Ousted House Historian Achieves Public Vindication

Branded in the media last January as an anti-Semite, exonerated in August by the Anti-Defamation League, and commended publicly this week for her tenacity in working to clear her name by the very man who fired her, Christian Jeffrey has achieved a measure of vindication.

But she still remains the former House historian, an apparent victim of Beltway politics.

House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.) handpicked Jeffrey for the position of House historian in January, but quickly dismissed her after learning that, as a consultant for the Education Department in 1986, she had criticized a junior high school Holocaust course for not presenting “the Nazi point of view.”

Disclosure of the review caused an immediate uproar, with the media and some members of Congress portraying Jeffrey as sympathetic to Nazism.

Since then, Jeffrey, an associate professor at Kennesaw State College in Marietta, Ga., has been trying to clear her name.

In what some characterized as an unusual display of political accountability, if not contrition, Gingrich met privately on Thursday with Jeffrey and ADL National Director Abraham Foxman, who came to Jeffrey’s defense in August, saying that she was unfairly stigmatized and mislabeled anti-Semitic.

“I think she does deserve some vindication,” Gingrich told reporters following their meeting. “She has shown tremendous courage, tremendous persistence in working to clear her name.”

While accepting “full responsibility as speaker” for the way Jeffrey was treated, Gingrich lashed out and blamed the media for creating the “feeding frenzy” that surrounded Jeffrey’s dismissal.

But he stopped short of acknowledging that he or his office played a role in feeding the frenzy.

Jeffrey maintains that Gingrich’s office had to fire her in order to meet a New York Times deadline. The ensuing flap, she said, could have been diffused had Gingrich asked her to explain her views and waited 24 hours before acting.

“As far as the speaker’s office was concerned,” Jeffrey said in an interview following the meeting this week, “there was only one question: Did she write that grant review? And once I confirmed that I had written the grant review, that was it.”

The ADL initially stood among several Jewish groups and members of Congress in praising Gingrich for his quick action in firing Jeffrey.

After meeting with Jeffrey in August, however, Foxman said he felt obligated to help her clear her name.

“If the word anti-Semitism means anything, we have to have the courage to get up and say it isn’t true if it isn’t true,” Foxman said in an interview.

Attempting to mend fences at the press briefing, Gingrich proposed convening a conference to examine Jeffrey’s case and other examples of the way the media and the political process treats appointees.

He also said he is exploring the possibility of hiring Jeffrey in some capacity as a consultant in the House of Representatives.

However, Jeffrey said that if Gingrich “really wants justice,” he should reinstate her as House historian with back pay.

“If you’re going to take full responsibility, why not undo the damage?” she said in the interview.

After dismissing Jeffrey, Gingrich eliminated the historian’s position.

Seeking to set straight the Congressional Record, a transcript of the daily proceedings of Congress, Jeffrey said she also asked Gingrich to introduce a resolution on the House floor clearing her of charges of anti-Semitism and bigotry. She said Gingrich seemed receptive to the idea.

Several House floor speeches chronicled in the Congressional Record at the time of the flap characterized Jeffrey as sympathetic to Nazism and the Ku Klux Klan.

While Jeffrey called her meeting with Gingrich “good progress,” she said her crusade for full vindication probably is not over.

“If [Gingrich] is going to do anything, I will probably have to make him do it,” Jeffrey said. “I’m glad that he admires my tenacity. I’m going to be just as tenacious tomorrow as I am today.”