Books
Dispute Widens Between Southern Illinois U.-Carbondale and Ulysses S. Grant Association
A dispute between Southern Illinois University at Carbondale and the Ulysses S. Grant Association has deepened with the filing of a lawsuit over the association’s collection of papers of the U.S. president and Civil War general — which are held at the university’s library — and a welter of contending accounts of the split in the news media.
According to reports in The Daily Egyptian, the student newspaper at Carbondale, the association has sued the university to seek the release of the papers. The association voted to remove both itself and its papers from Carbondale in May.
The move was precipitated by a dispute over sexual-harassment allegations made by co-workers against John Y. Simon, the former executive director of the association and editor of The Papers of Ulysses S. Grant, a publishing project. Mr. Simon spent 44 years at the university in those roles and as as a professor of history. He had completed 30 of the 31 volumes of the Grant papers when was fired by the university in January. He died in Carbondale in July.
Today’s issue of The Daily Egyptian also published an article in which Mr. Simon’s widow, Harriet Simon, said that her husband had never seen a full report of the investigation against him. Officials at the university contradicted that account.
The Daily Egyptian also reported that the vacuum of leadership at the association after Mr. Simon’s termination had led to allegations — made in the lawsuit — that Mr. Simon’s signature had been forged on some payment documents. The allegation was first made in correspondence between the association’s lawyers and the university that was obtained by the newspaper. —Richard Byrne





