BELLESILES UPDATE: David Skinner reports in the Weekly Standard that the committee that awarded Michael Bellesiles the (formerly) prestigious Bancroft Prize wasn’t really qualified to judge Bellesiles’ work, and isn’t at all repentant about its screwup, though its members are, at least, embarrassed enough to decline interviews.

The members are Arthur Goren, a professor of Jewish history at Columbia, Jan Ellen Lewis, a Rutgers historian specializing in Jefferson who has written a book on his relationship with Sally Hemings, and Berkeley professor of history and women’s studies Mary P. Ryan. Skinner couldn’t get any of them to be interviewed; the weasely responses that he received are a bit embarrassing to the academy. But then, so is the whole Bellesiles affair.

There seems little reason to doubt that people lacking the expertise to judge Bellesiles work, and lacking the inclination to check it, endorsed it because they felt it was politically beneficial. The result is yet another black eye for the profession of history, and for academia as a whole.

Skinner suggests that the Emory investigation is likely to be a whitewash. I rather doubt that will be the case. But I hope that Emory realizes that the whole world is watching.