Wednesday, August 24, 2005
Ubi Sunt Qui Ante Nos Fuerunt?
A story in the Rocky Mountain News earlier this week says that the charges of academic misconduct against militant, blowhard Professor Ward Churchill will proceed to the next level of review, but they have been whittled down to 7, including plagiarism and mischaracterization of sources. Fellow ex-DA and local radio show co-host, Craig Silverman, who has been a recent, vocal critic of Mr. Churchill, is semi-OK with the developments. Fellow ex-DA and blogger Diomedes has more on at least one of the two charges not bound over.
The charge of mischaracterization of sources reminds me of another academic fraud a few years ago, Michael Bellesiles, formerly of Emory University, and the former, and now disgraced, winner of the formerly prestigious Bancroft Prize for a distinguished book on history (which award was later taken back by Columbia University) . "The Committee [at Emory] concluded that Bellesiles was guilty of both substandard research methodology and of willfully misrepresenting specific evidence in Arming America."
Well, yeah, you could say that. Among other things, Bellesiles said in his book Arming America that working guns were really rare in America before the Civil War. Bellesiles certainly wanted that to be true and there were plenty of people willing to believe him (including several people on the Bancroft committee at Columbia University). He almost pulled it off, but other historians could not reproduce his findings from the same records. In a stupid lie, Bellesiles claimed to have researched probate records which were destroyed in the San Francisco Earthquake in 1906. A liar must be good at remembering. You'd think a historian might recall a fire associated with that earthquake. Oops.
In a similar vein of fraudulent citation, Churchill claimed in numerous writings we assume are his, that the U.S. Army gave small pox infected blankets to Mandan Indians, when the sources he cites for support say the opposite, that the Indians were infected by sick civilians. Churchill wants the U.S. Government to have been the bad guy and presto, in Wardland, so it is.
Where is Bellesiles now? Neither Yahoo nor Google will reveal? It is as if he dropped from the face of the earth. We can only hope for a similar result in the Ward Churchill case.
The charge of mischaracterization of sources reminds me of another academic fraud a few years ago, Michael Bellesiles, formerly of Emory University, and the former, and now disgraced, winner of the formerly prestigious Bancroft Prize for a distinguished book on history (which award was later taken back by Columbia University) . "The Committee [at Emory] concluded that Bellesiles was guilty of both substandard research methodology and of willfully misrepresenting specific evidence in Arming America."
Well, yeah, you could say that. Among other things, Bellesiles said in his book Arming America that working guns were really rare in America before the Civil War. Bellesiles certainly wanted that to be true and there were plenty of people willing to believe him (including several people on the Bancroft committee at Columbia University). He almost pulled it off, but other historians could not reproduce his findings from the same records. In a stupid lie, Bellesiles claimed to have researched probate records which were destroyed in the San Francisco Earthquake in 1906. A liar must be good at remembering. You'd think a historian might recall a fire associated with that earthquake. Oops.
In a similar vein of fraudulent citation, Churchill claimed in numerous writings we assume are his, that the U.S. Army gave small pox infected blankets to Mandan Indians, when the sources he cites for support say the opposite, that the Indians were infected by sick civilians. Churchill wants the U.S. Government to have been the bad guy and presto, in Wardland, so it is.
Where is Bellesiles now? Neither Yahoo nor Google will reveal? It is as if he dropped from the face of the earth. We can only hope for a similar result in the Ward Churchill case.
# posted by Roger Fraley @ 9:05 PM 
