Contested Curriculum: Fighting for Queer History in K-12 Schools

Historian Don Romesburg, a lead scholar implementing California's FAIR Education Act, will discuss the long journey to bring LGBTQ-inclusive history education to the nation's K-12 schools. Right now, exploring this past in order to chart a path forward is more vital than ever. In this moment of systematic erasure of queer and trans histories and public lives, when even the Supreme Court has restricted inclusive curriculum, Dr. Romesburg will provide strategies to make education more relevant and dynamic for all students and families. Romesburg, Visiting Professor of History and Women's, Gender, and Queer Studies at California Polytechnic University, San Luis Obispo, is the author of Contested Curriculum: LGBTQ History Goes to School (Rutgers UP, 2025) and editor of the Routledge History of Queer America (2018).

Dr. Don Romesburg is the author of Contested Curriculum: LGBTQ History Goes to School (Rutgers UP, 2025) and editor of the Routledge History of Queer America (2018). He was the lead scholar working with advocates to pass the FAIR Education Act and bring LGBTQ content into California's 2016 K-12 History-Social Science Framework and subsequent textbooks. He now trains educators on implementation. For these efforts, he is the namesake of the LGBTQ+ History Association’s Don Romesburg Prize for K-12 Curriculum. In addition, Romesburg is a co-founder of the GLBT Historical Society Museum in San Francisco. He is a visiting professor in History and Women’s, Gender, and Queer Studies at Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo.

This free event is presented by the Department of History with support from the Sheila Y. Oliver Center for Politics and Race in America, American Studies, Urban Education, Women’s and Gender Studies, and the Queer Newark Oral History Project.