Dear Dr. Tucker and Dr. Newhall,
I am responding on behalf of the George Washington University to your letter of September 25th. Thank you for sharing your concerns and recommendations for GW’s stewardship of a digital archive of the “ISIS Files”. The Project on Extremism is an academic research center and is governed by all of GW’s policies governing the professional and ethical conduct of research, including those pertaining to research affecting human subjects. It is my understanding and expectation that the archiving and analysis of the copy of the documents that were provided to the researchers at the Project of Extremism will be done in accordance with these policies in order to meet the high ethical standards GW expects of all research conducted at the University. It is also our intention to have trained archivists involved the project.
This link takes you to a blog posting from the Project on Extremism that is in part a response to some of the concerns that MESA has raised.
Best,
Forrest Maltzman
Provost