Statement to History News Network re: Professors by David Horowitz

Emma Pérez, Associate Professor, University of Colorado, Boulder

February 16, 2006

I’m honored to be on a list with scholars whom I respect for their scholarship as well as their commitment to making the academy a place where divergent opinions can be expressed and debated. Clearly, I’m on the list because I supported my colleague’s first amendment rights; however, my subject position, as a Chicana historian, a feminist and a lesbian, makes me an easy target for those who prefer to silence those whose histories are finally being uncovered.

The post-1960s presented a dramatic change in historical research when social history offered a method to "do history from the bottom-up." The working classes, women and men of wide-ranging races, ethnicities and sexualities could be excavated from documents. Concurrently, college campuses were also changing as diverse racial groups of students and faculty were finally admitted in higher numbers and while those numbers plummet on my own campus, the change is already here. Women’s history, along with other burgeoning fields of study, will continue to mature on college campuses despite the current drive to censure those whom Mr. Horowitz and his supporters find unworthy of constitutional rights.