Philip Merrill Award for Professor Robert "KC" Johnson

The American Council of Trustees and Alumni has bestowed its fifth annual Philip Merrill Award for Outstanding Contributions to Liberal Arts Education to Professor of History Robert David "KC" Johnson, who teaches at both Brooklyn College and the CUNY Graduate Center. Johnson will receive the award during a gala dinner at the Cosmos Club in Washington, D.C., on November 6.

"In the aftermath of my Fulbright experience, I was very much honored to have my work continue to be recognized with the Merrill Award," Johnson states.

A prolific scholar of 20th-century American history, Johnson, 41, earned a Ph.D. from Harvard University in 1993 and has published six books and co-edited a series of books about President Lyndon Johnson’s (no relation) presidential tapes. His most recent titles are All the Way with LBJ: The 1964 Presidential Election (Cambridge University Press, 2009) and Until Proven Innocent: Political Correctness and the Shameful Injustices of the Duke Lacrosse Rape Case (St. Martin’s Press, 2008).

"Johnson is a passionate advocate for the study of American institutions and principles, who inspires his students by focusing on key subjects that are too often ignored," says ACTA President Anne D. Neal.

Johnson’s several articles, blog entries and book about the Duke University lacrosse rape case helped absolve the students at the center of this scandal and forced the case prosecutor to resign for overreaching and distorting the record.

Johnson, a member of the CUNY Association of Scholars, started working at Brooklyn College in 2000 and is the recipient of several prizes, including the 2007 Fulbright Distinguished Chair in the Humanities at the Tel Aviv University, where he taught until 2008.

The Merrill Award honors scholars who advance liberal arts education, core curricula, and the teaching of Western civilization and American history. It is named after the late American diplomat Philip Merrill, who served six presidential administrators and was a well-known philanthropist and publisher of several conservative journals.