Weak Endnotes

by Cliopatria

Carnivalesque LXXII, an early modern edition of the festival, is up at Elizabeth Bowman's Contemporary Jacobean Society!

Katrina Gulliver will host Women's History Carnival, Part II, at Notes from the Field on Monday 28 March. Use the form to send her nominations of the recent best in women's history blogging.

In A. G. Sulzberger,"Wisconsin Professor's E-Mails Are Target of G.O.P. Records Request," NYT, 26 March, the newspaper of record covers the Cronon story. The NYT editorial,"A Shabby Crusade in Wisconsin," 25 March, runs in the print edition on Monday 28 March. For links to other important comments on the Cronon story, scroll down at: Cronon,"New York Times Editorial on Cronon Open Records Case," Scholar as Citizen, 26 March. It does not, but should include an important conservative critique of Cronon's interrogators: Jonathan H. Adler,"The Wisconsin GOP's Fishing Expedition," Volokh Conspiracy, 25 March.

Geoffrey C. Ward,"How Gandhi Became Gandhi," NYT, 24 March, reviews Joseph Lelyveld's Great Soul: Mahatma Gandhi and His Struggle With India.

Emma Kate Symonds,"Vichy's 'Very Nice People'," WSJ, 26 March, reviews Alexandre Jardin's Des Gens Très Bien, the French novelist's treatment of his family's collaboration with the Nazis.

On a lighter note, Drew Grant,"Bangable Dudes in History," Salon, 22 March, interviews Megan B., the founder of Bangable Dudes in History.

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Chris Bray - 3/26/2011

The last two paragraphs of the NYT story put this idiocy to rest:

Professor Cronon, whose original blog post focused on the American Legislative Exchange Council, said he was a supporter of open records laws but felt that this was an abuse. “Yes, my e-mail address is paid for by taxpayers, but does that mean that nothing confidential can ever happen on that e-mail address?” he asked. “That strikes me as a really unfortunate precedent to set.”

The university is in the process of responding to the request, a process that includes removing documents that are exempt, like communications with students and discussions of unpublished research. “This is not unusual,” said Lisa Rutherford, director of the university’s legal office. “We get hundreds of requests a year in all different varieties.”

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"Does that mean that nothing confidential can ever happen on that e-mail address?"/"the university is in the process of...removing documents that are exempt, like communications with students and discussions of unpublished research."

Cronon's university has calmly and unremarkably answered Cronon's question.

1.) Oh, cry woe! Is nothing on a university email account then to be private?!?! Oh, brave new world! Oh, whither FREEDOM? The forces of darkness have indeed come at last for our community of inquiry! Woe! Woe!

2.) The university's lawyers, who get hundreds of public records requests a year, were busy removing and redacting exempted information to keep it confidential, as they routinely do.

Somehow the University of Wisconsin gets "hundreds of requests a year" without melting into despair and bleating that academic freedom is under assault. But then one professor gets one request, and the barbarians have breached the walls. Overwrought and untenable. The university responds to these requests all the time, and is not harmed, and has substantial protections in place to deal with it all. The end.