Wilson ’s affiliated enterprises in Moscow launched an aggressive campaign to denounce the presidents of the two universities, the “abolitionist” historians, and community civil rights activists as the deluded representatives of “modern secularism.” In prominent advertisements in several local newspapers, Wilson and his supporters argued that “slavery isn’t the issue.” “Establishment secularism,” they claimed, “can’t stand real criticism. It can’t bear real differences.” The advertisements suggested that the real goal of local critics of Wilson ’s defense of racial slavery was “silencing dissent.” Less publicly, however, Wilson and the dean of his “ New Saint Andrews College ,” Roy Atwood, began working to silence the University of Idaho historians who had brought the slavery booklet to the attention of the community. They were especially upset that the University’s director of Diversity and Human Rights, Raul Sanchez, had placed a hyperlink to the Quinlan/Ramsey book review on the Diversity Office website. In an angry letter to the university provost, Wilson claimed that the book review was “slanderous” and “defamatory” and demanded disciplinary action and a public apology, while Atwood wrote a similar letter to the president. Failing to get the desired response, Wilson wrote to Idaho Governor Dirk Kempthorne asking him to step in and “remove the University of Idaho as a launching pad for their mortar rounds.”

Wilson’s “history” conference in February, 2004, saw the arrival of League of the South co-founder Steve Wilkins, anti-gay minister George Grant, and nearly 800 fundamentalist culture warriors intent on challenging the secular worldview of northern Idaho (and touring the New Saint Andrews College facility with their home-schooled teenagers). Wilkins readily acknowledged to local reporters that the League of the South hoped to secede from the United States and create a new Confederate Nation dedicated to states’ rights, Biblical Law, and the restoration of the “cultural hegemony” of Christian southerners, but he angrily denied that it was a racist or white supremacist organization, as claimed by the Southern Poverty Law Center. To make his point, he organized a special lecture, entitled, “The Sin of Racism,” in which he condemned all forms of racial discrimination and reiterated that southern slavery was not a racist institution but one based on mutual affection and social harmony. Many Idahoans found it unpersuasive.

The University of Idaho , meanwhile, scheduled simultaneous educational activities to celebrate Black History month and promote the ideals of tolerance and diversity. In support of the university and area minorities, nearly 2,000 volunteers from the community traced their hands on pieces of paper, cut them out, and pasted them on giant letters that spelled out “Hands for Human Rights.” The letters were then arranged in front of the Student Union Building where the conference was being held so that culture warriors would have to walk past them every day. The president of the Seattle chapter of the NAACP, Carl Mack, arrived to denounce the pro-slavery booklet of Wilson and Wilkins as “white supremacy” in a spirited rally that brought over 300 student protestors, mostly white, to their feet. One African American student from Washington State University, interviewed afterward by the Daily News, said that she was happy that Mr. Wilson would finally “see people who look like him standing up for people who look like me.” Hundreds of protestors then marched peacefully through the snow with signs that read “Slavery Bad,” and “The Civil War is over.” By the end of the weekend, civil rights advocates were almost too worn out to fully appreciate the detailed presentation by Mark Potok of the Southern Poverty Law Center, explaining the white supremacist ambitions of the League of the South and Doug Wilson’s ties to national neo-confederate networks.