Battle Over a Texas Boycott

The Society for Military History is divided over holding its annual conference in Texas next spring, as long planned, in light of the state’s new ban on abortions after six weeks and other controversial legislation involving voting rights and transgender youth.

The conference location debate escalated in recent days, following a letter to members from Peter Mansoor, society president and General Raymond E. Mason Jr. Chair in Military History at Ohio State University. Arguing against moving the conference, Mansoor wrote to his fellow military historians that “there are good reasons to continue on our current course. Moving the conference at this late date would cause serious financial harm to the society,” to the tune of $90,000 in contract cancellation penalties. Hotel employees and local businesses also would be affected, he said. (Craig Felker, executive director of the organization, said Tuesday that the current penalty for cancelling the contract was about $221,300.)

Beyond cost, Mansoor wrote, “We are an inclusive organization that includes members of different political views, races, genders, professional jobs, religious views and other attributes. To be truly inclusive, the society must be nonpartisan and apolitical and make decisions based upon the society’s mission.”

To “take action against the Texas legislation,” he argued, would “take us beyond” the society’s mission of advancing military history, “into politics.”

Mansoor based his opinion, in part, on a policy on public statements that the society’s governing council adopted during the Trump administration. Prior to adopting this policy, the society’s council signed on to a statement by the American Historical Association condemning the Trump White House’s 2017 ban on travel from a number of majority-Muslim countries. Dozens of other historical organizations signed on to the AHA’s statement, too. But facing criticism from a vocal minority of its members that the society had acted inappropriately politically, the council voted to limit further public statements to those involving exceptional circumstances, as determined by the society’s Board of Trustees, and only when those circumstances have some bearing on the society’s mission.

Mansoor, who declined an interview request, said that no decision about the conference has been made and that the council is meeting on Oct. 11 to discuss the matter. Yet some members have argued that releasing a letter on society letterhead expressing a strong opinion against moving the conference suggests that a decision has already been made. Moreover, members have argued in discussions now spilling over onto social media, isn’t Mansoor’s letter a political statement in itself -- the kind of statement that he argues the society shouldn’t be making? And isn’t taking no action to move the conference a political decision?

“In making a statement that you won’t make a statement about political fights you make a political statement that you find certain view points acceptable and welcome them,” Adam H. Domby, an associate professor of history at Auburn University, tweeted at the organization. “It would have been better to say nothing.”

“Military history is women’s history is political,” tweeted another military historian. Said another, “That letter is how @SMH_Historians is going to lose a generation of young historians.”

Barbara Keys, professor of history at Durham University in Britain and former president of the Society for Historians of American Foreign Relations, a sibling organization that shares some members with the Society for Military History, told Inside Higher Ed Monday that she was “shocked to see that the president had sent out a letter, on the society’s letterhead, expressing his personal opinion about a matter that the governing council had not discussed.”

Were something similar to occur elsewhere, Keys argued, “the council would likely ask the president for an apology and retraction and call for a council meeting to make the policy choice.”

She added, “It also strikes me as problematic that the president cites a ban on political statements while making what is essentially a political statement.”

Military historian Chris Levesque, a librarian at the University of West Florida, questioned the legitimacy of the political statement policy in the first place, saying in a series of tweets that the society had allowed a sliver of its membership -- those upset about the 2017 incident -- to “force a change in its policy on taking even narrow political stances.” This recent “debacle,” he said, referring to the Texas debate and letter, “is a legacy of that decision.”

In his letter, Mansoor, a retired U.S. Army colonel, didn’t rule out weighing in on the legislation in question. “The council recognizes there may be ways to explore the legislation through the lens of military history, and I encourage panel or roundtable submissions on those topics,” he wrote, noting that the society had extended its proposal submission date to accommodate additional ideas. But if Mansoor’s opinion wins out, these discussions will happen in Texas.

To Mansoor’s point about the costs of moving the conference, professional organizations do tend to ink event space and hotel contracts years in advance, and they risk heavy financial losses in canceling them. At the same time, professional organizations in the humanities and social sciences aren’t typically so hesitant to address political issues that their members bring to the fore. The society’s hesitancy may be influenced by the U.S. military’s tradition of being apolitical. Many members have had military careers or work in military institutions, or both.

At the same time, this kind of apoliticism may risk running afoul of the society’s inclusion goals, both in terms of what is considered and valued as military history and who the group’s members are.

Some members have expressed concerns that pregnant women traveling to Texas for the conference could risk their health, should a medical emergency requiring the full suite of reproductive health options occur. Others object to spending time or money in a state with such laws in place or legislation on the table. Others still see the potential to influence policy. One military history conference, which usually attracts 600 to 700 scholars, is highly unlikely to move the needle. But a larger conference boycott movement, of which the society could be part, is another story. The National Collegiate Athletic Association’s boycott of North Carolina, for instance, factored into that state’s repeal of a divisive “bathroom bill” concerning transgender people, in 2017.

Kara Dixon Vuic, LCpl. Benjamin W. Schmidt Professor of War, Conflict and Society in 20th-Century America at Texas Christian University and a trustee and therefore a council member of the society, said Monday that the council wishes it could meet sooner than Oct. 11 to discuss both the conference location issue and the statement policy, but that it was unable to accommodate members’ busy, international schedules before that time.

In the interim, she said, “We are taking the members’ concerns about both of these issues -- as well as the larger issues they have raised related to organizational governance, communication, transparency and inclusivity -- very seriously. We welcome our members’ feedback and concerns and we look forward to important discussions.”

Gregory Daddis, USS Midway Chair in Modern U.S. Military History at San Diego State University and another trustee and council member, said the ongoing debate “showcases how academic societies need to be absolutely committed to diversity and inclusiveness while also aspiring to be nonpartisan in our current hyperpoliticized moment.” He also said it’s “incredibly important” to note that many members’ concerns are not simply “political,” but rather “moral and ethical, intensely personal, and absolutely legitimate.”

Daddis, who is relatively new to the board, said he’s been “encouraged by how many of our trustees are seriously taking account of our members’ genuine and justifiable concerns and want to do right by them. Those behind-the-scene efforts often are lost in the heated hyperbole of social media.”

As of now, Daddis said he plans on attending the spring conference, but “in a way that highlights the valid concerns of our members who believe that the current spate of Texas laws are antagonistic to basic human and civil rights.”