BELLESILES UPDATE: Disgraced Emory Historian Michael Bellesiles has said for some time that his life was threatened by rabid gun nuts after the publication of his now-discredited book Arming America. This article on History News Network expresses skepticism at that claim:

Threats of violence are indeed despicable. Moreover, such threats are felonies in themselves, each punishable by a substantial fine, imprisonment, or both, as prescribed by the codes of Georgia (16-11-37)1 and the United States (see for example 18 U.S.C. Part 1 Ch. 41 Sec 875b). As a first step toward an investigation, credible threats must be reported to local authorities.

Bellesiles did not do this. Such complaints are in the public record. The police departments of Emory University, the city of Atlanta, DeKalb County, and Fulton County report no complaints from Bellesiles about harassment or threats. Of course, that doesn’t mean he received no abusive messages, but it does suggest that he didn’t really feel very threatened by them if he did — not even enough to seek help from law enforcement. It seems too that he was right in this judgment: I know of no mention of actual attempts to physically harm him or his family, and I think he would have mentioned it, if any such attempt had been made. So, we are left wondering if he really did move his family out of their home over something he openly talked about but didn’t feel a need to report. Based on his record so far, I’m not ready to take his word on this.

It is a fact, and not a new one, that in America, public discourse about strongly held opinions often leads to strong language. When the continuing attention given to these alleged threats and abusive messages is set alongside the almost nonexistent coverage of similar threats made against John Lott Jr., author of More Guns, Less Crime (1998, 2000), we can see that it is threats presumably made by ‘gun-nuts’ that are deemed newsworthy.

Indeed. There’s more discussion in the comments, after the article.

And when are we going to hear from Emory about the results of its Bellesiles investigation? It’s safe to say, I think, that if there were evidence exonerating Bellesiles (though it’s hard to imagine what that could be at this point) the report would have been released. Emory’s slow response on this scandal makes a mockery of its press release about business ethics issued last week.

Bad scholarship is as corrupt as bad accounting. Emory — and the profession of history generally — are in no position to point fingers. Perhaps they need to listen to these words from an Emory business ethicist:

“One of the messages I convey in class is how strong corporate culture is; the culture either reinforces or doesn’t reinforce the company’s formal messages on ethical conduct,” says Robertson. In the case of Enron and Arthur Andersen, for example, the pressure to serve the client overcame any kind of formal ethics program. “If the culture doesn’t support ethics, you can throw policies out the window,” she says.

What sort of culture is Emory reinforcing?