Nancy MacLean is a Duke University history professor who has been working for several years in a nasty genre: writing pieces that smear intellectuals she dislikes with the “racist” brush. She has done that to James Buchanan and Milton Friedman, and she took a great deal of well-argued criticism.

Obviously, that criticism hasn’t deterred her from continuing her project. After all, who among her admirers on the left cares about intellectual honesty? Her latest target is the South African classical-liberal economist W. H. Hutt.

In their paper “Darity, Camara, and MacLean on William H. Hutt,” Phil Magness and Art Carden demolish the claims that Hutt was a white supremacist and by extension that his classical liberal economic views must be bad.

Ill-founded ad hominem attacks are increasingly taking the place of honest scholarship.

Hat tip: Don Boudreaux