Obama: Sorry I Mocked Art History
Source: Evarin

Liberal-arts students, rejoice. President Obama hasn’t totally discounted your academic choices. After making “off-the-cuff” remarks about art-history studies, Obama sent a letter of apology to University of Texas at Austin Prof. Anne Collins Johns. At a speech last month at a General Electric plant in Milwaukee, he said, “folks can make a lot more potentially with skilled manufacturing or the trades than they might with an art-history degree.” Offended, Collins sent a message via the White House website. Obama responded with a hand-written note, saying “Let me apologize. I was making a point about the jobs market, not the value of art history.” For the record, he thinks there is “nothing wrong with an art-history degree,” so please don’t send “a bunch of emails.


On Feb. 12, she received this response, on White House letterhead, scanned and sent by email with indication that a hard copy would follow:

        Ann ―
        Let me apologize for my off-the-cuff remarks. I was making a point about the jobs market, not the value of art history. As it so happens, art history was one of my favorite subjects in high school, and it has helped me take in a great deal of joy in my life that I might otherwise have missed.

        So please pass on my apology for the glib remark to the entire department, and understand that I was trying to encourage young people who may not be predisposed to a four year college experience to be open to technical training that can lead them to an honorable career.

        Sincerely,
        Barack Obama

Ms. Johns, a specialist in late medieval and Renaissance Italian art and architecture who describes herself as an admirer of the president, told The New York Times she was satisfied by the apology, though the hard copy had yet to arrive. She added: “I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t anxiously checking my snail mail every day!”