Well, it looks like the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit has decided to issue a stay of the lower court’s order for Boston College to turn over its interviews with former Irish Republican Army members to U.S. prosecutors and the British government. (See my post on this subject yesterday here.) BC was willing to turn over the records, claiming that this was a better outcome than taking the risk that the government would force them to turn over everything from the project, rather than just certain interviews.
But individual historians on the so-called Belfast Project appealed the lower court’s decision last week and were rewarded with this stay. The battle cry of “academic freedom” has been raised again. And this time it’s supposed to trump investigations into criminal or terrorist activities. Another win for the ivory tower!
