Bellesiles: Did the Emory Committee Deliberately Try to Avoid Culpability?

Emory University's specially selected "Investigative Committee in the Matter of Michael Bellesiles" has released its report. Bellesiles has responded. Although much has been made of the report's critical treatment of Bellesiles's work, especially by Bellesiles himself, in truth the committee has effectively sided with Bellesiles on the only issue that really mattered: whether the widely discussed mistakes in Arming American: The Origins of a National Gun Culture (2000) are fraudulent. The committee says no, or at least "We won't say," by refusing to draw the obvious conclusions.

Emory University asked the committee-composed of distinguished scholars Stanley Katz, Hanna Gray, and Laurel Thatcher Ulrich-to report on a fellow historian's research (for which its members were eminently qualified) but also to make a judgment about his alleged culpability (for which its members were both ill-equipped and apparently unwilling). Because Emory chose historians who seemingly felt uncomfortable judging a colleague's motives, the report failed to perform its primary function-determining Bellesiles's guilt or innocence of fraud.

It is worth noting, however, that although the committee avoided the culpability question, the report still provided the impetus for Bellesiles's resignation and for the discrediting of Arming America. Thus, the committee's modest claims achieved a dramatic result. Because the report avers so little and bases its assertions largely on Bellesiles's own confessions, its restraint probably insulates Emory against a potential lawsuit by Bellesiles. In reaping these benefits, however, the committee sacrificed the all-important culpability question.

Bellesiles opens his response to the Investigative Committee report by characterizing the controversy as "a scholarly disagreement" rather than a fraud investigation ("Statement of Michael Bellesiles on Emory University's Inquiry Into Arming America," p. 1). Despite its own presentation of evidence, the report's conclusions agree with Bellesiles about the nature of the controversy. It is more about sloppiness than about fraud. The committee takes a rather odd point of view considering the five specific questions Emory asked. The questions asked whether Bellesiles engaged in "intentional fabrication or falsification of research data" (emphasis added) in connection with probate records from (1) Rutland County, Vermont; (2) Providence, Rhode Island; (3) the San Francisco Bay area; and (4) records cited in support of Table 1 of Arming America. Four of the five queries, therefore, requested findings on intentionality. Only the fifth question did not. It merely asked if Bellesiles had seriously deviated from "accepted" research practices. However, subsection (c) of question five sought a finding on misrepresentation of evidence, which arguably includes intentionality (report p. 2).

The committee understood the questions and identified two prongs to its inquiry: "[1] perceived failures of scholarly care, and [2] integrity in the documentation, presentation and analysis of archival sources" (report p. 1; see also citation to Dean Paul's memo, p. 16). The two are distinct. The first prong requires no finding about Bellesiles's mental culpability. It is a negligence charge. It even uses a legal sounding phrase-"scholarly care"-where civil trial lawyers would refer to "reasonable care." In this case, scholarly care actually does correspond to reasonable care, because the report compared Bellesiles's conduct to the historical profession's standards (report pp. 2, 17, 18) the same way a trial lawyer uses the standards of the medical profession in a medical malpractice action.

Thus, the first charge amounts to scholarly malpractice. Without disclosing its standard of proof-preponderance of the evidence? reasonable doubt?-the report comfortably pronounced Bellesiles a deviant from "professional norms," guilty of producing "deeply flawed," "unsystematic," and "unprofessional and misleading work" (report pp. 18, 19). However, these conclusions concede what nearly everyone knows already. Bellesiles's trumpeted attempts to correct Arming America admit as much. So, there is no news here, and frankly, lots of historians write "unsystematic" books, even ones that are "deeply flawed" if not unprofessional. But few scholars ever face an investigative committee. As four of Emory's five questions imply, this investigation was not about research flaws; it was about fraud.

The second prong of the inquiry questions Bellesiles's "integrity," or his fidelity to ethical standards. Whereas Bellesiles could be negligent quite innocently, the second prong demands an answer as to whether in fact he was. Emory specifically asked for a finding on Bellesiles's mental culpability. But on this most important of charges the committee shrewdly eliminated the question. It adopted a high burden of proof, and then declared it impossible to meet: "we cannot judge the issue of intentionality. We do not believe it possible to state conclusively that Professor Bellesiles engaged in 'intentional fabrication or falsification of research data' given the evidence at our disposal" (report p. 16). As any lawyer worth his salt will tell you, no evidence can "conclusively" prove intentionality; hence the charge should not be "judged." Voila! The fraud issue has been ruled out as a matter of logic (or, as they say in court, as a matter of law). Although the report only explicitly rules out the intentionality issue for questions 1 and 2, it fails to raise it for questions 3 and 4. Whereas the report grants some "falsification" on question 4, it refuses to say whether Bellesiles did so out of negligence or did so intentionally (report pp. 17-19).

Using such tactical maneuvers, the committee avoided its main goal, which could have easily been met. The report furnishes ample proof of fraud by almost any conceivable standard lower than conclusive proof. Even the most restrictive intent category found in the Model Penal Code (1962) would have been satisfied in some instances by the overwhelming case against Bellesiles. (That category-purpose-means that the actual result of the conduct is the actor's conscious object, § 2.02(2)(a)(i).) The committee should have found that Bellesiles intentionally committed fraud of some kind, under both a preponderance of the evidence standard and under a reasonable doubt standard. This is not to say that Bellesiles actually did commit fraud. It is to say that, given the committee's own findings, the committee should have drawn the conclusion most commensurate with its own evidence, in this case a conclusion of fraud of some kind. For example:

1. In a 1994 talk to the Organization of American Historians, Bellesiles provided a handout summarizing probate data from four states from 1680-1681 (report p. 7). But two years later, in an article in the Journal of American History, he omitted some of this information while including some of it. "There is, then, a remarkable difference between the data he included in his handout in 1994 and that presented in the JAH [Journal of American History] article two years later" (report p. 8), the committee noted.

Under a preponderance of the evidence standard, this would be damning. It is more likely than not that Bellesiles deliberately omitted some of the information from his 1994 handout, since he included some of it previously. And no matter why the information was not included, he knew there was relevant information that should have been included, since he had presented it before. Likewise, it is not reasonable to suppose that a trained historian would do this unintentionally. There may be some doubt that he did it by accident, but such a doubt is not reasonable. I speak as a holder of a history degree. Perhaps the only conceivable standard that could exculpate Bellesiles is the one the committee adopted-conclusive proof.

2. Bellesiles "explicitly wrote of 'integrating'" Alice Hanson Jones's data into his work (report p. 10). However, when "critics pointed out that Jones' [sic] data disagreed with his, Bellesiles responded by explaining that he did NOT include Jones's data in his computations because her inventories, taken during the build-up to the American revolution, showed a disproportionately high number of guns! Here is a clear admission of misrepresentation, since the label on the column one in Table One clearly says '1765-1790'" (p. 18). Even while drawing the conclusion of misrepresentation, the committee declined to identify it as intentional. It is more likely than not that misrepresentation was intentional, just by the fact that misrepresentation occurred and Bellesiles knew it. Bellesiles's knowledge also seems adequate to remove any reasonable doubt that he omitted Jones's data deliberately.

3. The committee caught Bellesiles lying about previous untruths as part of his explanations for probate records he cited that do not exist. Bellesiles said he consulted records in San Francisco, which do not exist; he then changed his story and said they were located in Contra Costa County but contained information for San Francisco. All that sounds rather dubious, but it does not add up to fraud.

The report examines three compelling indications of fraud, however. First, Bellesiles "didn't accept the opportunity to go find the San Francisco records until a friend suggested he may have found them in Contra Costa. So the idea that he had confused the origins of the records seems to have come from outside" (report p. 11). Second, Bellesiles photocopied Contra Costa records "explicitly chosen because they had the words 'San Francisco' in them, even though the records themselves clearly identify them as deriving from the Contra Costa court" (report p. 12). Third, the "records he selected do not seem to provide the sort of information his project requires" (report p. 12). More plainly, he got caught with his hand still stuck in the cookie jar. The combination of outside suggestion and the careful (perhaps deceitful) selection of irrelevant records evinces beyond a reasonable doubt a deliberate scheme by Bellesiles, to say nothing of a preponderance of evidence.

4. A final instance firmly demonstrates the committee's sheer unwillingness to draw the almost self-evident conclusion of fraud. When speaking of probate records, one might generously presume that the committee wished to avoid speaking too resolutely on issues not central to its own research interests. (After all, the committee had a research assistant do much of the legwork.) But when Michael Bellesiles attempted to cover more untruths with lies, claiming that he got probate records from The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints' (LDS) Family History Library, he stumbled into an area where at least one committee member--Laurel Thatcher Ulrich--is a true expert.

Laurel Thatcher Ulrich is LDS and is one of the most distinguished scholars and intellectuals in the LDS Church's history. As a member with a long record of faithful activity, she is in an ideal position to judge Bellesiles's claim to have used the LDS family history system. Bellesiles claimed that he had read microfilms "at the National Archives Record Center" in Georgia (report p. 12), but then changed his story when it was pointed out that the "National Archives had no probate records" (report p. 12). He then claimed to have obtained "Mormon microfilm" and taken it to Georgia. But, as the report pointed out, "those microfilms do not circulate," so Bellesiles said "he got them through a friend" (report p. 12). The committee inquired further, since this explanation makes no sense. The LDS archives are free for use by anyone, and some of its microfilm can be purchased cheaply. Bellesiles then claimed to be afraid he would cause his "friend" to lose his job. The report sniffs: "Since branch libraries are staffed by volunteers, however, there was no 'job' to endanger" (report p. 12). Bellesiles said he learned what microfilm to borrow by consulting "a binder," which the report utterly discredits: "No binder could possibly contain this information. Significantly, Professor Bellesiles told us on June 14 that he had never visited one of these libraries" (report p. 13).

But this fact's significance goes beyond Bellesiles; it implicates the forthrightness of the committee itself. Having found a subject on which Ulrich is much more familiar than Bellesiles, and with a cover-up story the report says could not possibly be true, it is amazing that it did not conclude that he had lied. The case for fraud is clear. This one instance nearly meets the conclusive proof standard. It easily passes a preponderance of the evidence or a reasonable doubt standard.

Under no circumstance would the report call fraud by its name. The committee displayed cowardice by refusing to draw conclusions compelled by its evidence. By adopting a hopelessly high standard of proof, the committee exonerated Bellesiles of fraud before the inquiry began. When academic types call for "conclusive" proof, remember that in their minds, it may not exist.