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Emory can wait no longer: Historian is under investigation
Josey1
Member Posts: 9,598 ✭✭
Emory can wait no longer: Historian is under investigationBy Ron GrossmanTribune staff reporterPublished February 13, 2002Ending months of uncertainty, Emory University has decided to launch an investigation of Michael Bellesiles, its award-winning historian accused of faking data to support his stunning claim that guns were not a part of early American culture.In the end, he was backed into his current corner because he challenged the amateur custodians of a small-town archive on the West Coast.Emory's investigationcould cost Bellesiles his tenure, the academia's equivalent of a lifetime job guarantee. In announcing the probe, Emory Dean Robert A. Paul issued a written statement saying "questions remain concerning his research."Bellesiles, currently on leave from Emory to do research at Chicago's Newberry Library, did not respond to a request for an interview. The charges against him are the latest in a series of scandals involving historians, members of a generally tranquil calling. The popular historian Stephen Ambrose and presidential biographer Doris Kearns Goodwin have been charged with plagiarism in their best-selling books. Mt. Holyoke College suspended the distinguished historian Joseph Ellis for telling tall tales in class, among them that he had served in Vietnam and was a high school sports hero.Facts don't support dataBellesiles won last year's prestigious Bancroft Prize, the most coveted award in the field of American history, for his book "The Arming of America: The Origins of a National Gun Culture." But the book drew intense criticism from researchers who said they could not find the data upon which he said he based his thesis.The book drew interest far beyond academia because it touched the nerve of gun control. The NRA and other foes of curbs on gun ownership argue that guns are as American as apple pie. Bellesiles claimed to have found evidence that guns were rare in America's early days, and that because few owned them, the Founding Fathers may not have meant to enshrine individual gun ownership in the Constitution when they passed the 2nd Amendment.Bellesiles said that by examining early wills in Vermont, he calculated that only 14 percent of households there had guns. But when others read those same records, they found that 40 percent were gun owners.As criticism mounted, Emory officials said they would take no disciplinary action until Bellesiles had a chance to rebut his opponents in the William and Mary Quarterly, a prestigious scholarly journal. The Quarterly invited four historians knowledgeable in the field to critique Bellesiles' research. Bellesiles also wrote an essay -- which Emory officials said they expected to be a point-by-point response to the accusations levied against him.When page proofs of the Quarterly became available, it was apparent that the embattled professor had fallen short of the standard his university superiors had set for him. As in previous defenses of his book, his answers seemed to skirt the issue of data he claimed to have used and that others couldn't find.Criticism continuesEmory did not wait for a final copy of the Quarterly, which is to be published next week, before announcing its inquiry. Campus sources say that the university's administration was stung into taking action by a new hole in Bellesiles' story. Bellesiles claimed to have used 19th Century court records from San Francisco. But critics found that those records had been destroyed in the city's 1906 earthquake. Bellesiles responded that he must have confused San Francisco with another locale, but he couldn't recall where.Then recently Bellesiles said he now remembered finding San Francisco's records among the archives of another jurisdiction, nearby Contra Costa County's Historical Society."I was not hallucinating when I read the San Francisco probate files," Bellesiles wrote on an Emory Web site. He added a jab at the Contra Costa Historical Society, a low budget-operation of dedicated amateurs. "Additionally, the staff appeared unaware that they had any probate materials in their collection," wrote Bellesiles, "though they actually have a great deal."Stung, the historical society fired back. It said that while it does have probate records, none of them is from San Francisco. The staff also disputed Bellesiles' claim to have researched his book thereNo record of research"Last, we cannot confirm that Professor Bellesiles did substantial research in our collection," it wrote on its Web site. "We do not remember him visiting our collection before his recent visit. We have searched our log books and invoices for the years 1993, 1994, 1995 and 1996 and find no record for research fees or photocopies."Upon reading that posting, the chairman of Bellesiles' department, James Melton, sent the archive an e-mail apologizing for Bellesiles. Another faculty member sent a letter to Emory's administration saying the university could wait no longer. The announcement of an investigation shortly followed.The Contra Costa Historical Society's staff is bemused by its unsolicited role in the Bellesiles affair, notes Kathleen Mero, a long-time volunteer there:"Who'd have thought that the straw that broke the camel's back would be an obscure small-town archive in California." http://chicagotribune.com/features/lifestyle/chi-0202130008feb13.story
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SSgt Ryan E. Roberts, USMC
I can't come to work today. The voices said, STAY HOME AND CLEAN THE GUNS![This message has been edited by mudge (edited 02-15-2002).]