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To the Editor:
I strongly disagree with Professor Daniel Levine’s letter in the August 2007 OAH Newsletter, in which he objected to Sen. Robert Byrd being honored with a Friend of History Award because the Senator voted against and led the filibuster against the 1964 Civil Rights Act. To deny a history award in 2007 to Senator Byrd because of a principled vote that he cast forty-three years earlier transcends the legitimate boundaries of historical disagreement. It would be an unwarranted politicization of the OAH and yet another example of the political correctness phenomenon that has run rampant in higher education over the last generation. I happen to agree with the vote that Senator Byrd cast in 1964, but I would never think of denying a present-day U.S. Senator a history award because of a vote cast in favor of or a leadership role taken in support of that legislation. I wrote to Senator Byrd to express my hope that he remain a friend of history and that he continue to vote his convictions.
—John R. Nordell, Jr.
Independent Scholar
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