BELLESILES'S CASE SHOWS NEED FOR INSTITUTIONAL REFORM

The Columbia College Conservative Club ^ | December 17, 2002 | Ron Lewenberg

[rmlew]

COLUMBIA COLLEGE CONSERVATIVE CLUB
conservative@columbia.edu
www.columbia.edu/cu/conservative

Contact: Ron Lewenberg
Phone: (646) 824-9215

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE 1 PM EDT, December 17, 2002
BELLESILES’S CASE SHOWS NEED FOR INSTITUTIONAL REFORM IN BANCROFT COMMITTEE AND COLUMBIA HISTORY DEPARTMENT
Ever since Columbia University announced its choice of Michael Bellesiles as a 2001 Bancroft Award winner for "Arming America", they have been under increasing pressure to re-evaluate their position due to the historical inaccuracies and irregular research methodology in the book. Between the announcement and presentation of the Bancroft Award to the committee and history willfully ignored all evidence of flaws in the work and thereafter defended the author. Only after Emory University suspended Professor Bellesiles, did Columbia University seriously look into the matter. Despite the 18 months of criticism, Columbia has learned nothing. Its modus operandi has been to belittle criticism of the work and then to focus on damage control.

The Trustees of Columbia may have rescinded the prize, but like a skunk in the night they did it quietly. They released the statement on a Friday and during the undergraduate exams to ensure minimal press coverage and student response. The notice was not made available on the Columbia Website and the Trustees failed to inform the Columbia community or involved student groups. They barely acknowledge their mistake in their press release and went out of their way to protect their ideological bona fides.

In making their decision, the Trustees emphasized that the judgment to rescind the Bancroft Prize was based solely on the evaluation of the questionable scholarship of the work and had nothing to do with the book's content or the author's point of view.

The truth is that had the Trustees enforced this standard in the committee choosing Bancroft Award nominees and winners, Bellesiles would never have gotten the award. However the ideological make-up of the committee precluded honest appraisals of work, and this flaw continues. There is no incentive for a member to question an author/historian, with whom he or she agrees; especially one who has gotten good reviews from the establishment (liberal) media. It is no coincidence that each of the 2001 award winners wrote leftist revisionist books. http://www.columbia.edu/cu/news/01/04/bancroft.html The decisions of the Trustees, History Department, and Bancroft Award committee have damaged the reputation of the University, its many prizes, and that of the late Secretary of State and donor to Columbia, Frederic Bancroft.

The only way we can ensure that something like this does not happen in the future is to have ideological diversity on the committees. Ideological conflict between a reviewer and writer is the best way to ensure that the author’s work will be properly vetted. Evenhandedness and professionalism are not valued in the politically correct atmosphere of academia. This applies as much to departments as to committees at Columbia and other universities.

There must be ideological diversity, if not balance, in the Bancroft Award Committee and History Department, for the sake of these institutions and students at Columbia. The nomination process for the Bancroft Award and other prizes needs to be publicized so that third parties can expose flawed nominees. If the Bancroft Award and other honors presented by Columbia are to have any significance, they must be based on merit and fact, not ideological preference.

Finally, the Bellesiles Committee, and History Department must explain how they could grant Bellesiles the Bancroft award despite the widespread criticism of Bellesiles ”questionable scholarship” practices and the history department directly being given this information before the award ceremony. In the days between the announcement of the award winners and the ceremony, the Columbia College Conservative Club informed members of the Bancroft Award committee, and then the larger History Department of the factual and methodological failings of Arming America, only to be systematically ignored. Likewise, hundreds of concerned Americans and Columbia Alumni contacted the university after Kimberly Strassel broke the story in the Wall Street Journal two weeks before the award ceremony. There has been an institutional failure at every level including from Alumni relations, the Office of Public Affairs, professors in the History Department, and finally those with the final responsibility: the President and Trustees.

The failure of the Columbia Trustees to properly oversee the History Department and Bancroft Award committee suggests that the ideological corruption of the university has reached its highest levels and must likewise be cleansed and the institution structurally reformed. Similarly, the former president of the university, George Rupp was negligent in his duties. It is our hope that President Bollinger can put aside his well-known ideological biases and promote balance and openness in his oversight role.

Columbia has been taken over by a system that favors proper political views and politicking over academic and historical standards. There needs to be significant structural and personnel reforms in the university staff, History Department, and Trustees.

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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.

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Interview Contact:

Nazar Khodorovsky
Acting President
Conservative@columbia.edu

Ron Lewenberg
Founder, President 1999-2001
r_lewenberg@yahoo.com

[rmlew]

Please pass this on.
Cordially,
Ron

[rmlew]

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[FreedomFlyer]

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[Bonaparte]

"The only way we can ensure that something like this does not happen in the future is to have ideological diversity on the committees."

That's why this will happen over and over. They'd rather die than put a conservative on the committee.

[rmlew]

That's why this will happen over and over. They'd rather die than put a conservative on the committee.

Not quite.
We need to pressure and embarras them. They will budge, but only if the alternative is worse.

[nicollo]

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