The National Endowment for the Humanities May 21 ordered the Newberry Library in Chicago to remove its name from a $30,000 fellowship awarded in February 2001 to Michael Bellesiles, author of the controversial book Arming America: The Origins of a National Gun Culture (Knopf, 2000). The fellowship was given for Bellesiles to write a second book about guns.
“The issue of trust and truth is at the heart of our decision,” NEH Chairman Bruce Cole said in a prepared statement. He charged that the library “neglected its oversight responsibilities and failed to meet the scholarly and ethical standards necessary for any award bearing the NEH name.”
The recipient of the 2000 Bancroft Prize for American history writing, Bellesiles’s book concludes that guns were rare in early U.S. history. Although lauded by gun-control advocates, some academics and others have found problems with the accuracy of his research. Bellesiles, on leave from Emory University in Atlanta, has defended his book as fundamentally sound while acknowledging some minor errors. A university committee has been appointed to evaluate charges that the professor fabricated statistics.
“We consider the NEH residence fellowship a partnership between the NEH and us,” Newberry Vice President James Grossman told the May 22 Chicago Tribune. “We consider the appropriate venue for judging the criticisms of Bellesiles’s book to be Emory University.”
The NEH action will not affect the stipend, and Bellesiles will continue to hold the Newberry fellowship.
Posted May 27, 2002.