Conservative Editor of “The American Scholar” Is Fired

Joseph Epstein, editor of The American Scholar, has been given a pink slip. The Phi Beta Kappa honor society, which sponsors the journal, has told him that his tenure will end in December 1997, and it has begun a search for his successor.

Mr. Epstein, a professor of English at Northwestern University, has edited the journal, a general-interest publication for intellectuals, since 1975. Both he and it have many fans. But many scholars have complained that the journal is hostile toward new trends in the humanities, such as ethnic studies and feminist work. They have called such an attitude inappropriate for the flagship publication of a group whose members have a wide range of views.

Phi Beta Kappa’s Senate, made up of 24 prominent academics, informed Mr. Epstein of its decision last December, but word has been slow to spread. Some members of The American Scholar editorial board are angry that they heard the news only when they gathered this summer for their semiannual meeting. “I do think this fundamentally does come out of the culture wars,” says Paul R. McHugh, chairman of the psychiatry department at the Johns Hopkins University and a board member. Mr. Epstein “is a victim of those wars,” he says.

Mr. Epstein, who declined to comment, has had several run-ins with the academic left (and with the mainstream). In 1991, in an essay for The Hudson Review, he mocked literary theorists of every persuasion and repeated a joke comparing feminists to pit bulls. He has given such cultural conservatives as Gertrude Himmelfarb and Dinesh D’Souza space in the journal, but he has not done the same for their adversaries.

“He has been driving people crazy for years,” says Joan M. Ferrante, a professor of English and comparative literature at Columbia University and a past president of Phi Beta Kappa. “What has changed is that more and more senators were elected who are uncomfortable with the totally one-sided views in the journal.”

The journal has a circulation of about 25,000 -- strong for a journal, but a small fraction of Phi Beta Kappa’s 613,000 members. Some members hope that a journal with a broader perspective on culture will attract more interest. “This has been a wonderful journal,” Mr. McHugh says. “If they feel a new voice is needed, they will have quite a track record to match.”