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Bellesiles insinuates professor forged e-mails
Josey1
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Bellesiles insinuates professor forged e-mails in his name
By Andrew Ackerman
Asst. News Editor
April 25, 2002
Professor of History Michael Bellesiles suggested this week that one of his main critics fabricated e-mails in his name.
The accusation complicates an already confusing debate swirling over Bellesiles' award-winning book on gun culture in early America, which is now widely-considered fraudulent by academics who have studied Bellesiles' book.
Bellesiles is the author Arming America: Origins of a National Gun Culture, which claims that guns were more rare in early America than previously thought. While the book was initially praised in its September 2000 debut for its innovative use of historical records to support Bellesiles' claim, the academic consensus has recently shifted against the book.
Prompted partly by outside academic concerns, the University launched its own formal investigation in February into allegations Bellesiles engaged in research misconduct. As of Wednesday night, the University remains silent on its investigation, the first into the work of a College professor, though a public statement is expected any day.
Bellesiles' accusations this week concern e-mails between him and James Lindgren, a law professor at Northwestern University (Ill.) and an expert on probate records. The e-mails, which Bellesiles seems to deny writing, were allegedly sent to Lindgren in the final months of 2000.
In August 2000, Lindgren asked Bellesiles in an e-mail to explain where he found most of the probate records cited in Arming America. Bellesiles allegedly replied that the records he used were stored at the National Archives at East Point in southeast Atlanta.
"The probate records are primarily on microfilm in the [East Point] federal archives," Bellesiles allegedly wrote in a message dated Aug. 31, 2000.
But now Bellesiles denies that he wrote that e-mail -- after Lindgren learned no microfilmed probate records are housed at East Point -- which Lindgren forwarded to the Wheel and HistoryNews-Network.org, a historical Web site for historians.
"I don't know how to break this to you, but anyone can print up anything and say I received this e-mail," Bellesiles wrote to the Wheel. "Shouldn't you go by what I say I said rather than what someone else asserts?"
But in a follow-up message to his initial claim, Bellesiles said he was not asserting anything explicitly.
"I will not get into a name calling contest with someone else via the press," Bellesiles wrote.
To Bellesiles' critics, though, his first comments were thinly-veiled claims that Lindgren fabricated Bellesiles' message, which was allegedly mailed a month before Arming America was published. Randy Barnett, a visiting law professor at Harvard University (Mass.), said it was absurd to suggest Lindgren was a forger.
Barnett said Lindgren was innocently trying to reconcile differences in his research with Bellesiles' work when Lindgren first e-mailed Bellesiles. Lindgren had not yet read Arming America, but he was familiar with some of Bellesiles' work from an online discussion site for academics. He also said Bellesiles had a demonstrated record of lying to cover-up a "scandal."
"The fact Bellesiles now accuses a reputable scholar of fabricating an e-mail (at a time when the other scholar was merely requesting data he had no idea had been falsified) ... is an admission of how significant his previous lies have been," Barnett wrote in an e-mail to the Wheel. "Were these trivial matters, Bellesiles would not have to invent such desperate accusations. This latest incident should reveal much about Professor Bellesiles' character to anyone who previously harbored any illusions."
"This is not typical academic behavior and this not a matter of different people interpreting data in different ways," Barnett added.
Previously, Bellesiles was under fire when some probate materials he cited in Arming America could not be found by other scholars, including probate inventories from San Francisco that were destroyed in the 1906 earthquake.
To appease his critics, Bellesiles posted probate materials from multiple states on his Web site in February 2001 (www.emory.edu/HISTORY/BELLESILES). But when the Web site records still did not placate the critics, Bellesiles told a reporter from the National Review last year that his site had been altered by hackers.
Emory's Information Technology Division has not yet confirmed these claims.
Jerry Sternstein, a professor emeritus of history at Brooklyn College, CUNY, wrote in an e-mail that Bellesiles was making desperate attempts to disassociate from self-incriminating e-mails. Sternstein authored an extensive essay on Bellesiles for HistoryNewsNetwork.org earlier this month, in which he outlined Bellesiles' alleged deceptions.
"[Bellesiles] is now accusing Prof. Lindgren of forging those e-mails, knowing full well that they are tantamount to a confession of academic fraud on his part," Sternstein wrote.
In an e-mail Wednesday night, Lindgren wrote that he thought Bellesiles was throwing away his career.
"His falsehoods are getting more numerous and more incredible," Lindgren wrote. "It is almost as if he has given up trying to make sense."
Chuck Loebbaka, a spokesman for Northwestern, said the dispute between Lindgren and Bellesiles was between two scholars and that his school had no official comment.
For continuing coverage of the Bellesiles controversy, please see:
* Emory announces outside panel to review Bellesiles' research
http://www.emorywheel.com/vnews/display.v/ART/2002/04/25/3cc89bcfe177d
* E-mails may include lies
http://www.emorywheel.com/vnews/display.v/ART/2002/04/25/3cc821c6a1b9c
"If cowardly and dishonorable men sometimes shoot unarmed men with army pistols or guns, the evil must be prevented by the penitentiary and gallows, and not by a general deprivation of a constitutional privilege." - Arkansas Supreme Court, 1878
By Andrew Ackerman
Asst. News Editor
April 25, 2002
Professor of History Michael Bellesiles suggested this week that one of his main critics fabricated e-mails in his name.
The accusation complicates an already confusing debate swirling over Bellesiles' award-winning book on gun culture in early America, which is now widely-considered fraudulent by academics who have studied Bellesiles' book.
Bellesiles is the author Arming America: Origins of a National Gun Culture, which claims that guns were more rare in early America than previously thought. While the book was initially praised in its September 2000 debut for its innovative use of historical records to support Bellesiles' claim, the academic consensus has recently shifted against the book.
Prompted partly by outside academic concerns, the University launched its own formal investigation in February into allegations Bellesiles engaged in research misconduct. As of Wednesday night, the University remains silent on its investigation, the first into the work of a College professor, though a public statement is expected any day.
Bellesiles' accusations this week concern e-mails between him and James Lindgren, a law professor at Northwestern University (Ill.) and an expert on probate records. The e-mails, which Bellesiles seems to deny writing, were allegedly sent to Lindgren in the final months of 2000.
In August 2000, Lindgren asked Bellesiles in an e-mail to explain where he found most of the probate records cited in Arming America. Bellesiles allegedly replied that the records he used were stored at the National Archives at East Point in southeast Atlanta.
"The probate records are primarily on microfilm in the [East Point] federal archives," Bellesiles allegedly wrote in a message dated Aug. 31, 2000.
But now Bellesiles denies that he wrote that e-mail -- after Lindgren learned no microfilmed probate records are housed at East Point -- which Lindgren forwarded to the Wheel and HistoryNews-Network.org, a historical Web site for historians.
"I don't know how to break this to you, but anyone can print up anything and say I received this e-mail," Bellesiles wrote to the Wheel. "Shouldn't you go by what I say I said rather than what someone else asserts?"
But in a follow-up message to his initial claim, Bellesiles said he was not asserting anything explicitly.
"I will not get into a name calling contest with someone else via the press," Bellesiles wrote.
To Bellesiles' critics, though, his first comments were thinly-veiled claims that Lindgren fabricated Bellesiles' message, which was allegedly mailed a month before Arming America was published. Randy Barnett, a visiting law professor at Harvard University (Mass.), said it was absurd to suggest Lindgren was a forger.
Barnett said Lindgren was innocently trying to reconcile differences in his research with Bellesiles' work when Lindgren first e-mailed Bellesiles. Lindgren had not yet read Arming America, but he was familiar with some of Bellesiles' work from an online discussion site for academics. He also said Bellesiles had a demonstrated record of lying to cover-up a "scandal."
"The fact Bellesiles now accuses a reputable scholar of fabricating an e-mail (at a time when the other scholar was merely requesting data he had no idea had been falsified) ... is an admission of how significant his previous lies have been," Barnett wrote in an e-mail to the Wheel. "Were these trivial matters, Bellesiles would not have to invent such desperate accusations. This latest incident should reveal much about Professor Bellesiles' character to anyone who previously harbored any illusions."
"This is not typical academic behavior and this not a matter of different people interpreting data in different ways," Barnett added.
Previously, Bellesiles was under fire when some probate materials he cited in Arming America could not be found by other scholars, including probate inventories from San Francisco that were destroyed in the 1906 earthquake.
To appease his critics, Bellesiles posted probate materials from multiple states on his Web site in February 2001 (www.emory.edu/HISTORY/BELLESILES). But when the Web site records still did not placate the critics, Bellesiles told a reporter from the National Review last year that his site had been altered by hackers.
Emory's Information Technology Division has not yet confirmed these claims.
Jerry Sternstein, a professor emeritus of history at Brooklyn College, CUNY, wrote in an e-mail that Bellesiles was making desperate attempts to disassociate from self-incriminating e-mails. Sternstein authored an extensive essay on Bellesiles for HistoryNewsNetwork.org earlier this month, in which he outlined Bellesiles' alleged deceptions.
"[Bellesiles] is now accusing Prof. Lindgren of forging those e-mails, knowing full well that they are tantamount to a confession of academic fraud on his part," Sternstein wrote.
In an e-mail Wednesday night, Lindgren wrote that he thought Bellesiles was throwing away his career.
"His falsehoods are getting more numerous and more incredible," Lindgren wrote. "It is almost as if he has given up trying to make sense."
Chuck Loebbaka, a spokesman for Northwestern, said the dispute between Lindgren and Bellesiles was between two scholars and that his school had no official comment.
For continuing coverage of the Bellesiles controversy, please see:
* Emory announces outside panel to review Bellesiles' research
http://www.emorywheel.com/vnews/display.v/ART/2002/04/25/3cc89bcfe177d
* E-mails may include lies
http://www.emorywheel.com/vnews/display.v/ART/2002/04/25/3cc821c6a1b9c
"If cowardly and dishonorable men sometimes shoot unarmed men with army pistols or guns, the evil must be prevented by the penitentiary and gallows, and not by a general deprivation of a constitutional privilege." - Arkansas Supreme Court, 1878