Ralph Luker thinks he may have found the next Michael Bellesiles. Christine Heyrman, who directed Michael Bellesiles' dissertation and once shared with him the same editor at Knopf, is also a winner of the Bancroft Prize, the history profession's most prestigious award. And the book for which Heyrman won that prize, Southern Cross, is looking like it might be riddled with the same sorts of thesis-driven manipulations, ellipses, and omissions that marred Bellesiles' handling of evidence in Arming America.

Luker has not had much luck getting Heyrman to answer his concerns publicly, and this week he made another in a series of attempts to convince Heyrman that she should do so: "Really, Christine," he wrote on his blog at the History News Network (scroll down to the 9/17 posting), "all I care about is that you show some real professional pride in your Bancroft Prize winning book. Get Random House and UNC Press committed to a revised edition of it; don't misuse ellipses this time around; use comparable data; and do the additions correctly." Luker circulated his post via email, forwarding it to historians across the country.

Among them was Yale professor Glenda Gilmore, who is perhaps best known to the general public for the flap she caused last year when she published this piece in the Yale Daily News (scroll down to read the 297 comments posted by readers, and keep in mind that as harsh as they are, they were cleaned up considerably, at Gilmore's behest). Andrew Sullivan gave Gilmore a Sontag Award for her trouble--and she responded with an email that attacked him personally in ways that did much more to discredit her than him.

Gilmore did not appreciate receiving Luker's email. She of the ad hominem attacks found his public call for a response from Heyrman uncivil, and asked to be removed from his mailing list. And in so doing, she revealed something awfully telling about attitudes toward accountability in academe. Luker's exchange with Gilmore perfectly captures the way the ideal of "civility" may be invoked in today's ethically compromised and politically partisan academy to avoid responding to legitimate questions and to dismiss the person who (so rudely) insists that scholars ought to be publicly accountable for the veracity and soundness of their work. Gilmore's own professional conduct indicates just how selective and self-serving the invocation of civility is. Luker's reflections on what is at stake for Gilmore, for the Yale history department, and for the history profession itself are well worth reading.