William Walter Horne, Jr. (born August 23, 1959) is an American journalist who was editor of the Chronicle of Higher Education from 2000 to 2007. Horne’s Chronicle coverage of the 2003 Northwestern University investigation into J. Michael Bailey following publication of The Man Who Would Be Queen was criticized by Bailey’s friend Alice Dreger in both the Archives of Sexual Behavior and Galileo’s Middle Finger.
Background
Horne earned a bachelor’s degree in communications from Cornell University and a law degree from Albany Law School of Union University in 1984. He was admitted to the New York Bar in 1985 and practiced for several years before going into journalism, where he has published with bylines including William W. Horne and Bill Horne.
Horne joined the Chronicle in 2000 as Deputy Managing Editor, rising to editor from 2004 to 2007. He then held editor positions at World History Group from 2008 to 2013, then joined AARP in 2014 as Executive Editor of their magazine. His wife Kathleen “Kathy” Broadbent Horne is also a lawyer.
The Man Who Would Be Queen (2003)
Chronicle staffer Robin Wilson wrote six articles covering the controversy, and Dreger was critical of the coverage, citing her correspondence with Horne:
When I realized the strange role Wilson had played, I tried asking her and her editor why they hadn’t used her before-and-after-scandal positioning to ask deep questions about why Bailey’s relationships appeared, at least in public accounts, to have suddenly changed with these women. Wilson’s editor sent me back boilerplate: “We stand by the accuracy, and fairness, of Robin’s reporting and are not inclined to revisit decisions Robin and her editors made here with regard to what to include or exclude from those stories in 2003.”
References
Dreger, Alice (2008). The Controversy Surrounding The Man Who Would Be Queen: A Case History of the Politics of Science, Identity, and Sex in the Internet Age. Archives of Sexual Behavior. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10508-007-9301-1
Dreger, Alice (2015). Galileo’s Middle Finger: Heretics, Activists, and One Scholar’s Search for Justice. Penguin Books ISBN 978-0143108115
Resources
Muckrack (muckrack.com)