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making a lot of noise, without aiming true. How can anyone's thesis (including that written by Michelle Robinson) mean anything unless it's read in its entirety? Mr. Madden states that Michelle was not the originator of the idea of a segregated America. This is absolutely true and is known by anyone who has had any interest in American history and by Americans who lived through the Sixties. Malcolm X went on a pilgrimage to Mecca which modified his outlook but he never gave up the idea of a separate black state somewhere in North America. Malcolm's "Autobiography", dictated to Alex Haley in the last two years of his life reveals his thinking on a variety of subjects, even a hateful attitude to women and Jews.
In her thesis on race in the United States (specifically in Princeton), people cannot know whether she advocated a sparate black state, as Malcolm X had done, or disagreed with the concept unless her complete thesis is available for reading.
In the constellation of black leaders during the Civil Rights struggle, Martin Luther King's name is the one that has survived most powerfully. He believed in integration but Stokely Carmichael, chairman of SNCC, had very different ideas, claiming that integration is a subterfuge for white supremacy. In her thesis for an Ivy League University such as Princeton, Michelle Obama would have been likely to consider the thinking and writing of Martin Luther King, Malcolm X and Stokely Carmichael on the vexed question of race relations in America and the solutions offered by the three men. A thesis requires an ability to analyse and, in general, a student is allowed to choose the subject of a thesis. There's no point at all in Michelle Obama's detractors or defenders using snippets from her thesis without getting her over-all view and that can only be seen by reading the full thesis.
I thought there was a Freedom of Information Act in the USA, so much admired that it's been copied by many governments in western Europe. For that reason, it seems strange that this particular thesis was to be cloaked in secrecy until after the November election. There's also something called "academic freedom" which allows undergraduates and others to put in a request at a university library to read a thesis (or theses) on subjects of interest. Princeton's endeavours to give Michelle Robinson's thesis special treatment was not only a mistake but also gives rise to the suspicion that a prestigious university is meddling in politics, for whatever reason.
