American Studies leader sorry for press release

David Roediger, president of the American Studies Association and a professor at the University of Kansas, on Tuesday sent an email to members apologizing for a press release about the association's recent annual meeting. "The background information [in the release] referred to a variety of social motion sparked by protests over the last year as 'progress' and was susceptible to being read as an endorsement in particular of Barack Obama's package of police reforms, one of the points that it listed as exemplary of such motion. These reforms, which many of us (myself included) regard as pro-police and as offering far too little that is positive and new, were endorsed by neither the executive committee, the body making such decisions, nor myself as president. I regret this error on my part and the website has been changed to remove any possibility of it being read as reflecting the ASA endorsing the proposals."