Columbia University: How the Irish Became White Panel Discussion

In collaboration with our colleagues at Teachers College and Barnard, the Office of the Vice Provost for Faculty Advancement hosted a panel discussion on historian Noel Ignatiev’s How the Irish became White. This book traces how Irish immigrants, who fled oppression in their country in the 18th century, achieved acceptance among an initially hostile US population by proving that they could be more brutal in their oppression of African Americans than the nativists had been.
Our panel consisted of Ruggles Professor of Political Science and History and Interim Vice Provost Ira Katznelson, PhD, as well as Rebecca A Kobrin, PhD, Russell and Bettina Knapp Associate Professor of American Jewish History and Director of the Institute for Jewish Studies, and Timothy Patrick McCarthy, PhD, Lecturer and Core Faculty at Carr Center for Human Rights Policy at Harvard University.