KC Johnson

Robert David (KC) Johnson
Born	November 27, 1967
Occupation	History professor

Dr. Robert David Johnson (born 1967), also known as KC Johnson, is a history professor at Brooklyn College and the City University of New York Graduate Center. He is a prolific critic of Durham District Attorney Mike Nifong and some members of the Duke University faculty and administration concerning the 2006 Duke University lacrosse case, via his blog, "Durham in Wonderland", and a co-authored book, Until Proven Innocent: Political Correctness and the Shameful Injustice of the Duke Lacrosse Case. Professor Johnson's trademark is the bow tie, which he can often be seen wearing at events and conferences.

Biography

Personal background

Johnson was raised in Scarborough, Maine, the son of Maine schoolteachers. His father, Robert Johnson, was a star basketball player at Fitchburg State College leading the nation in scoring at 39.1 points per game in 1964.^[1] Johnson's sister Kathleen was the starting point guard for the Columbia University women's basketball team in the early 1990s.^[2] KC is also an athlete and has run numerous marathons. He currently resides in New York, New York. In 2007-2008, he taught at Tel Aviv University in Israel on a Fulbright Scholarship.

Education and career

Johnson received his Bachelor of Arts from Harvard University in 1988, his master's degree from the University of Chicago in 1989, and his Ph.D from Harvard in 1993.

Prior to his current appointment, he has had teaching or faculty appointments at Harvard, Arizona State University, and Williams College. Before earning his Master's degree, Johnson worked as a track announcer at Scarborough Downs.

Johnson has written and edited numerous books focusing on American history. He also co-edited several volumes of declassified transcripts and tapes from the administration of Lyndon Baines Johnson.

Tenure battle

In 2002 and 2003, Johnson's application for tenure at Brooklyn College became the subject of significant media attention when he was originally turned down for tenure in the history department.^[3] Although he had received strongly favorable evaluations in earlier years, his request for tenure was rejected due to an alleged lack of "collegiality".

Part of the controversy, which would become the subject of numerous news articles, editorials and op-ed columns involved a discussion about the September 11th attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, empanelled by CUNY administrators shortly after the attacks had taken place. Arriving at the panel discussion with a group of students, Professor Johnson questioned the makeup of the group charged with discussing the subject of the attacks and how they should be addressed by American policymakers, a panel that he alleged was comprised strictly of individuals critical of American foreign policy and that of America's allies.

After an extensive legal and public relations battle, he eventually received tenure on appeal to the chancellor of the City University of New York system, Matthew Goldstein.^[4]

Duke Lacrosse case

Johnson runs Durham-in-Wonderland, one of the most prominent blogs about the Duke case. At a press conference where the accused players were declared innocent, one of them thanked Johnson for his blogging.^[5]

One opponent of Johnson, Duke faculty member and Group of 88 member Charles Piot, wrote a personal essay alleging that Johnson engages in "caricature" and "demonization" as part of a "rhetorical strategy" characteristic of "totalitarian thought and authoritarian regimes the world over".^[6] Johnson later responded to these criticisms, noting that Piot had attributed to Johnson claims that Johnson had never made about "a group of faculty [being] in some way responsible for a university's, a town's, and indeed an entire nation's 'rush to judgment'", had ignored clear contemporaneous evidence ("... Piot claimed that the 'intent' of Group members 'was never to speak to the events at the lacrosse party.' ... he asserted, 'the ad in question was never about the lacrosse players nor about the party they hosted in spring 2006.' ... Unfortunately for Piot, Wahneema Lubiano, the author of the ad, said exactly the opposite—in the cover e-mail inviting professors to sign the ad. Wrote she, 'African & African-American Studies is placing an ad in The Chronicle about the lacrosse team incident.'") and had neglected to mention a conflict of interest by discussing Johnson's alleged misjudgment of fellow Group of 88 member, Anne Allison, without disclosing that Allison was Piot's life partner. ^[7]

Johnson teamed up with Stuart Taylor Jr. to write a book about the case, Until Proven Innocent: Political Correctness and the Shameful Injustice of the Duke Lacrosse Case (ISBN 0-312-36912-3). It was published in September 2007.

Political views

Johnson supports the Democratic Party. He supported Barack Obama's 2008 presidential campaign.^[8]

Works

Books

• All the Way with LBJ: The 1964 Presidential Election, Cambridge University Press, 2009. ISBN 0521425956
• co-author (with Stuart Taylor), Until Proven Innocent: Political Correctness and the Shameful Injustices of the Duke Lacrosse Rape Case, Thomas Dunne Books, 2007. ISBN 0312369123
• Congress and the Cold War, Cambridge University Press, 2005. ISBN 0521528852
• co-editor (with Kent Germany), The Presidential Recordings: Lyndon B. Johnson, vol. 3, W.W. Norton, 2005. ISBN 0393060012
• co-editor (with David Shreve), The Presidential Recordings: Lyndon B. Johnson, vol. 2, W.W. Norton, 2005. ISBN 0393060012
• 20 January 1961: The American Dream, DTV Publishers, 1999. (click DTV and then Katalog)
• Ernest Gruening and the American Dissenting Tradition, Harvard University Press, 1998. ISBN 0674260600
• The Peace Progressives and American Foreign Relations, Harvard University Press, 1995. ISBN 0674659171
• Editor, On Cultural Ground: Essays in International History, Imprint Publications, 1994. ISBN 1879176211

Journal articles and book chapters

• "Managing the Fall of a Friendly Dictator: The US and Anastasio Somoza's Nicaragua," in Ernest R. May and Philip Zelikow, eds., Dealing with Dictators: Dilemmas of US Diplomacy and Intelligence Analysis, 1945-1990, MIT Press, 2006.
• "Politics, Policy, and Presidential Power: Lyndon Johnson and the 1964 Farm Bill," in Mitch Lerner, ed., Looking Back at LBJ: White House Politics in a New Light, University Press of Kansas, 2005.
• "The Unexpected Consequences of Congressional Activism: The Clark and Tunney Amendments and U.S. Policy toward Angola," Diplomatic History 27 (2003): 215-243.
• "The Progressive Dissent: Ernest Gruening and Vietnam," in Randall Bennett Woods, ed, Vietnam and the American Political Tradition: The Politics of Dissent, Cambridge University Press, 2003, pp. 36-62.
• "Congressional Power," in Deconde, Burns, and Logevall, eds., Encyclopedia of American Foreign Policy, 2d ed., Charles Scribner's Sons, 2002, pp. 293-313.
• "The Politicization of Cultural Diplomacy," in Frank Ninkovich and Liping Bu, eds., The Cultural Turn, Imprint Publications, 2002, pp. 88-110.
• "The State Department," Oxford Companion to American History, Oxford University Press, 2001.
• "Congress and the Cold War," Journal of Cold War Studies 3 (2001): 77-101.
• "Constitutionalism at Home and Abroad: The United States Senate and the Alliance for Progress, 1961-1967," International History Review 21 (1999): 414-442.
• "Congress Confronts the Cold War: The Senate Government Operations Committee and American Foreign Relations, 1953-1969," Political Science Quarterly 113 (1998): 645-671.
• "Anti-Imperialism and the Good Neighbour Policy," Journal of Latin American Studies 29 (1997): 89-110.
• "The Origins of Dissent: Senate Liberals and Southeast Asia, 1959-1964," Pacific Historical Review 65 (1996): 249-275.
• "The ‘Lessons’ of Vietnam," Journal of American-East Asian Relations 4 (1995): 291-298.
• "Article XI in the Debate on the United States’ Rejection of the League of Nations," International History Review 15 (August 1993): 502-524.
• "Ernest Gruening and the Tonkin Gulf Resolution: Continuities in American Dissent," Journal of American-East Asian Relations 2 (Summer 1993): 111-135.

Awards

• PSC-CUNY Award, 2002, History: “Running from Ahead: Lyndon Johnson and the 1964 Presidential Election.”^[9]
• Philip Merrill Award for Outstanding Contributions to Liberal Arts Education, 2009 ^[10]

See also

• 2006 Duke University lacrosse case

References

1. ^ "Athletics: Robert Johnson - 1997 Inductee - Graduated 1965". Fitchburg State College. http://www.fsc.edu/sports/halloffame/robertjohnson.html. 
2. ^ Gearan, John (December 2000). "Battling Back". Columbia College Today. http://www.college.columbia.edu/cct/dec00/dec00_feature_battleback.html. 
3. ^ Rabinowitz, Dorothy (2002-12-20). "The Battle of Brooklyn". OpinionJournal.com (The Wall Street Journal). http://www.opinionjournal.com/taste/?id=110002800. Retrieved 2007-01-06. 
4. ^ Smallwood, Scott (2003-05-23). "Tenure Madness: How a shoo-in at Brooklyn College almost got the boot". Chronicle of Higher Education. http://chronicle.com/free/v49/i37/37a01001.htm. Retrieved 2007-01-06. 
5. ^ Seligmann, Reade (April 11, 2007). "Statement by Reade Seligmann". http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2007/04/reade_seligmann_statement.html. 
6. ^ Piot, Charles (August 27, 2007). "KC's World". http://fds.duke.edu/db?attachment-17--1263-view-347. 
7. ^ Johnson, KC (October 20, 2007). "Reflections on the Piot Principles". http://durhamwonderland.blogspot.com/2007/10/reflections-on-piot-principles.html. 
8. ^ Johnson, KC (February 2, 2007). "The Edwards-Marcotte Fiasco". Durham-in-Wonderland. http://durhamwonderland.blogspot.com/2007/02/edwards-fiasco.html. 
9. ^ "PSC-CUNY Awards". Archived from the original on 2007-06-16. http://web.archive.org/web/20070616081400/http://www.brooklyn.cuny.edu/bc/pubs/ha/past/2002/psc.htm. Retrieved 2007-05-03. 
10. ^ "Philip Merrill Award". http://www.brooklyn.cuny.edu/pub/1916.htm. Retrieved 2010-01-03. 

External links

• Official page at Brooklyn College
• K.C. Johnson Tenure Case
• Brooklyn College Johnson's curriculum vitae and bibliography.
• Durham-in-Wonderland Weblog about the Duke Lacrosse investigation.
• DNA & Double Standards Op-ed published by the New York Post
• Brooklyn College Professor's Web Log Defends Duke Players
• Tenure Madness: How a shoo-in at Brooklyn College almost got the boot Article examining Johnson's tenure battle, published by the Chronicle for Higher Education.
• Presidential Tapes
• Duke's Rush to Judgement Interviewed by Jamie Glazov.
• 2007 interview with Chicago Sports Review
• Alan Dershowitz's five best books about important legal cases

Persondata
Name	Robert David Johnson
Alternative names	KC Johnson
Short description	History Professor
Date of birth	1967
Place of birth
Date of death
Place of death