Bellesiles Is Out. A professor at the center of controversy is forced to resign.

National Review ^ | October 28, 2002 | Melissa Seckora

[GOPJ]

Maybe Robert Redford will made a movie based on this heroic man's fight to stop guns from killing children.

Hollywood could hand the liar a check for a million or two and welcome him into the "Old Fat Cats Lying Liberals Club of Hollywood." Looks to me like Bellesiles has earned his membership rights.

[<1/1,000,000th%]

The award-winning book stirred up controversybecause it appeared to confirm what many scholars already believed: that the Second Amendment protects only a collective right to bear arms and that individual gun rights were unimportant to America's Founders.

What scholars????

[GOPJ]

Corrected post:

Maybe Robert Redford will make a movie based on this heroic man's fight to stop guns from killing children.

Hollywood could hand him a check for a million or two and welcome him into the "Old Fat Cats Lying Liberals Club of Hollywood." Looks to me like Bellesiles has earned his membership rights.

[LS]

Yah, you know, as a WELL-PUBLISHED, hard working academic---who will never ever be considered for one of these awards or for an endowed chair at one of these universities---it is exactly this kind of thing that galls me. Far from damaging his career, this will enhance it.

[GOPJ]

You'll be able to look yourself in the mirror every morning and know you're a good person. As the years go by people will trust you and seek out your thoughts.

You have untold riches. Bellesiles, even with Hollywood money, will always be a liar and a cheat. How fancy a car, how high a title, how large a house, would a person have to have to cover that level of creepiness? Look at Clinton -- he lived in the White House, lead the free world, and no one with class has any respect for him.

You're a winner LS, and a part of you has to know that.

[GOPJ]

bump

[LS]

Yah, but just for a few years, I'd like to have that car, that house on the beach . . . .

Like Monty Python's "Life of Brian," "Thanks for the gold, but you can keep the frankensense and myrrh."

[litehaus]

Sounds like qualifications for the next speech writer for the DNC.........

[KC Burke]

To preserve a quote from The BradyBunch:

Snip...
“This award is well-earned,” said Michael Barnes, President of Handgun Control and the Center to Prevent Handgun Violence. “Professor Bellesiles has produced a work of unquestionable historical and societal merit. The National Rifle Association and its allies rely on a mythology about guns and the Second Amendment because they have few legitimate, rational arguments. By exposing the truth about gun ownership in early America, Michael Bellesiles has removed one more weapon in the gun lobby’s arsenal of fallacies against common-sense gun laws.”

Yeah, right...

[KC Burke]

Those wishing ticket information to the Dinner where the Bancroft Prize is revoked may write:

Bancroft Prize Committee, c/o The Office of the University Librarian,
Columbia University
517 Butler Library
535 West 114th Street
New York, NY 10027

[VOA]

I'm suprised he was actually shown the door...

[henbane]

DISGRACED AND BOOTED!

Bancroft Prize being replaced by The Michael Moore "Nuke the 2nd Amendment" Propaganda Award.

[me3]

Everybody has been waiting for Emory to act. Other institutions will follow, probably pretty quickly.

[Hobsonphile]

Bump.

[Hobsonphile]

Leftism on Campus ping!

If you would like to be added to the Leftism on Campus ping list, please
notify me via FReep-mail.

Regards...

[rmlew]

COLUMBIA COLLEGE CONSERVATIVE CLUB

For Immediate Release

NEW YORK, NY -- October 30, 2002

CCCC CALLS ON BANCROFT AWARD COMMITTEE TO RESCIND 2001 AWARD FOR
MICHAEL BELLESILES

In April 2001, Columbia University awarded the Bancroft award to
Professor Michael Bellesiles for his controversial book, Arming
America: The Origins of the National Gun Culture. Professor
Bellesiles, unable to prove his thesis that civilian gun ownership
was rare in ante-bellum America, chose to fraudulently document his
work by citing non-existent sources and misrepresent others.
Unfortunately, the members of the Bancroft committee were made
aware of many of these misstatements and phantom sources when the
winners were announced, but chose to ignore this information. In
April 2001, Ron Lewenberg, the former president of CCCC, had
documentation of Bellesiles' inaccuracies mailed to members of the
Bancroft committee and of the history department. He also e-mailed
select members of the committee with abbreviated documentation a
week before the award ceremony. The members of the Bancroft Award
committee made no effort to contact us or authors of studies
refuting Mr. Bellesiles, choosing to go ahead in rewarding academic
fraud.

On April 18th, 4 hours before the Bancroft Award Ceremony, the
Columbia College Conservative Club held a round table discussion of
Professor Bellesiles' work and its improper documentation.
Participants of the discussion included:

-Clayton Cramer, author of books on the history of firearms in
America, most recently of Concealed Weapon Laws of the Early
Republic: Dueling, Southern Violence, and Moral Reform

-Stephen Halbrook, constitutional law attorney, who argued Printz V
US before the US Supreme Court and was a lead attorney in Emerson v
US.

-and Professor John Lott, author of More Guns, Less Crime.

While this event was covered by C-SPAN, no member of the Bancroft
committee or even of the History department bothered to come to our
event, despite invitations and an announcement in the school paper.
Since 2001, a dozen new studies have come out showing inaccuracies
and outright misinformation in Arming America. On October 25th,
after a committee at Emory confirmed the inaccuracies in Professor
Bellesiles research, he resigned from Emory University.

In light of the preponderance of evidence and Professor Bellesiles'
resignation, we call upon the History Department of Columbia
University to strip Professor Bellesiles of the Bancroft Award.
Continued inaction by the committee only serves to send the message
to students, authors, and educators that academic fraud will be
rewarded if it serves the correct political ends. The integrity of
the Bancroft Award and the reputation of Columbia University are at
stake.

---

About the Columbia College Conservative Club:

The Columbia College Conservative Club
(http://www.columbia.edu/cu/conservative) was founded to promote
the ideas of liberty and individual responsibility, which formed
the basis of the United States and of our continued freedom and
prosperity. For all too many years these ideas have been ignored or
attacked on this campus. Our goal at CCCC is to provide the
necessary ideological balance to Columbia and to end the 40 years
of leftist decline at the university.

---

Interview Contact:

Nazar Khodorovsky
Acting President
Conservative@columbia.edu
http://www.columbia.edu/cu/conservative

Ron Lewenberg {"rmlew" on FR}
Founder
r_lewenberg@yahoo.com