My Final Statement on KC Johnson's Until Proven Innocent; or, You Know You've Made It ...

(By the way, I lied .)

... when The Weekly Standard smears you:

And, just a few days ago, Group of 88 sympathizer Scott Eric Kaufman, a journalism instructor at the University of California at Irvine, posted an entry on his blog, Acephalous, calling for Johnson to be ostracized by the prestigious history website Cliopatria, even though Johnson has a doctorate from Harvard and is the author of four scholarly books.

I'm a what?  Group of 88 sympathizer?  News to me.  Also quite nice to be reemployed: I loved my time working in the literary journalism department, and wish that University of California regulations would have let me keep teaching in it. 

As for the (oft-repeated) claim that I called for KC Johnson's ouster from a group blog to which I don't contribute, I offer my (oft-repeated) explanation:

KC: I said nothing about how to manage Cliopatria. In this regard, I believe there must've be some context I've missed, as you and Ralph both think my criticism of you is a call for your removal from the roster. I said, quite plainly, that "keeping you on the roster does the rest of [the contributors] a disservice." I suspect—given the context I'm missing—that any comparable statement in which I distinguish between what you've written and what your compatriots have would've sounded like I was armchair managing Cliopatria.

Also:

Ralph, my point was that, in my opinion, the works he's doing at Durham-in-Wonderland isn't up to par with what I expect from Cliopatria.  I don't expect to see Horowitzian attacks coming from Cliopatria's contributors, and that's what I observed over at Durham-in-Wonderland.  The problem isn't that they're conservative arguments, but that they're bad arguments. 

So kudos to Charlotte Allen for landing her review of Until Proven Innocent in The Weekly Standard.  Perhaps next time she (or her fact-checkers) will verify the accuracy of her statements before they're published.  (Fact-checking is something of a sport at the Standard, after all.)

UPDATE: Ralph thinks I ought to own up to my words and admit I called for KC to be barred from Cliopatria.  As I meant nothing of the sort, honesty bars me from doing that.  What I can say is that I don't think KC should be barred from Cliopatria or otherwise ostracized by the academic community (online or otherwise). 

Comments

[Rich Puchalsky]

That Weekly Standard article really is quite the symphony of propaganda. I think that people should read it, then consider that this is really what KC Johnson is supporting. Not the students at Duke -- they have been declared innocent, and the prosecutor punished. No, his cause is the support of articles like this one.

Having done that, I think that you should understand when I say that KC Johnson really should be ostracized at Cliopatria and in general by his colleagues. Scott didn't call for that ostracism, but it should happen nevertheless.

[KC Johnson]

Given the earlier pattern of criticizing DIW for its comments, I assume there will be an immediate denunciation of the comment above . . .

I should note, for the record, that UPI has received very positive reviews from across the ideological spectrum, including Jeffrey Rosen in the New York Times Book Review; Evan Thomas in Newsweek; and Clarence Page in the Chicago Tribune.

But perhaps they're all just shadow-Horowitzians.

[William Anderson]

I guess that some people are just disappointed that the vaunted Duke Lacrosse Rape Case turned out to be the Duke Lacrosse Non-Rape, Non-Kidnapping, and Non-Sexual Assault Case. And I guess that some people are disappointed that K.C. Johnson took some Really Stupid People apart on his blog.

I think it is humorous (and a bit pathetic) that some people want to take this out on K.C. Oh, the poor, poor, campus hard left. This case meant So Much to them, and it turns out that Crystal Mangum and Mike Nifong were lying all along.

As a college professor, I will say that what those members of the Duke faculty and their supporters did was a disgrace, and I am glad that K.C. Johnson took them on. And for that people want him "ostracized" from a history blog? People who supported a lying and corrupt prosecutor and who cared not a whit for due process and every other legal protection that supposedly we have?

I guess that some college profs just cannot let it go. The attitude seems to be, "Dammit, we had these evil rich, white boys in our clutches, and then along comes K.C. Johnson to deprive us of our prey."

Well, little people, I am so, so sorry that your wish didn't come true. You rolled the dice and supported a lie, and all of your protestations just could not turn that lie into the truth. But, then, I doubt that most of you really were interested in the truth, since the story you chose to believe was much more satisfying to you than what really happened. Sorry that you did not get your way, and I am so, so sorry that K.C. is getting the attention and credit he deserves, while you stew in your pathetic little juices.

[happyfeet]

I thought the Evan Thomas review was self-serving crap. He glossed over the book's criticism of the media but to act as if Newsweek were somehow in the vanguard of justice.

Dickless Evan "The narrative was right, but the facts were wrong" Thomas used the review as an opportunity to rehabilitate perceptions of his own and Newsweek's piss-poor character.

That's what I think, and I gave it a lot of thought.

[Rich Puchalsky]

"Given the earlier pattern of criticizing DIW for its comments, I assume there will be an immediate denunciation of the comment above . . ."

Why, because I made a true statement? You do evidently support this kind of article; you refer to it in the context of very positive reviews and say nothing else about it. I can only then assume that you support the focus of the article; a celebration of publishing the name of a woman who the article says has mental problems in order to slut-shame her and score culture war points. That's justice?

Or because I expressed the opinion that you should be ostracized? You misrepresent the truth. Isn't that a cardinal sin in a historian? You said that you weren't a Horowitzian, and you've written at least six articles that are published on his site.

And yes, Scott is right that your disgraceful performance does affect the reputations of others on Cliopatria. Ralph Luker, who defended you, made claims over and over that were based on your assurances that turned out not to be true.

[Karl Steel]

"Dammit, we had these evil rich, white boys in our clutches,

William, first off, who is the 'you' you're addressing? Second off, while the rich white boys may be not guilty of rape, I'd say at least one of them qualifies as evil.

You're accusing some "you" of getting caught up in some tired morality play of good v. evil: it'd behoove you not to make the same mistake.

[happyfeet]

ohnoes teh evil.

It's always just good fun until someone kills the stripper. Thank god this time she lived. Thank god, I say. Thank god.

[Ahistoricality]

UPI has received very positive reviews from across the ideological spectrum

That's actually a fairly limited spectrum, in the grand scheme of things.

More to the point, the positive reviews of the book as a whole don't in any way obviate -- or even address -- the criticism of a portion of the book. None of the reviews I've read so far have gone into any depth on the issues addressed by SEK, Tim Burke, etc., regarding the nature of the critique of academia. The reviews talk about the books successful prosecution of Nifong, which is great, and about the Group of 88's problematic stance, which is reasonably, but none of them have taken a critical look at the supposedly systemic issues allegedly addressed by the book. The book may be 90% great, and the reviews should say that; we're not talking about that part. Everyone involved has stipulated those points. Get over it, and respond to what's at issue.

[Ralph Luker]

What's at issue is why the Group of 88 still cannot bring themselves to acknowledge publicly and with humility that there was no rape. What biases make it impossible to acknowledge what DNA evidence and legal findings confirm? It is pretty astonishing that there are otherwise reasonable people on the academic left who show no curiosity about that question, thus leaving the impression that they are unwilling to hold their peers to accountability.

[Karl Steel]

It is pretty astonishing that there are otherwise reasonable people on the academic left who show no curiosity about that question, thus leaving the impression that they are unwilling to hold their peers to accountability.

For example?

[Ralph Luker]

You direct attention away from the Group of 88 and its accountability by attacking the messenger and trying to make him the issue.

[Karl Steel]

Ralph: huh? I'm just curious to know the names of some of these academics--otherwise reasonable, but lacking curiosity, therefore impression-leavers--who astonish you so. Are you thinking of the so-called "Group of 88," or are there others you have in mind? Since you've decided to return to commenting here, you may want to continue the discussion you abandoned below.

[Ralph Luker]

Brother Steel, The discussion below had its conclusion. I've nothing else to say there. As for your "huh?", can you think of anyone here who has tried to make KC Johnson, rather than the Group of 88, the issue?

[Ralph Luker]

Brother Steel, The discussion below had its conclusion. I've nothing else to say there. As for your "huh?", can you think of anyone here who has tried to make KC Johnson, rather than the Group of 88, the issue?

[Rich Puchalsky]

"It is pretty astonishing that there are otherwise reasonable people on the academic left who show no curiosity about that question, thus leaving the impression that they are unwilling to hold their peers to accountability."

Oh, this again. I'm not on the academic left, since I'm not an academic, but if I may answer this anyway, academics issue all sorts of public statements that I disagree with and find to be utterly objectionable. Some of them support the ongoing war in Iraq, or urge the U.S. to attack Iran. Some of them, funded by industry money, try to deny mainstream science on anthrogenic global warming. Some of them issue various kind of racist statements. I disagree with the Group of 88's statement, and I wouldn't have signed it. Nor do I have any problem in acknowledging that no rape occured. But their statement is hardly the most harmful of the types being issued at the current time.

What's more, KC Johnson and other persist in willfully misreading the Group of 88 "listening statement". I've read it. Anyone who reads it who is not a purblind wingnut should be able to see that it, in fact, does not assert that a rape occured. It refers to "what has happened to this woman"; well what has happened to this woman is that she has become the center of a swirl of racist, sexist, counter-reaction, now being continued by KC Johnson. The statement contains quotes like "If the students are guilty, they should be expelled." You, Ralph Luker; have you ever actually read the statement? I've heard that primary sources were once important to historians. Has the gone by the wayside in your work?

So you are asking people to deny something they never said. And the right-wingers, as usual, are ginning up their usual outrage storm about it. I see no reason why anyone should condemn the Group of 88 in these circumstances. Their offense was, comparatively, less than yours.

[Ralph Luker]

Rich, In the midst of calls for castration of lacrosse team members by demonstrators at Duke, how is it helpful for the Group of 88 to write of "what has happened to this woman"? That _assumes_ that something _had_ happened to her. We know in retrospect that she made false charges multiple times, changing the numbers of lacrosse players accused of raping her. If the Group meant to address the social conditions that might cause a woman to be a stripper, a drug user, a drunk, a casual sex partner, _that_ might have been a worthy aim. But the 88 wrongly assumed that something untoward happened to her at the lacrosse team house and that the lacrosse players were the perps. You may have read their public statement, but you also need to read the surrounding documents, such as Houston Baker's slanderous charges against all members of the lacrosse team.

[KC Johnson]

It's worth noting that the Group's ad also said, "To the protesters making collective noise, thank you for not waiting and for making yourselves heard." The two highest-profile protests that had occurred (both widely covered on campus) in the week before the statement was created were: (a) the potbangers' protest (where people carried banners reading, among other items, "Castrate"); and (b) the March 29 take-back-the-night protest, where students blanketed the campus with a 'wanted' poster showing 43 of the 46 white lacrosse players' faces. Neither then nor at any time since has any member of the Group explained why it was so important for the protesters not to wait.

As to answering the Burke/SEK criticisms of UPI, rather than pointing to what reviewers have said: to my knowledge, neither Tim nor Scott have read the book. (They certainly hadn't when they made their earlier criticisms.) I responded, at some length, to SEK's points. I responded to all of Tim's but one--his suggesting that I was being ahistorical, given that social and cultural history had arisen from departments that previously had been dominated by more traditional approaches to the discipline. Tim's implication appeared to be that contemporary departments dominated by social or cultural historians would be similarly receptive to sub-disciplines outside of their own.

With due respect to Tim, I would submit that he is ignoring history in his critique. It's quite true that social, cultural, gender, African-American, etc. history emerged from departments that previously had been more "traditional" in focus. But this movement occurred as part of a broader intellectual shift in the 1960s and 1970s, as a relatively left-leaning academy encouraged creation of a "usable past." The powers that be in most departments, in short, were ideologically sympathetic to the new pedagogical trends.

In the contemporary environment, on the other hand, defenders of the academic status quo vehemently resist any "outside" intrusion from political forces--and are wholly antagonistic to outside academic reform movements.

The idea that departments dominated by social and cultural historians will be receptive to other pedagogical approaches as 1960s or 1970s departments were receptive strikes me as ignoring the broader political and ideological climate in which the academy operates.

[Rich Puchalsky]

"you also need to read the surrounding documents, such as Houston Baker's slanderous charges against all members of the lacrosse team."

Feel free to condemn any individuals who have issued other statements and who have not acknowledged that they were wrong. But the focus is not on individuals, it is on the Group of 88. Why? Because, as an impersonal group, they are a better stand-in to whip up propaganda against academics as a whole.

And of course the media storm about the woman had already started to happen. For all of the people claiming, without knowledge of the case and before any trial, that the students must have been guilty, there were other people claiming, without knowledge of the case and before any trial, that this black slut must have made the whole thing up. As it turns out, she did make this fasle accusation -- perhaps, as I saw mentioned, to avoid mental health intake -- so the Weekly Standard and KC Johnson want to punish her by publicizing her name, adding details such as how many other sexual partners the DNA evidence revealed she'd had.

That's disgusting behavior, and it's going on now; not in the past like the Group of 88's statement. The woman involved was not a public figure, like the prosecutor. People want those details because they enjoy anything that confirms the same racist, sexist stereotypes that the Group of 88's statement refers to.

And as for the protests -- I'm fully familiar with how the right-wing media ignore the majority of protestors at any protest and focus on one person holding the most inflammatory sign. After multiple misrepresentations by KC Johnson -- including his evident hope that his Horowitz connection will never need to be explained -- I don't trust his depiction of events at all. And if there were really some students carrying a "Castrate" banner, how does that compare to KC Johnson, a presumably responsible professor and adult, behaving as he has?

[happyfeet]

I'd say the crazy stripper got off pretty light, really. And that guy's book is in the top 100 at Amazon. Cool. That's about as win-win as a guy could hope for. Except for those lacrosse guys. They sure got screwed, huh?

[Prof. Ethan]

The Duke 88's group comment never seemed inflamatory to me. Their individual comments outside the group comment, individual comments condemned the LAX players on the basis of no evidence were clearly ideologically-motivated and totally irresponsible. The defense of the group comment was that they were calling attention to the prominence of jocks, fraternities, and rape on the Duke campus. But when in early 2007 a white girl was raped in a black fraternity house at Duke, within a block of the LAX house, they were silent. Case closed as to their "general" intentions.

(An arrest has been made in the latter rape case. No big headlines.)