With support from the University of Richmond

History News Network

History News Network puts current events into historical perspective. Subscribe to our newsletter for new perspectives on the ways history continues to resonate in the present. Explore our archive of thousands of original op-eds and curated stories from around the web. Join us to learn more about the past, now.

KC Johnson: His book on the Duke lacrosse case getting lots of buzz

It’s not due out until next week, but Until Proven Innocent: Political Correctness and the Shameful Injustices of the Duke Lacrosse Rape Case is already generating online buzz — and big preorders (as of today, Amazon.com is ranking it 370 in all book orders). Written by the National Journal columnist Stuart Taylor Jr. and the historian K.C. Johnson — and with glowing blurbs from names like the columnist George Will, the ACLU president Nadine Strossen, and even John Grisham — it takes a slam at how academics, Duke administrators, the news media, and the prosecutor responded to accusations of rape leveled at several Duke lacrosse players last year.

At Cliopatria, a group blog of historians, Ralph E. Luker is calling it “KC’s Moment.” He notes, however, that at Scott Eric Kaufman’s blog Acephalous, the historian Timothy Burke finds the book’s anti-intellectualism “positively Horowitzian in tenor and substance.”

As for Johnson, at the blog he set up for covering the controversy, Durham-in-Wonderland, he’s now taking the Duke University Press to task for the “pedagogical slant” of its list, which he says publishes a disproportionate share of academics who leapt to pillory the lacrosse players.
Read entire article at Chronicle of Higher Education (CHE) (Click here for embedded links.)