The American Historical Association is generally zealous in its enforcement of political correctness. For example, because it has ruled out a long list of cities which fail its exacting pc standards for annual conventions, it has cost members hundreds of thousands of dollars, probably millions.

Despite this, Ralph Luker of Cliopatria reports that the powers-that-be in the AHA apparently did not think twice about the prospect of “giving Senator Robert C. Byrd of West Virginia its inaugural Theodore Roosevelt-Woodrow Award for Civil Service...Byrd is a former member of the Ku Klux Klan who was still using the word ‘nigger’ on national television without a wince as recently as two years ago.” Somehow I don't think that the membership of the AHA would show a similar tolerance if the name of the recipient was Trent Lott rather than Robert C. Byrd.