In December 2020, Harvard Law School Professor J. Mark Ramseyer, 69, published an article in the American academic journal International Review of Law and Economics (IRLE), which stated that comfort women worked as prostitutes under contract. The following January 2009, the Sankei Shimbun introduced the summary of the article, and Professor Ramseyer himself later posted it in JAPAN Forward to explain the situation.
Death threats and threatening letters
The articles in Sankei Shimbun and JAPAN Forward sparked a firestorm in South Korean society, as the paper was picked up by social media, television, and newspapers in South Korea. Even the government of North Korea cursed Professor Ramseyer. The South Korean media even sent reporters to stake out the professor in front of his home. On many days, dozens of threatening letters, death threats, and other harassing e-mails arrived. They were carried out by outraged Korean groups and others in the Korean Peninsula and the United States.
Riding that wave of anger, Professor Amy Stanley of Northwestern University, Professor David Ambaras of North Carolina State University, Assistant Professor Sayaka Chatani of the National University of Singapore, and Professor Alexis Dudden of the University of Connecticut, a well-known Japan-bashing figure, and others, joined Professor Ramzaier and launched a bashing campaign against Professor Ramseyer and his “comfort women thesis. They demanded the retraction of the paper directly to the editorial board members of IRLE several times via Twitter and other means, and also demanded that Harvard University fire Professor Ramseyer. Some anti-Ramseyer scholars, including Assistant Professor Chattani, caused a furor on the Internet, accusing Professor Ramseyer of being a “white supremacist,” without providing any evidence.
In the United States over the past few years, it has become widely known as a notorious fact that there is a “cancellation culture” in which far-left scholars launch a denunciation campaign against scholars whose papers or presentations they do not like and expel them from the academic world, as in this case. This is not an academic attitude of pursuing the truth, but rather a gangster approach of silencing inconvenient truths and “dissent. So much so that freedom of speech is disappearing in American academia.
In most cases, the target of such “cancellations” cannot withstand the pressure of the “cancellers,” and even if their “objections” are correct, they quickly give in and surrender to the “cancellers” with their colons and bellies out. Professor Ramseyer, however, did not raise the white flag and made the decision to delve further into his research on the comfort women issue.
Anti-Japanese Connections Revealed
For example, Professor Ramseyer teamed up with Professor Tetsuo Arima of Waseda University to look behind the comfort women issue, which has long been an issue in Korea, Japan, the United States, and Europe. The two professors discovered that behind the comfort women issue lies the shadow of North Korea, and brought to light the North Korean manipulators and agitators of the issue, as well as North-sympathizing politicians and academics in South Korea, Japan, and elsewhere. In other words, rather than kneeling before the denunciations of anti-Japanese scholars and journalists, Professor Ramseyer, as a scholar, researched in libraries and archives to see if there was anything hidden, and further his research.
Recent news confirms the results of both professors’ research. The link between North Korea and the comfort women issue is already clear. For example, in February 2023, Yun Mika, a member of the National Assembly of the Republic of Korea, was convicted and fined after being charged with embezzling donations from a South Korean civil society group that supports former comfort women. Defendant Yun, along with groups close to North Korea, has organized anti-Japanese “Wednesday demonstrations” in Seoul for many years. In addition, Yun’s husband, and her husband’s sister, were arrested in South Korea as North Korean agents and sentenced to prison terms. Professor Dhaden, mentioned above, took the stage for a panel discussion with Yun in October 2017. The topic was “The Comfort Women Issue,” a battle that lasted more than two years
In January 2023, more than two years after Professor Ramzayer published his article in IRLE in December 2020, the editorial board of IRLE finally announced its final decision on the Ramzayer article. The editorial board had long been subjected to complaints and harassment from Ramseyer’s detractors, who repeatedly cried “fraud” and demanded that the paper be retracted, but the editorial board’s investigation clearly stated that there was no fraud. Although some members of the editorial board pointed out that Professor Ramseyer may have made careless mistakes in the process of analyzing the data, the editorial board unanimously concluded that there was absolutely no fabrication, falsification, or fraud, and they thoroughly examined Professor Ramseyer’s comfort women paper and passed it.
The anti-Ramseyer Professor Stanley, mentioned above, falsely claimed the editorial board’s result and tweeted the exact opposite on his Twitter page. ‘Some editorial board members thought the Ramseyer paper was a fraud. Professor Stanley did not give up on his bashing campaign. However, in late January 2023, in an interview with JAPAN Forward after the results of the IRLE editorial board were announced, Professor Ramseyer pointed out that Professor Stanley had twisted the facts. When an interview with Professor Ramseyer exposing Professor Stanley’s “lies” was published in JAPAN Forward, Professor Stanley took to his Twitter account to admit his “error” and retract his false statement.
Professor Ramseyer, who had endured more than two years of bashing and baseless labeling, revealed his true feelings in the interview with JAPAN Forward, saying, “I had reached a bit of a limit. He said he was “really tired of the last two years,” having been slandered as a “white supremacist,” “inciting violence,” and “repeatedly making hate speeches.”
Turning Point in the History Battle
On the other hand, he stressed, “However, thanks to those who attacked me and Dr. Arima, I am glad that the true history of the comfort women issue, and the fact that the shadow of North Korea lurks deeply behind the issue, has been widely known to the entire world. He concluded, “If I may say more, the scholars who attacked me and my thesis turned their backs on the truth with such aplomb and repeated statements that were so extreme and baseless. In the end, they made those reading their statements wonder if they were “cool.”
There is something wrong with the statements of such anti-Japanese “scholars” on the comfort women issue. There must be many foreign readers who feel that way.
Professor Ramseyer published his paper on the comfort women issue, withstood the subsequent bashing campaign waged by anti-Japanese “scholars,” and in the end his paper survived. Professor Ramseyer’s stunning victory will be a major turning point in the historical battle of the comfort women issue. The crooks in Korea and Japan who have repeatedly demanded apologies and reimbursement from “Asahi Shimbun” and Japan for years for their fabrications and falsehoods have lost their business model with the Ramseyer paper case. It will be interesting to see what will happen to the Japan-Korea relationship now that the comfort women issue scam is no longer in effect.
Author: Jason Morgan, JAPAN Forward Editor and Associate Professor of International Studies, Reitaku University
