A continuing war of words
Nearly a century on, the Armenian genocide still provokes controversy, tempers — and lawsuits
I have a prurient interest in libel law, because defamation suits are an occasional — and unpleasant — cost of doing business in the newspaper industry. So I was quite astonished to see the monster retraction-cum-apology issued by the Southern Poverty Law Center a few weeks ago in response to a defamation suit filed by Guenter Lewy, 87, a professor emeritus from the University of Massachusetts-Amherst.
In the course of a lengthy philippic titled “Turkey Spends Millions to Cover Up Armenian Genocide,’’ SPLC author David Holthouse stated, inaccurately:
“[Guenter] Lewy is one of the most active members of a network of American scholars, influence peddlers and website operators, financed by hundreds of thousands of dollars each year from the government of Turkey, who promote the denial of the Armenian genocide.’’
Lewy sued the SPLC, and after some back and forth in Alabama and District of Columbia courts, he forced the center to publish an embarrassing climb-down, in its own publication and also as advertisements in the Chronicle of Higher Education and the New York Review of Books. In its retraction, the Center acknowledged:
“[We] were wrong to assert that [Lewy] was part of a network financed by the Turkish Government, and were wrong to assume that any scholar who challenges the Armenian genocide narrative necessarily has been financially compromised by the Government of Turkey . . .
“To our knowledge, Professor Lewy has never sought to deny or minimize the deaths of Armenians in Ottoman Turkey; nor has he sought to minimize the Ottoman regime’s grievous wartime miscalculations or indifference to human misery in a conflict earmarked by widespread civilian suffering on all sides.’’
Reached at home, Lewy said, “I was not happy about bringing the lawsuit, because the SPLC has done some very good work. But their article attacked my personal reputation and at the same time raised the larger issue of free inquiry. Armenians have engaged in this kind of name-calling to intimidate people, and it frequently works, especially with younger scholars.’’
“I think we would have won the case on summary judgment,’’ center president Richard Cohen said. “We had a defense: Lewy is a public figure and we didn’t act with actual malice. On the other hand, it was clear to me that we had made a mistake. He is a proper guy, he has a sense of honor, and he felt we had defamed him. My main goal was to end litigation without further expense.’’
Although it might be a stretch to call Lewy and Cohen friends, the center president did bring a copy of Lewy’s 2005 book, “The Armenian Massacres in Ottoman Turkey: A Disputed Genocide,’’ to the final settlement meeting. There, Lewy inscribed the book, “For Richard Cohen, a memorable day.’’
The story doesn’t end there. The center’s retraction prompted a quick retort from past presidents of the International Association of Genocide Scholars, including Helen Fein of Harvard’s Kennedy School. The genocide scholars accused Cohen of striking a legal deal “congruent with the Turkish government’s tactics of denying the Armenian genocide in order to falsify history for the purpose of its nationalist agenda.’’
“We understand that the weight of the historical evidence is in favor of characterizing the World War I-era slaughter of Armenians as genocide,’’ Cohen told me. “We haven’t changed our opinion about that. But we were still wrong to imply that Lewy was on the payroll of the Turkish government, which he wasn’t. The better part of valor was to settle the dispute.’’
Lewy’s work is cited in another piece of litigation, Harvey Silverglate’s long-running lawsuit against the state’s Department of Education. Silverglate’s clients, who include public school students and teachers, accuse Massachusetts of deleting “contra-genocide’’ views, i.e., views aligned with the Turkish account of the mass slaughter, from an advisory curriculum guide in 1999. Silverglate lost in Mark Wolf’s court, and more recently a panel of three appeals court judges, including retired Supreme Court justice David Souter, ruled against him.
To be fair, Silverglate has an interesting argument. He insists that the online curriculum materials are like a school library, which the Supreme Court ruled should be protected from political meddling in a famous 1982 decision.
Silverglate has asked for a hearing before the Supreme Court and expects his case to be accepted or rejected within the next few weeks.
Alex Beam is a Globe columnist. His e-dress is beam@globe.com. 
