Ari Kohen and the UNL Holocaust Symposium: What the Public Records Show

When the University of Nebraska–Lincoln held its Sommerhauser Holocaust Symposium on March 27, 2023, the program was billed as an academic examination of fascism past and present. Public records obtained by Jewish Legal News, Inc. through a Nebraska Public Records Act mandamus action show how the speaker list was actually built: from the Twitter following of one of the organizers, UNL political science professor Ari Kohen.

This article walks through what the records say, where they came from, and why the selection method matters for Holocaust education. The underlying filings are hosted here: the Verified Petition for Writ of Mandamus and the Exhibit List, with the full docket on the case page for Jewish Legal News, Inc. v. Board of Regents of the University of Nebraska.

The records lawsuit

On August 15, 2023, Jewish Legal News, Inc. filed a verified petition for a writ of mandamus in the County Court of Lancaster County, Nebraska, Case No. C02CI230008248, against the Board of Regents of the University of Nebraska and the university's custodian of records, Jaclyn Klintoe. The petition sought disclosure, under the Nebraska Public Records Act, Neb. Rev. Stat. § 84-712 et seq., of records showing how presenters for the Sommerhauser Holocaust Symposium were selected. The university ultimately produced records, and those documents are the basis for the reporting below.

What the emails show

The symposium was organized by Professor Kohen and UNL history professor Gerald J. Steinacher. In one email, Steinacher told Kohen he had gone through Kohen's Twitter contacts to build the invitation list:

“I looked at your list of your contacts (Twitter) and there are some very, very interesting people among them, Federico Finchelstein (History of Fascist Lies), Casey Kelly (Trump Racism), Daniel Ziblatt (How Democracy dies), Sarah Kendzior (Trump, USA), ALTEMEYER (Extremists scale), Zack Beauchamp (Right wing populism, West). They all look great for our project.”

The scholars named in that email are not obscure, but the sourcing method is the point: the pool of candidates was the follower and contact list of a single professor's personal @kohenari account, rather than a call for papers, a peer-review process, or consultation with UNL's own Israel studies faculty.

The program that resulted

The symposium's theme was “Fascism: Then and Now.” Presentation titles drew lines from historical Nazism to contemporary American targets — Christian churches, Christian nationalism, white nationalism, the far right, right-wing populism, and antifeminists. Every presenter arrived already agreeing with the organizers' framing. The result was less a debate about how fascism arises than a single-viewpoint program using Holocaust commemoration as the vehicle.

That approach has drawn criticism from Jewish writers who argue that Holocaust education loses its force when it is repurposed as a proxy for present-day partisan disputes. It also sits awkwardly next to the Sommerhauser endowment's stated purpose of Holocaust study.

Why the selection method matters

• Academic process. Publicly funded symposia normally solicit participants through open calls or departmental review. Sourcing from a personal social-media following substitutes one professor's network for that process.
• Viewpoint range. A follower list is self-selecting. Scholars who follow an account generally share its outlook, so the resulting panel had no internal disagreement to test.
• Local expertise bypassed. UNL's own Israel studies resources were not the starting point for the invitation list. Jewish Legal News covered this separately in Nebraska Professors Bypass Israel Studies Center in Israel Panel Discussion.
• Transparency. The records only became public because a lawsuit was filed to get them. That, by itself, is part of the story.

Read the filings

• Verified Petition for Writ of Mandamus — the complaint, including the records requests at issue
• Exhibit List — the requests and university correspondence filed with the petition
• Case docket: JLN v. University of Nebraska — updated as filings become available

Related coverage

• Who Is Ari Kohen? Profile of the UNL Political Science Professor
• Nebraska Professors Handpick Holocaust Scholars From Twitter
• Nebraska Professors Bypass Israel Studies Center in Israel Panel Discussion