A crowd of about 500 people gathered at Arkansas Tech University in Russellville Tuesday to protest the naming of a scholarship in honor of a former history professor who's been accused of Holocaust denial.
The protest, which white supremacists had threatened to attend, came after the school declined to remove the name of Michael Link from a scholarship fund named for himself and his mother.
Link had taught at the university for over 50 years at the time of his death in 2016. The Michael Arthur Link and May Reid Kewen History Scholarship was announced last December after Link's estate donated $190,900.68 to the university.
The Anti-Defamation League, an international Jewish advocacy group, wrote a letter to Arkansas Tech condemning the naming of the scholarship after negotiations with the school to remove Link's name fell through.
Link is accused of using numerous anti-Semitic tropes in his works, as well as assigning works by Holocaust deniers as required reading in courses. A spokesman for Arkansas Tech says an internal investigation contradicts those claims.
KUAR is a content partner of KASU based in Little Rock. Read more news from central Arkansas here.