Wendy Sherman: “I rise today to focus on a generous gift to my alma mater, but looking at the history of Troy, I have learned that…”

“I rise today to focus on a generous gift to my alma mater, but looking at the history of Troy, I have learned that sometimes one must look a gift horse in the mouth. The Government of Turkey has offered over $1 million to fund a chair at my alma mater, UCLA, in the study of Ottoman and Turkish history. While the generosity of such an offer should be noted, I note the concern in the academic community and concern among those of us concerned with international relations for the academic integrity and historical accuracy of the academic work that will be done by the occupant of this chair. Our concern for history is based on history. The Turkish Government has endowed other chairs at other American universities, and the occupants of those chairs have sought not to report and analyze history, but to rewrite it and cover it up. Mr. Speaker, as a Jewish American, I am very concerned with those who would want to cover up the history of genocide, or claim that the Holocaust against the Jewish people did not occur or did not occur on a massive scale. But as an American and as a citizen of the world, I am equally concerned about attempts to cover up and deny other genocides. I am certainly concerned that the occupant of this chair at UCLA may feel or may be pushed toward trying to deny the great massacres at Smyrna, or the genocide of the Armenian people that occurred in the first two or three decades of this century.”