I thought the same. It cut down the field of candidates in the UC Berkeley History Department who might be the author.
it seems in a few places that the writer is definitely talking about the history department, but maybe in other places not?
if it is a conservative (or quiet...) historian of color, then yah, that’s going to be like one person
hopefully the author didn’t leave a trail of bread crumbs behind and maybe put something in there to throw off the coming Inquisition