UVa Historians quit Over Trump Aide HireTop Stories

August 01, 2018 04:38
UVa Historians quit Over Trump Aide Hire

(Image source from: Politico)

Two historians have resigned from a University of Virginia affiliate over its decision to hire a departing member of United State President Donald Trump's administration as a senior fellow.

According to a report by news outlets, Melvyn Leffler and William Hitchcock notified the Miller Center's director of their resignations on Monday. The professors say the think tank that studies presidencies did not adequately consult with faculty before hiring Trump's former legislative affairs director Marc Short.

Center Director William Antholis says he consulted with more faculty than usual and believes Short understands the importance of the center's nonpartisan research.

Short was blasted by the historians in their resignation letter for failing to distance himself from Trump's response to the August 2017 while supremacist rally in Virginia's Charlottesville, which resulted in the death of a 32-year-old woman and in which Trump famously blasted "both sides."

Read: Trump Calls Journalists 'Very Unpatriotic'

"By not speaking out at the time, by not emphasizing the threats to human decency posed by the public display of Nazi symbols and racist diatribes in our own neighborhood, Mr. Short was complicit in the erosion of our civic discourse and showed an appalling indifference to the civility of our own city and university," they wrote.

Antholis defended the hire earlier this week saying, Short "brings a missing critical voice - one that represents members of Congress and the Republican Party who continue to support the president in large numbers."

But the historians said the Short hire does not fit with the Miller Center's objectives.

By Sowmya Sangam

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