The Alexander Hamilton Institute for the Study of Western Civilization (AHI) congratulates Resident Fellow Mary Grabar on the publication of “The Diversity Hokum: The ‘Disappearing’ of George S. Schuyler,” in Diversity, Conformity, and Conscience in Contemporary America (Lexington Books, 2019). The volume is edited by Bradley C.S. Watson, the Philip M. McKenna Chair in American and Western Political Thought, St. Vincent College, where he is also Co-Director of the Center for Political and Economic Thought.
AHI’s Mary Grabar
The volume derives from the 2015 biennial Culture and Public Policy Conference, sponsored at Saint Vincent College by the Center for Political and Economic Thought in cooperation with the Alex G. McKenna School of Business, Economics, and Government. Contributors include Ryan T. Anderson, Matthew J. Franck, Bruce P. Frohnen, Kenneth L. Grasso, Joe Knippenberg, Alan Charles Kors, Phillip Munoz, and Jeffery J. Ventrella.
In announcing publication of the anthology, Lexington Books, the social science and humanities imprint of Rowman & Littlefield, observed that “America is a nation that celebrates diversity and freedom of conscience. Yet, as Alexis de Tocqueville observed, democratic times often demand conformity. Nowadays, conformity might be enforced in the name of diversity itself, and go so far as to infringe on the rights of conscience, expression, association, and religious freedom. Americans have recently been confronted by this paradox in various ways, from federal health care mandates, to campus speech codes, to consumer boycotts, to public intimidation, to vexatious litigation, to private corporations dismissing employees for expressing certain political views.” The contributors to Watson’s volume “examine the manner and extent to which conformity is demanded by contemporary American law and social practice. Contributors also consider the long-term results of such demands for conformity for the health—and even survival—of a constitutional republic.”
Grabar’s essay builds on years of research into the life of George S. Schuyler, the prominent African-American journalist and novelist (1895-1977). Schuyler fought conformity, censorship, racial separatism, and the communist threat during his 50-plus-year career as an editor and columnist at the Pittsburgh Courier and as a writer, speaker, and radio host. Her essay focuses on how the academic gatekeepers, especially in African-American studies departments, have erased the historical record and “disappeared” the once most-read and highly regarded African American journalist in the country. Her biography of Schuyler will be published by Northern Illinois University Press.
“I was thrilled to participate in the conference and then again to have my essay published in a volume with such luminaries from across the country,” said Grabar. “I hope my contribution will help restore the legacy of George Schuyler, a bold and original writer, defender of American liberties, and champion of equal rights.”
“In the coming months Mary Grabar will be publishing two books that deserve attention from a wide audience,” AHI President Robert Paquette observed. “Her biography of George Schuyler rests on a small mountain of original research on a maverick African-American intellectual whose intelligence and rapier-like wit challenged the thinking of establishment elites on race relations and many other questions. This summer Dr. Grabar will also publish Fake History: How Howard Zinn’s Lies Turned a Generation Against America (Regnery), a searing indictment of a rancid polemic, passing as a credible work of history, that has probably done more damage than any other text in living memory to the serious study of American history by young people.”
Dr. Grabar’s years of hard work on these topics are now bearing fruit. AHI could not be more pleased it has supported her in bringing this important work to the fore.
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