 2009-2010 sess. (California State Legislature),
http://www.leginfo.ca.gov/pub/09-10/bill/sen/sb_0001-0050/sbx3_1_bill_20090220_chaptered.html.

8
research” to omit research in the humanities. For instance, a bill of 2013 tried to change sectionsof the Governor Code as well as the Revenue and Taxation Code to exclude the humanities fromthe remit of research:
The provisions of Section 41(e)(7)(A) of the Internal Revenue Code, relating tobasic research, shall be modified so that "basic research," for purposes of thissection, includes any basic or applied research including scientific inquiry or
original investigation for the advancement of scientific or engineering knowledgeor the improved effectiveness of commercial products, except that the term does
not include any of the following: (1) Basic research conducted outside California,(2) Basic research in the social sciences, arts, or humanities, (3) Basic research forthe purpose of improving a commercial product if the improvements relate tostyle, taste, cosmetic, or seasonal design factors.9
Inefficiency, or omission, was thus also a mark of the California State Legislature in
regard to the humanities. Both the state Senate and Assembly passed into law few bills thatmentioned the humanities. By contrast with the U.S. Congress, they did not even offer much in
the way of symbolic praise.
The picture is somewhat different in the White House, though how effectively different—
given the executive branch’s lack of funding power—is open to question. The White House
website posted material during 2009 to 2015 that depicts the Obama administration as an active,
positive influence on the humanities. For example, the President’s Committee on the Arts andHumanities hosted “Tuesday Talks” addressing public concerns and posted the videos of thetalks on the site. First Lady Michelle Obama also mentioned the humanities in speeches for the
National Arts and Humanities Youth Program, the Turnaround Arts Initiative, and more. In
visiting public schools and promoting education, the First Lady also acted as a role model to9

California Innovation and Jobs Act, AB 653, 2013-2014 sess. (California State
Legislature), http://www.leginfo.ca.gov/pub/13-14/bill/asm/ab_06510700/ab_653_bill_20130805_amended_asm_v95.html. This clause was used throughout various
pieces of legislation dating back to 2009.

9
motivate students in impoverished areas of the nation to attend school and go on to excellence. In
addition, the Obama administration praised the humanities in other ways. By awarding
humanities educators, the Champion of Change award, creating a proclamation for the National
Arts and Humanities Month, and publicly showing support for the humanities in interviews,
Obama attempted to give the humanities a boost. In an interview with Tumblr CEO David Karp,for example, Obama stated: “A great liberal arts humanities education is still critically important,because in today’s global economy, one of the most important skills you have is your ability towork with people and communicate clearly and effectively.”10 Such promotion of the humanities
is evident across the White House website.
But, of course, the executive branch can only promote the humanities to a certain extent.
Only Congress, not the president, has the power of the purse to fund the humanities in educationand society. Despite the president’s good will toward the humanities, for example, the WhiteHouse website notes that in fiscal year 2012, an “across-the-board” reduction of funds resulted ina decrease to the NEH of $234,000. In order to advance the policy initiatives on the humanities,
therefore, agencies under the Obama administration’s watch sought other sources of funding. For
example, the NEH partnered with state humanities councils so the humanities could continue tohave access to sufficient funds,11 and the President’s Committee on the Arts and the Humanities
expanded the Turnaround Arts Initiative through a public-private partnership. As noted in a
White House publication, “The newly expanded program is funded through a public-private

10White House, “Remarks by the President in Q&A with David Karp, CEO of Tumblr,”
https://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2014/06/10/remarks-president-qa-david-karp-ceotumblr.
11White House, “Promotion of the Humanities—Federal/State Partnership,”https://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/omb/assets/OMB/circulars/a133_compliance/201
4/neh.pdf

10partnership, providing over $5 million over the next three years from the U.S. Department of
Education, the National Endowment of the Arts, the Ford Foundation and other private
foundations and companies to bring arts education into low-performing schools.”12 The
publication goes on to discuss an additional $12 million to be raised from local program partners.
While political gridlock in Congress halted bills that could positively affect the humanities, theexecutive branch thus continued to promote the humanities in education and society. In general,the president of the United States has the ability to set the political agenda in hopes that—as in
the case of Obama’s promotion of the humanities—future bills in the legislature will advancethat agenda.
One additional significant finding is clear when surveying all the political discourse
related to the humanities emanating from Washington, D.C., and Sacramento, CA. Factoring the
U.S. two-party system into the equation shows that in the material 4Humanities researched the
Democrats dominate in talk about the humanities. According to the 2008 and 2012 political party
platforms, the Democrats emphasize their commitment to the humanities and arts whereas theRepublicans cease to even mention them. The 2008 Democratic Party Platform states, “We
support art in schools and increased public funding for the National Endowment for the Arts andthe National Endowment for the Humanities,”13 and their 2012 party platform reiterates this12

White House, “Committee on the Arts and Humanities Announces Expansion of
Turnaround Arts Program,” https://www.whitehouse.gov/the-pressoffice/2014/05/20/committee-arts-and-humanities-announces-expansion-turnaround-arts-progra
13“Democratic Party Platforms: 2008 Democratic Party Platform,” August 25, 2008, online
by Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley, The American Presidency Project,
http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=78283

11
notion.14 Democrats in this period, of course, controlled the executive branch; they introduced 78
percent of the congressional legislation mentioning the humanities; they wrote 90 percent of therelevant congressional record articles; and they introduced 75.5 percent of the relevant California
state legislation. The goal of augmenting the humanities, or at least of talking about it, is notbipartisan.

Conclusion
This study by 4Humanities can be useful for scholars who wish to research legislative
activity, the humanities, partisan politics, and more. The study reveals that the U.S. Congress andthe California State Legislature were ineffective during 2009 to 2015 in augmenting thehumanities, as few relevant bills passed into law. Resolutions often passed the Senate or House,but these simple resolutions were political tactics to recognize someone or something, not to put
forth nation-changing legislation. The Obama administration, meanwhile, attempted to be as
positive and influential as possible within its limited resources, making a place in its political
agenda for the humanities. As when other presidents have laid out an agenda, the hope is that themedia’s agenda can also be altered, public opinion swayed, and in turn legislators forced by such
opinion to act.
The current 4Humanities study of political discourse on the humanities is of course
limited in chronological and geographical coverage. Future research utilizing online materials
may incorporate data going back to 2000 rather than 2009. Analyzing data beginning with theGeorge W. Bush administration would allow for comparison between a Democratic and

14“Democratic Party Platforms: 2012 Democratic Party Platform,” September 3, 2012,
online by Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley, The American Presidency Project,
http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=101962

12
Republican president as well as between different congressional majority parties. Analyzing datafrom states beyond California—especially states representative of different regions of thenation—would also provide important additional perspectives.
4Humanities may also pursue one other future mode of research on the topic of this study
in conjunction with its “WhatEvery1Says” project. Started in 2013, the latter project collects
media discourse about the humanities and submits the material to computational data mining andtext analysis. Based on the U.S. and California political materials collected and described in thispaper, 4Humanities may conduct data mining of the full texts of relevant White Housepublications, Congressional legislation, and state legislation to discern broad patterns or trends inthe way politicians talk about the humanities that they and their constituencies may not be
conscious of, that converge or diverge from public discourse on the humanities in media andelsewhere, and that otherwise provide another way to understand the perceived role of thehumanities in society today.

Sources and References
Primary Sources:“California State Legislature.” Legislature.ca.gov. Accessed November 2015.
http://www.legislature.ca.gov/“Sunlight Foundation: Congress.” The Sunlight Foundation. Accessed November 2015.
http://tryit.sunlightfoundation.com/congress“U.S. Congress.” Congress.gov. Accessed November 2015. https://www.congress.gov/“U.S. Government Publishing Office.” Gpo.gov. Accessed November 2015.
https://www.gpo.gov/“White House: President Barack Obama.” Whitehouse.gov. Accessed November 2015.
https://www.whitehouse.gov/

13
Other References:“Bills and Resolutions.” Library of Congress: American Memory. Accessed November 23, 2015.
http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/amlaw/lwhbsb.html“Democratic Party Platforms: 2008 Democratic Party Platform.” August 25, 2008. Online by
Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley. The American Presidency Project.
http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=78283“Democratic Party Platforms: 2012 Democratic Party Platform.” September 3, 2012. Online by
Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley. The American Presidency Project.
http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=101962
Honoring the 40th Anniversary of Humanities Washington and the 15th Anniversary of its
Bedtime Stories Literary Gala. 113th Cong., 1st sess., Congressional Record 159, No. 118(September 10, 2013): E1272-E1273. https://www.congress.gov/congressional-record/2
013/9/10/extensions-of-remarks-section/article/e1272-3?q=%7B%22search%22%3A%5
B%22%5C%22humanities%5C%22%22%5D%7D&resultIndex=319.
White House. “Committee on the Arts and Humanities Announces Expansion of TurnaroundArts Program.” https://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2014/05/20/committee-artsand-humanities-announces-expansion-turnaround-arts-progra.
White House. “Promotion of the Humanities—Federal/State Partnership.”https://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/omb/assets/OMB/circulars/a133_compliance/2014/neh.pdf
White House. “Remarks by the President in Q&A with David Karp, CEO of Tumblr.”
https://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2014/06/10/remarks-president-qa-davidkarp-ceo-tumblr.
Appendix: Data Collection Process
4Humanities varied its methods of data collection based on the specific affordances of the
web-site search engines for each of its sources of political material.
With regard to congressional material, 4Humanities used both Congress.gov and Gpo.gov
as its research sources. The Congress.gov search engine by itself was only partially suitable for
4Humanities purposes because its system of associating each document with a subject categorysystem caused every document (29,032 total) in the category of “human” to show up in the

14results of a search for “humanities.” To make searching relevant and feasible, 4Humanities
collected from Congress.gov only documents whose titles (rather than full text) mention thehumanities. Such material consisted primarily of congressional record articles and executive
communication documents. 4Humanities used Gpo.gov to search for and collect othercongressional material. This was achieved by using the Sunlight Foundation’s API (application
program interface) to query legislation contained in Gpo.gov. (The API console on the SunlightFoundation’s website allows users to search within legislation, e.g., setting the parameter to“query” and searching “humanities.”) Using the URLs delivered among other metadata by theAPI, 4Humanities was able to access the full texts of 50 relevant congressional legislative items.
4Humanities then turned again to Congress.gov to search legislation numbers because
Congress.gov provides a significant amount of background information on such item, such as thepolitical affiliation of a bill’s author and how far each bill went in the legislative process.
Metadata for each piece of legislation’s date, source, title, author, author’s political affiliation,
URL, notes, category (bill or resolution), and progress in Congress were collected in a
spreadsheet.
Research through the White House site’s search engine was by comparison
straightforward. The search engine allows a researcher to examine every document on
Whitehouse.gov that references the “humanities.” Choosing “everything” as the search parameterfor “statements and releases” on the site can accomplish this. Because there are numerous
repeated documents in such a search, however, 4Humanities only collected and analyzed therelevant documents. In total, 4Humanities collected 33 relevant documents from the period since
President Obama took office in 2009. Metadata for each document’s publication date, source,

15
title, author, and URL as well as the researcher’s summary of the document were recorded in a
spreadsheet.
The research method for the California State Legislature material was also relatively
straightforward. On the homepage of Legislature.ca.gov, the “bill search” module allows one tosearch by bill number, author, or keyword. Selecting “keyword” and inputting “humanities” as
the parameter in both Houses dating back to 2009 resulted in finding 53 relevant pieces oflegislation. Metadata for the California material (the same as that for congressional materials)
was collected in a spreadsheet.

Austin Yack is an undergraduate researcher at University of California, Santa
Barbara and will graduate in Spring 2016 with a Bachelor of Arts in Political
Science and a Minor in English. Under the supervision of Dr. Alan Liu, Austin
joined 4Humanities in Summer 2015 as the team’s research specialist focusedon United States political discourse at both the federal and state levels. The
4Humanities project, WhatEvery1Says, is collecting and analyzing a corpus of
public discourse about the humanities and liberal arts, and Austin’s knowledge
in politics, law, and journalism allowed him to bring a diverse perspective to the project. He hasinterned at The Hill Newspaper in Washington, D.C. and the Santa Barbara District Attorney’s
Office.