Advocacy Briefs: AHA Protests Threats to Academic Freedom in Poland

AHA Staff | Jan 9, 2017

AHA president Patrick Manning sent a letter to Polish president Andrzej Duda expressing concern over the government’s treatment and potential prosecution of Jan T. Gross, professor of history at Princeton University. The celebrated historian of the Holocaust is facing a libel investigation from Polish authorities for publishing historical accounts of Poles killing Jews during World War II. The potential actions, according to Manning, represent “a serious threat to academic freedom, freedom of speech, and impartial historical scholarship” in Poland. (See below for the complete letter.) Following Manning’s letter, the American Sociological Association also wrote to President Duda urging him “to protect the scholarship of Professor Gross and the ongoing pursuit of truth which characterizes Gross’ scholarship and the scholarship of countless others."

Read the letter here


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