NEWSPAPERS ARE NOT PEER-REVIEWED PUBLICATIONS.

Pulitzer Prize nominations, on the other hand, ought to be.

We call on the Pulitzer Prize Board to rescind the 2020 Prize for Commentary awarded to Nikole Hannah-Jones for her lead essay in “The 1619 Project.” That essay was entitled, “Our democracy’s founding ideals were false when they were written.” But it turns out the article itself was false when written, making a large claim that protecting the institution of slavery was a primary motive for the American Revolution, a claim for which there is simply no evidence.

That's the beginning of what might be an open letter from assorted academicians to the Pulitzer Prize Board. I write "might be" as there does not appear to be an opportunity to affix your name and affiliation to the page, as is often the case with such statements.

Beginning almost immediately after its publication, though, the essay and the Project ran into controversy. It has been subjected to searching criticism by many of the foremost historians of our time and by the Times’ own fact checker. The scrutiny has left the essay discredited, so much so that the Times has felt the need to go back and change a crucial passage in it, softening but not eliminating its unsupported assertion about slavery and the Revolution.

The Pulitzer board was aware of some of these criticisms and awarded the prize anyway.

I'd be more favorably disposed to the call to rethink that prize if the letter had some of the historians, such as James McPherson or Allen Guelzo, who raised objections to the project almost as soon as it hit the streets, had been given an opportunity to sign, or had given reasons for not signing.