Pulitzer winner returns to campus after suspension for concocting war record

[MORTARDUDE]

Pulitzer winner returns to campus after suspension for concocting war record
By Adam Gorlick, Associated Press, 9/3/2002 13:18
SOUTH HADLEY, Mass. (AP) Pulitzer Prize winning historian Joseph Ellis returns to Mount Holyoke College this week after a yearlong suspension for lying about being a Vietnam combat veteran.

While Ellis said he wants to focus on teaching in his two American history classes, students say there's certain to be questions about who is his and why he concocted the war record.

''There will be some awkwardness,'' said Erica Stock, a junior who is one of 49 students registered for Ellis' class, The American People, a survey of American history from early European explorers to the Civil War. Fifteen students have signed up to take his other class, a freshman seminar on the American Revolution.

''He'll probably say something to make it more comfortable,'' Stock said. ''He almost has to.''

Ellis, reached at home, declined to discuss his return in detail, saying only ''I'm going to be focusing my energy on teaching and my students.''

''Eventually, if I do want to tell a version of my story, I'll probably do it in a published form,'' he said.

Ellis, 58, who won the 2001 Pulitzer for history for his best seller ''Founding Brothers: The Revolutionary Generation,'' was suspended last August, two months after The Boston Globe reported he concocted a story that he fought in Vietnam.

In fact, he was commissioned an Army second lieutenant in 1965, but his active duty was deferred until August 1969. During those four years, he earned two master's degrees and a doctorate in history at Yale University. He joined the history faculty at West Point in 1969, and was discharged from the Army three years later as a captain, never having served overseas.

The college administration stood by Ellis when news of the lies broke. The decision to suspend him came after he apologized for ''having let stand and later confirming the assumption that I went to Vietnam.''

Now, the administration has little to say about Ellis' return.

''The college is satisfied that Professor Ellis has completed his term of suspension and we welcome him back into the Mount Holyoke College community,'' President Joanne Creighton said in a one-sentence written statement.

A college spokesman said Creighton and other administrators would not comment further.

Stock, who is the student government president, said she was satisfied that Ellis' punishment was in keeping with Mount Holyoke's honor code: If a member of the campus community acts dishonorably, they receive a one-year suspension.

Ashley Kee, an English major starting her last year at Mount Holyoke, says she also stands by the school's decision to let Ellis return to the all-women's liberal arts campus of 2,000 students.

But as the daughter and granddaughter of combat veterans who served in Desert Storm, Vietnam and Korea, Kee has little use for Ellis.

''It was extremely disgraceful for him to do what he did,'' Kee said. ''I could never justify taking a class with him somebody I don't respect.''

Lynda Morgan, chairwoman of the history department, hesitated to predict how the campus might react to his return.

''It could be a ripple in a pond,'' she said. ''It could be nothing. I hope it will be quiet.''

Some local veterans, who were outraged when they learned of Ellis' fabrication, say the professor has paid the right price.

''If a man makes a mistake, he should be forgiven,'' said Bill Hubbard, commander of the American Legion Post 260 in South Hadley. ''That's our system. That's the American way. Whatever Mount Holyoke does or doesn't do with him, that's up to them. I have no control or say over that.''

Other outsiders question the wisdom of allowing Ellis to come back.

David Garrow, a professor at Emory University and Pulitzer winner for a biography on Martin Luther King Jr., said Ellis doesn't belong on a college campus. And he criticized the college for putting ''someone with this track record back in front of its students.''

''Spinning fictional fantasies in class to your students is without argument a hanging crime,'' Garrow said.

But some students say they're more interested in learning from Ellis' scholarship than examining his personal integrity.

''The mistake he made was a personal mistake,'' said Cara Cookson, a junior majoring in politics. ''But I think he does owe his students a real apology.''

On the Net: http://www.mtholyoke.edu/









--------------------------------------------------------------------------------