Michael Bellesiles has a piece in the Chronicle on teaching military history with veterans in the classroom. It’s a very interesting pedagogical issue that he explores via a timely example:
On the first day of my military-history class, after a discussion of the concept of democratic warfare, I asked my usual question about veterans or National Guard members present, and if any students had family members serving in the military. Ernesto (I have changed names out of respect for this family’s privacy), a shy but exceedingly bright student, smiled with evident pride as he mentioned that his brother Javier had recently enlisted in the Army. We discussed his brother’s reasons for enlisting, which mostly focused on a sense of gratitude to a country that had given their family refuge.
But Jim Lindgren is suspicious…
I have now read through every DoD casualty report from last fall for both Iraq and Afghanistan and news obituaries for most of them, and I have found none that was even remotely possible as the case that Bellesiles wrote about in the Chronicle. This post discusses the serious questions this raises for the veracity of Bellesiles account.
It would be unfortunate if Bellesiles’ anecdote is fictional, since it undermines what could otherwise be a useful discussion about classroom content hitting too close to home. (In my case, it comes up with just war theory, abortion, end-of-life care, and the student who wondered if feminist arguments against pornography applied to her work as an exotic dancer. Never a dull moment.)
37 comments
July 13, 2010 at 12:26 pm
zunguzungu
What kind of moron would *do* that? Did he really think there wasn’t a big waving red flag next to his name?
I’m surprised, too, that CHE’s response was that they were looking into it, which seems to indicate they hadn’t already confirmed the story. Everyone’s mileage varies, of course, but I wrote something for them once and had to remove a small detail because it couldn’t be independently verified (even though I had strong evidence to believe it was true, it couldn’t be independently verified, so it was gone). Seems sort of shocking that *at least* the same standards wouldn’t have applied here; Bellesiles should get the opposite of the benefit of the doubt, if only for the CHE’s own best interest.
July 13, 2010 at 1:02 pm
eric
Oh, my word.
July 13, 2010 at 2:23 pm
hmprescott
Since I’m a professor of history at Central Connecticut State University, all I can say is, holy shit! I hope MB’s story is true if only to save our university’s already tarnished reputation. I don’t know anything about Jim Lindgren — please fell me in.
Also, I’m mighty jealous he got a T.A. — no one, tenure-track or not, gets T.A.s. This is a big sore spot with me and some of my colleagues.
July 13, 2010 at 2:52 pm
Vance
I’m pretty sure it’s this James Lindgren, i.e. Bellesiles’ nemesis.
July 13, 2010 at 3:00 pm
hmprescott
@Vance — I had a feeling that was the case — and this explains why he spent so much time debunking an editorial.
July 13, 2010 at 7:52 pm
JPool
Huh.
OK, I will freely cop to having given Michael Bellesiles the benefit of the doubt on past charges, in the vein of “well at the very least he was unforgivably sloppy,” even though the subsequent events and investigations strongly suggest something much more sinister to have been at work. So in this case it is understandable that if reasonable doubts are raised, the burden of proof would be on him to show that, under any reasonable obfuscations lies a true story.
Two things really bother me about Lindgren’s piece, however. The first is his secret-reasons (“Though I have views on why I find this possibility implausible, I’ll refrain from including them in this already long post.”) dismissal of the possibility that Bellesiles was misled by his student. This would seem to be a pretty straightforward explanation and fit nicely beside the proverbial emergency grandmothers, so it seems strange that Lindgren would raise it late in the piece, only shunt it aside without explanation. Second, and more seriously for me, is Lindgren’s contention that “In short, Michael Bellesiles’s story of Javier’s service and injury is so unusual that it should have been easy to verify. But it wasn’t. ” Actually, if Bellesiles was doing his job at all in disguising the presumed real Javier’s identity, it wouldn’t be easy to verify. If he was doing an especially effective job he would have not just changed his name and changed enough aspects of his story to make him difficult to identify, he would have checked to see that he couldn’t be identified as any single individual and withheld any details or elements of the story that would have made that possible. Now Bellesiles’s account as described (I haven’t yet read the CHE original) seems to reflect badly on him in that it includes unnecessary details which make a compelling narrative, but would seem to risk making a former student vulnerable to public exposure. This could plausibly be poor judgement on Bellesiles’s part, ineffectual anonymization or the work of a compulsive fabulist. As zz says, it’s cnfounding that Bellesiles wouldn’t recognize that he’s subject to continuous and reflexive scrutiny at this point in his career. Why Lindgren feels that Bellesiles should have made it easy/possible for Lindgren to expose a student to public scrutiny, however, is also mysterious.
July 13, 2010 at 8:20 pm
NM
Oh, how terrible if it turns out that Bellesiles just fell for a student’s extension-conjuring lies. Remember that great story, I think presented as true, of a student who makes up a story about his brother’s suicide, and his professor believes it, remembers it, and recounts it in a rec letter which makes an impression on an interviewer who asks “tell me about your brother” and hears “oh, he’s great, just started at Goldman Sachs”?
July 14, 2010 at 3:54 am
hmprescott
Regarding trying to protect a student’s identity — there were only 25 students enrolled in the course. So, if Michael is being meticulous (which I certainly hope is the case), then “Ernesto” is probably a composite of more than one student.
NM has a good point — perhaps it was the student(s) who made up the story.
July 14, 2010 at 4:56 am
dana
Were it anyone but Bellesiles, I’d be inclined to think that either Ernesto is a composite, or that “last semester” means “sometime recently in my teaching career.” But I’m still trying to figure out how one can fail as impressively as he did and still get a TA, given that there are plenty of young scholars who don’t make things up.
Maybe Lindgren is going to be demanding pictures of Bellesiles’ baby bump soon, just in case.
July 14, 2010 at 5:22 am
NM
I took that to be JPool’s point about Lindgren’s secret reasons.
The Chronicle emailed Lindgren to say they’re looking into things, so we should have some kind of conclusion soon enough. I do think “a composite” would be a really iffy response (like it was in Metropolitan!).
July 14, 2010 at 6:43 am
LizardBreath
I can’t really see saving the story with ‘details were changed’ or ‘the student’s a composite’. You need a combat death, during the term, of a close relative of a student in his class for the op-ed to be true at all, and it doesn’t sound as if he can come up with that.
If he got caught by a student’s excuse, that’s awful, but really incautious — someone with the sort of record he’s got has no excuse for publishing a second-hand account of facts that he could easily have checked, without checking them.
July 14, 2010 at 8:32 am
hmprescott
@Dana — my understanding is that the T.A. was paid for by the veterans’ organization on campus and was essentially a scholarship for a student veteran.
July 14, 2010 at 12:24 pm
politicalfootball
Actually, if Bellesiles was doing his job at all in disguising the presumed real Javier’s identity, it wouldn’t be easy to verify. If he was doing an especially effective job he would have not just changed his name and changed enough aspects of his story to make him difficult to identify, he would have checked to see that he couldn’t be identified as any single individual and withheld any details or elements of the story that would have made that possible.
At which point it ceases to be a factual account – the problem isn’t that details that were withheld (like the student’s name), the problem is that details were apparently fabricated. I ain’t a distinguished scholar of history, but that doesn’t seem okay to me, regardless of the excuse. If one’s professional ethics make telling a true story impossible, then those ethics should make it impossible to tell any story.
July 14, 2010 at 1:27 pm
JPool
Perhaps, but there’s a difference between a strictly factual story and a true story. I’m not even talking about the Tim O’Brian fiction that’s more true than the truth thing that eric brought up a little while back. I’m talking about the fairly standard practice among anthropologists, journalists and others to change alter details of a story in order to protect the privacy of an informant, rather than simply withholding details so that they become a floating voice in the limitless void of the detail-free world. If part of the point of the piece is how the details of students’ personal lives make their way into one’s pedagogy in ways that one can not plan for, then it is impossible to simultaneously tell that story and withhold all of those details.
Now, I don’t know that any of that took place here and as I said above, if it was done, it seems to have been done somewhat badly. The other standard practice that goes along with such a choice is to include a parenthetical or a footnote to indicate that a composite is being used or that certain details have been deliberately changed. You can criticize this practice if you like, and it can be a controvesial one at least among journalists, depending on how it is used, but there’s a big difference between protecting someone’s identity and fabricating an account.
July 14, 2010 at 1:33 pm
JPool
Sorry, that should be “Tim O’Brien thing that fiction can be more true that the truth, which…”
I’ll trust you all to read past all the other errors.
July 14, 2010 at 1:45 pm
Larry Cebula
I think the kindest explanation is that Ernesto is a composite character that Bellesiles created using old WW2 movies from his childhood, pocket lint, and a night of drinking off-label tequila.
July 14, 2010 at 4:54 pm
PorJ
Forget Bellesiles, its The Chronicle that looks really terrible here. Especially because they knew his history, and were still willing to publish him, which means they had to have known their responsibilities.
Bellesiles, frankly, couldn’t really look worse, even if this is a fabrication. He lost his tenured position, the Bancroft Prize, and the respect of historians everywhere. Its The Chronicle that’s out on a limb here.
That’s why Oprah was so furious at that Million Little Pieces guy. At least Oprah understood how the game is played. If this Bellesiles piece has holes in it, then The Chronicle owes it to its readers to do a whole Jayson Blair/Stephen Glass autopsy to restore its reputation.
July 16, 2010 at 3:30 am
politicalfootball
One can use composite characters without falsification, just as one can use source materials without plagiarism. The key in both cases is acknowledging upfront what you are doing.
July 16, 2010 at 5:51 am
JPool
Agreed.
July 16, 2010 at 11:57 am
Knitting Clio
I’ve asked some colleagues what they know about this. The fact checker at the Chronicle has found out the student’s name — how they were able to do this is unknown.
July 16, 2010 at 12:05 pm
politicalfootball
Keep us posted! I’m curious to see how this turns out.
July 17, 2010 at 9:00 am
Knitting Clio
I read through Lindgren’s article again. Someone needs to remind him that Puerto Rico is part of the U.S. so persons born there are U.S. citizens, not immigrants! ;-)
July 19, 2010 at 8:31 am
James Lindgren
Knitting Clio:
Here is what I wrote:
“Further, though Bellesiles does not identify the ethnicity of Ernesto or Javier (and I have not assumed their ethnicity in my searches), Bellesiles does imply that Ernesto’s family were immigrants. The Waterbury Marine who died on December 8 was born in Puerto Rico.”
As you can see, I did not say that Puerto Ricans were immigrants; since the details Michael Bellesiles recounted didn’t fit anyone I could find at all, I was here recounting any details that even approached his story. The closest I could find was a Waterbury Marine who was born in Puerto Rico and moved to CT. For that reason, I merely recounted the fact: “The Waterbury Marine who died on December 8 was born in Puerto Rico.”
BTW, Bellesiles also did not quite say that the family were immigrants (though his story implies this). He wrote:
“We discussed his brother’s reasons for enlisting, which mostly focused on a sense of gratitude to a country that had given their family refuge.”
If his tale does turn out to have been inspired by the Waterbury Marine or another serviceman born in Puerto Rico, could Bellesiles fairly be accused of having made the error you misattribute to me? IMO, probably not.
James Lindgren, JD-Ph.D.
Professor of Law
Northwestern University
July 19, 2010 at 8:50 am
Vance
Is there some sense in which the US can give Puerto Ricans “refuge”? Strikes me as odd, even as a figure of speech. Bellesiles’s paragraph does imply the family were immigrants, and Lindgren’s does imply that being from Puerto Rico would be a match. It’s a small thing to bring out the credentials for, but hey.
July 19, 2010 at 8:59 am
Jim Lindgren
I would say that I imply that it’s the closest to a match I could find.
James Lindgren
July 19, 2010 at 9:54 am
Knitting Clio
As Vance suggests, it’s easy to misread what you’re trying to convey in this sentence. At any rate, sorry for the misunderstanding.
July 19, 2010 at 12:15 pm
PorJ
Mystery solved (scroll down for following):
July 19, 2010 at 1:18 pm
Vance
There’s a certain poetry to this — sounds like the biter bit.
(JL, thanks for the clarification; I get you now.)
July 19, 2010 at 2:05 pm
JPool
Well, that’s more or less what I was expecting. Normally it would be kind of beside the point. Despite this student’s fabrications, the point surely stands that students are more likely to have family serving in war now and during the last few years than at any point since Vietnam, and that this situation can affect classroom dynamics and student concerns. Since it’s Bellesiles, however, his credulousness comes off as sloppiness rather than naivete or generousity of spirit. That’s as it should be. Bellesiles may get to continue to have some kind of career, but he doesn’t get to pretend that Arming America never happened.
I’m not interested in getting into a thing over at VC and the particular post I’m going to link to doesn’t appear to have comments enabled anyway, but if James Lindgren is still around, perhaps he’d like to explain why he went with this particular title.
Professor Lindgren, why do you find it appropriate to put the Chronicle‘s findings in virtual scare quotes? Which portion of the facts contained in the Chronicle‘s report do you consider inappropriately “sketchy?” Do you believe that public exposure of the student’s name is actually neccessary, or is there some other reason to leave the question open as to whether Bellesiles actually fabricated this whole episode and then conspired with the CHE and/or his former TA and the student to cover it up?
This would also be a nice occasion to explain why you thought it unlikely that the student could be the one disembling in the first place.
July 19, 2010 at 2:06 pm
JPool
Sad tag closure fail is sad.
[Not any more! — Ed.]
July 19, 2010 at 3:46 pm
PorJ
Despite this student’s fabrications, the point surely stands that students are more likely to have family serving in war now and during the last few years than at any point since Vietnam, and that this situation can affect classroom dynamics and student concerns. Since it’s Bellesiles, however, his credulousness comes off as sloppiness rather than naivete or generousity of spirit.
I don’t get it. Why can’t that point be made with reference to an actual, verifiable case of a student clearly and directly impacted by the war? This student wasn’t – which serves to undermine the point, doesn’t it? Didn’t Bellesiles (once again) undermine the point he was trying to make with his sloppiness (or “generousity of spirit”)?
The person I want to hear from on this Silbey. Silbey knows his military history. Over at VC, a military historian weighed in saying (paraphrase) this story was immediately suspect, and any military historian would have been appropriately skeptical. (Which brings to mind the question of why Bellesiles is teaching military history?)
The point of this essay now seems to be: be more skeptical of your students’ excuses. So it completely undermines the arguments about being more sensitive and understanding (“trusting”) towards students.
And the Chronicle should also be ashamed.
July 19, 2010 at 4:29 pm
Larry Cebula
Student took the fall.
July 19, 2010 at 5:29 pm
politicalfootball
Well, that’s more or less what I was expecting.
It was! I bow before your insight.
But I think you have to cut VC a little slack for their skeptical headline. Smacking around an ideological adversary who stumbles – especially an ideological adversary with a history of bad behavior – seems pretty irresistible to me. And hey, Bellesiles and the Chronicle haven’t covered themselves in glory here. Treating their claims with extreme skepticism is understandable.
That said, I think Larry’s theory is unlikely. After all, if the Chronicle is to be believed, “Ernesto” lied to them, too. He wasn’t covering for anybody but himself – until he could no longer cover for himself.
July 19, 2010 at 11:06 pm
JPool
pf, I was more just thinking of an Occam’s razor kind of thing.
I get the desire to smack around an ideological opponent, (Just the other day I was hoping that some DJs would actually have the courage to give a prominent airing to Elvis Costello’s “Tramp the Dirt Down” when the appropriate occasion arrives.) and Lindgren was clearly right to raise questions that he did. I just wanted to call attention to the drift towards conspiracy theory, so-they-claim tone.
July 20, 2010 at 4:01 am
Knitting Clio
JPool, thanks for your comments. I agree that at this point the VC accounts have gone beyond the pale. I don’t know “Ernesto” but I know the TA quite well. It disturbs me that he is being falsely accused of some sort of conspiracy (sorry, but that’s the impression I get from Lindgren). Go ahead and hate Bellesiles if you like but please don’t take this young man down with him.
July 20, 2010 at 5:29 am
dana
. Why can’t that point be made with reference to an actual, verifiable case of a student clearly and directly impacted by the war?
I don’t think Bellesiles and the TA had any reason to believe that they didn’t have a case of an actual, verifiable student clearly and directly impacted by the war.
I’m inclined to cut Bellesiles a little bit of slack. I could easily imagine writing this piece about dealing with any of the students who have come to me for various problems, and I’m not sure I would think to fact-check the student’s story, if the point of the article were, as it is in this case, not about the content of the student’s story but its effect on the classroom.
July 20, 2010 at 6:34 am
silbey
The person I want to hear from on this Silbey. Silbey knows his military history. Over at VC, a military historian weighed in saying (paraphrase) this story was immediately suspect, and any military historian would have been appropriately skeptical. (Which brings to mind the question of why Bellesiles is teaching military history?)
I read that teacher of military history’s (awkward phrasing because the person doesn’t claim that they’re a military historian, but that they teach military history. Not quite the same thing) note (http://volokh.com/2010/07/16/professor-of-military-history-weighs-in-on-the-implausibility-of-the-bellesiless-story/ ), and found it lacking in nuance. Any war is going to have millions of stories associated with it, and some of them–simply by random chance–are going to seem to evoke a particular lesson. That Ernesto’s story seemed too perfect is not a reason to dismiss it out of hand. (And note that the military historian does the same thing at the end of his note: “And then there are the real veterans–the combat veterans tend to be quiet, and they smile these knowing little smiles and tell you creepy things in confidence after class, while the retired pillow-case stuffers and chairborne rangers (the vast majority of military veterans) use their “status” to bluff, bluster, and intimidate.” That fits quite perfectly into the trope of veterans refusing to talk about their experiences, which I have not found to be particularly true.)
Having said that, and here I disagree with dana’s comment (“I don’t think Bellesiles and the TA had any reason to believe that they didn’t have a case of an actual, verifiable student clearly and directly impacted by the war.”), that doesn’t mean you don’t check the story. People recount their experiences in all sorts of ways that change those experiences, and the situation (a student in a military history course possibly tempted to show how _he’s_ special, _he’s_ affected by the war) cries out for anyone hearing the story (and anyone planning to publish it!) to make extra sure that it’s true.