The University of Texas at Austin will host a two‑day seminar this October, titled “Teaching the Twentieth Century: Communism and Dissent,” with the goal of equipping professors across disciplines to teach the brutal legacy of communism. Organized by UT Austin’s School of Civic Leadership and the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation, the event aims to ensure that the ideology’s catastrophic toll is not ignored in modern curriculums.
Communism, responsible for the deaths of over 100 million people, poses a clear threat to the values of personal liberty, economic prosperity, and the rule of law, according to Foundation leadership. Professors who participate will receive resources and training—with the requirement to teach a related course afterward.
Professor Alexander Duff of UT Austin criticizes traditional academic focus on theory over real‑world consequences. He stresses the urgency of confronting the destructive outcomes of totalitarian regimes, warning that history’s darkest chapters risk being “too easily forgotten.”
Eric Patterson, president and CEO of the Memorial Foundation and former State Department official, underscores the importance of university-level instruction in preserving Western moral order. He asserts that professors must analyze communism’s lofty ideological claims alongside its documented failure to uphold human dignity and freedom.
The seminar reflects a growing conservative demand for truthful historical education. Senate Bill 24, enacted earlier this year, mandates Texas public schools teach the high human cost of communism—a direct response to concerns that ideological bias or historical revisionism hides the suffering under totalitarian regimes.
This initiative deepens Texas’s commitment to civic education grounded in reality. By promoting honest and courageous scholarship, the seminar supports the state’s long-standing efforts—dating to Cold War‑era measures—to uphold internal security and resist extremist ideologies.
