In October 1903 he published an article in the South Atlantic Quarterly titled "Stirring Up the Fires of Racial Antipathy" triggering a controversy that nearly cost the young professor his job.

Near the end of the article, he wrote "...Booker T. Washington [is] the greatest man, save General Lee, born in the South in a hundred years..." This led to an outpouring of anger from powerful Democratic Party leaders as well as the media and public.

The Board of Trustees then held a meeting to decide; in the end, they voted 18-7 not to accept the resignation citing academic freedom.

In 1905, President Theodore Roosevelt commended Trinity and Bassett's courageous stand for academic freedom while speaking to the university.

[4][1] After 1919, he was the long-time secretary (Executive Director) of the American Historical Association, and helped to stabilize its finances through an endowment.

They had two children: His sister Bessie Wilson Bassett married Duke University Librarian Joseph Penn Breedlove in 1905.