LETTERS.

Sifting and Winnowing

I read "The Truth About Fredric March" by Bill Lueders (December 2022/January 2023 issue) with interest and agree with his conclusion that March has been unfairly treated based on the evidence provided.

The Progressive article mentions that the University of Wisconsin KKK was an honor society, and that the choice of the name was an accident. These statements still leave me with a sense of omission and unease that interferes with my "sifting and winnowing." More context is needed to determine what the UW organization was all about and ease some of the discomfort that lingers.

Regardless of the answers to these questions, there is no doubt from his history after UW that March was not a racist, and his good name and reputation should be restored. Even if there was a link between the original KKK and the UW one, it did not appear to have influenced March's future behavior.

--Richard S. Kane, via email

I am so glad that The Progressive is still standing strong. Many thanks for your fine [article] on the University of Wisconsin's long-standing but somewhat shaky commitment to "continual and fearless sifting and winnowing" to find the truth.

Your lucid explanation of the university's decision to remove the name of Fredric March from two theaters should be the tipping point that finally leads the university to reverse the injustice inflicted on the reputation of that fine actor and civil rights leader Fredric March and his wife, Florence Eldridge, who was always with him in the vanguard of the fight for civil liberties for all and fairness to Black performers.

The university chancellors in Madison and Oshkosh who arrived at this decision neglected to sift and winnow or even do elementary research on the startling claim that, as a student at UW, March had been an adherent of the Ku Klux Klan, thereby acquiring an indelible stain of racism that could never be erased.

--Margaret Miner, via email

The Fredric March case is not just about Fredric March and the injustice done to him and his legacy by the removal of his name from the University of Wisconsin. It's about truth and whether it has any currency anymore at a major American university. Then-Chancellor Rebecca Blank's decision to choose PR and fear the reaction of uninformed people over truth and respect for an important and impeccably progressive alumnus reflects poorly on her and on the university. Is she a big enough person to admit a mistake? Apparently not.

--Jonathan...