Colleen Shogan was fired by President Donald Trump in February without warning or explanation, just nine months after she became the first woman to serve as Archivist of the United States. Now, instead of retreating, she is stepping forward with a new mission: strengthening democracy itself.
On Constitution Day, Shogan announced More Perfect, a national bipartisan initiative that brings together 34 presidential centers and more than 100 organizations. The project, she explained, is designed to confront what she calls a crisis in civics education and restore a sense of civic literacy to a country she believes has drifted away from its democratic foundations.
The statistics are sobering. Only 22 percent of American eighth graders are proficient in civics. Seventy percent of adults cannot pass a basic civics test. Questions as simple as how many branches of government exist, or which branch writes the laws, often trip people up. For Shogan, who has spent her career at the Library of Congress, the White House Historical Association, and the National Archives, that gap is not just an embarrassment but a danger. “We have to be accurate in our telling of American history,” she said. “We can’t understand the successes without also understanding the failures.”
Shogan’s new effort leans on her past. As Archivist, she visited every presidential library and saw firsthand how people connect with history through presidents and first families. That experience inspired In Pursuit, a companion project to More Perfect that will feature essays from former presidents, first ladies, historians, and journalists—including Judy Woodruff—on the lessons of American leadership. She frames it as a “civics education moonshot,” aimed at reaching ten million people, including five million students.
Shogan’s own story adds weight to her cause. She says she was blindsided by her dismissal, which came via a social media post announcing Trump’s decision. While no reason was ever given, her firing followed months of Trump railing against the National Archives for its role in the investigation into his handling of classified documents. Shogan hadn’t even been in charge during that episode. Still, she became collateral damage in a political fight over history itself.
Her departure comes at a moment when the Archives faces steep budget cuts—nearly $60 million less than projected for next year and $90 million less than the 2024 level. That shortfall, she warns, could leave the agency unable to manage the tidal wave of digital records expected in the next decade. Without new infrastructure, she argues, the public may lose access to government records altogether.
Shogan said, “History is not static. The past is prologue. If we don’t teach it accurately, we can’t understand who we are or where we’re going.”
What began as an abrupt dismissal may now be the starting point for something larger—a national campaign to restore the civic literacy she believes is essential to American democracy.
