April 14, 2025

Public Speech by Historians about History

A troubling decision by the administration of the University of Minnesota

Modern Medieval

by David M. Perry and Matthew Gabriele

A few weeks ago, the Board of Regents at the University of Minnesota passed a policy restricting academic units from making statements as units. Faculty and others had expressed concern about this change in policy, articulating a core need for experts to speak as experts. Nevertheless, the Board passed it anyway, and now university administration is applying it retroactively.

In 2022, the Center for Austrian Studies at the University of Minnesota put up a statement about the invasion of Ukraine. A few weeks ago, the statement was taken down, without notification or discussion, and the director of the center, Prof. Howard Louthan (a historian) has now stepped down. We’re including his resignation letter in its entirety, with his permission.

A few excerpts. First, on process:

You informed us on Tuesday morning that the CAS statement of February 2022 would be removed later that day. We were not consulted about the process, merely informed. Two days later in a meeting with Provost Croson, I requested that she clarify her comment to her advisory committee, “We continue to strongly encourage our community members to teach, conduct, and disseminate scholarship reflecting differing views” on Ukraine. I asked her to explain the dissenting views on the invasion of Ukraine. She was unable to respond merely noting that she was not an expert. I then asked why she did not consult experts at the university. She shrugged the question off and moved on to the next individual.

This complete and conscious dismissal of scholarly expertise is deeply disturbing. It would not have been difficult to consult a few specialists at the university. The fact that the chief academic officer of an R1 university uses ignorance as a defense for such a momentous decision is stunning.

Later:

Underlining all of this is the problematic notion of institutional neutrality. Provost Croson affirmed, “The University’s position is that by not taking a stance on its official channels such as department websites, the University will be able to fully support a broad range of debate and discourse on a variety of issues.” The university needs to be a place where we can address and discuss complicated issues. The 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, however, does not fall into this category. Following the university's logic are we supposed to "support a broad range of debate and discourse" on the Holocaust? Unfortunately, there are growing communities of Holocaust deniers. What about the Rwandan genocide or the butchery of the Khmer Rouge? There are always apologists for atrocities. What if we move to science? Are we not allowed to make a statement about vaccines? Do we give equal time to anti-vaxxers?

The university as an American institution is under attack, with right-wing forces from outside the academy attempting to seize control of, among many other things, how we teach history and how we talk about historical truths in public. Academic leaders need to defend faculty. Responsible lawmakers (including in Minnesota) need to defend academic freedom. Institutional neutrality will not offer any real protection, but will help the vandals seeking to limit how we teach, what we write, what we can say in public, and how we can say it.

We’ve attached the full letter to this for newsletter subscribers, but you can also click here to see a pdf.

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