Academic Freedom and the Saga of Ward Churchill

Bob Jensen at Trinity University

"I'm not backing up an inch!"  
Ward Churchill, USA Today, February 28, 2005

Never speak of others in a bad way. The negative energy that you put out into the universe will multiply when it returns to you.
Native American Code of Ethics --- http://eveningrain.com/Ethics.html

A key faculty panel has recommended that Ward Churchill, the controversial University of Colorado professor found guilty of misconduct (plagiarism), be suspended but not fired, The Denver Post reported, citing Churchill’s lawyer. The university’s president and board could still move to fire Churchill without the committee’s blessing, but administrators at the university have placed a high priority on having faculty members take the lead in investigating Churchill. Churchill’s lawyer did not reveal the rationale behind the faculty panel’s recommendation.
Inside Higher Ed, May 17, 2007 --- http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2007/05/17/qt
Bob Jensen's threads on Ward Churchill are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/HypocrisyChurchill.htm

One of the least diverse academic associations is the highly liberal Modern Language Association. However, even the MLA could not muster up a vote critical of the firing of Ward Churchill by the University of Colorado.
While material distributed by those seeking to condemn Churchill’s firing portrayed him favorably, and as a victim of the right wing, some of those who criticized the pro-Churchill effort at the meeting are long-time experts in Native American studies and decidedly not conservative.
Scott Jaschik, Inside Higher Ed, December 31, 2007 --- http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2007/12/31/mla

They (9/11 Al Qaeda terrorists) were targeting those people I referred to as 'little Eichmanns.' These were legitimate targets.
Ward Churchill at New College on December 6, 2006 --- http://www.newcollege.edu/
Jensen Comment
Yeah right! Over 3,000 deaths don't matter much according to Ward Churchill since, in his mind, the 9/11 kills were "legitimate targets" suffering from capitalistic excesses built upon from the Native American exploitations of their ancestors ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/HypocrisyChurchill.htm

An ethnic studies professor from the University of Colorado, Ward Churchill, received a standing ovation last night from a crowd of more than 200 New School students after blaming the 2001 World Trade Center attacks on America's support of Israel and its sanctions against Iraq in 1996. In a two-hour speech at the New School titled "Sterilizing History: The Fabrication of Innocent Americans," delivered without notes, Mr. Churchill traced what he called a pattern of mass murder as American foreign policy from the time of the country's inception to the events of September 11, 2001, which he said the country...
Annie Karni, "New School Students Cheer Ward Churchill Speech," New York Sun, December 12, 2006 --- http://www.nysun.com/article/44971
Jensen Comment
Remember that over 3,000 9/11 deaths don't matter much since they were all "little Eichmanns" suffering from capitalistic excesses ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/HypocrisyChurchill.htm

A new book by former president Jimmy Carter is generating wide controversy. Pro-Israel groups are offended by Carter's Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid, and say the book is unworthy of a former U.S. president.
Jackie Northam, "Jimmy Carter's Book Stirs Criticism, Complaint," NPR, December 11, 2006 ---
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=6605934
Jensen Comment
Both President Carter and Ward Churchill find it convenient to blame nearly all radical Islamic terrorism on Israel and the U.S. Republican Party. But whoa there --- Jewish voters in the U.S. believe that Democrats are better friends of Israel than Republicans. Still Carter and Churchill coming from different directions contend that Israel is wiped off the map and all capitalist economies are plowed under, there will be peace on earth and even the Taliban and Al Queda will avow peace and freedom for all. In fairness neither Carter or Churchill want Jews blown to bits. They just hope that Jews will unilaterally disarm and all capitalists surrender to Islam in the belief that there will be no more terror on earth.

Arguments for and against the firing of Ward Churchill

The Churchill Firing — I

The University of Colorado protected both academic freedom and academic integrity, writes Hank Brown. more

The Churchill Firing — II

Research misconduct is in the eye of the beholder, writes Gary Witherspoon. more

Liberal Professors Advertise Support for Ward Churchill's Tenure
Eleven scholars have published a full-page ad in The New York Review of Books to try to rally support for Ward Churchill, who is facing possible dismissal from his tenured job at the University of Colorado at Boulder. The text of the ad is available at a Web site called “Defend Critical Thinking,” and focuses on the way charges of misconduct were brought against Churchill, not the charges themselves. The ad warns scholars to “be wary of opportunistic attacks on scholarship that are disguised means of sanctioning critics and stifling the free expression of ideas,” adding: “It may be that aspects of Churchill’s large body of published writings were vulnerable to responsible academic criticism, but the proceedings against him were not undertaken because of efforts to uphold high scholarly standards, but to provide a more acceptable basis for giving in to the right-wing pressures resulting from his 9/11 remarks.” Among those signing: Derrick Bell of New York University, Noam Chomsky of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Juan Cole of the University of Michigan, and Howard Zinn of Boston University.
Inside Higher Ed, April 3, 2007 --- http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2007/04/03/qt
The NPR account is at http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=10506061

Discussions must move beyond tenure processes. We must now examine the tenure system itself, future career pathways for our increasingly diverse and mobile faculty, and standards of performance in a global academic marketplace. There may be alternative models to explore. Those discussions must involve a variety of stakeholders who focus on one key question: How do we create and maintain a rigorous and competitive tenure system that best meets the needs of our students and our publics, and best positions America for long-term success? Tomorrow’s students and the next generation of Americans deserve nothing less.
Hank Brown (President of the University of Colorado), "Tenure Reform: The Time Has Come," Inside Higher Ed, March 27, 2007 --- http://www.insidehighered.com/views/2007/03/26/brown

Limits of Freedom: The Ward Churchill Case
In "Limits of Freedom: The Ward Churchill Case," Robert M. O'Neil, who directs the Thomas Jefferson Center for the Protection of Free Expression, uses this University of Colorado professor's court case to unpack the controversies surrounding the balance institutions are seeking between academic freedom and the special needs of scholarship and teaching. O'Neil points out that several important questions have been curiously neglected in the current debate.
Robert M. O'Neil, Change Magazine, September/October 2006 Volume 38, Number 5 --- http://www.carnegiefoundation.org/change/

In fact there is no ready substantive standard to determine when a professor forfeits the protections of academic freedom by his extreme statements on matters in or close to his or her discipline. Relevant considerations may actually cut both ways. On one hand, society's expectations in regard to accuracy, respect for the views of others, and sensitivity both to colleagues and community are greater the closer a faculty member gets to speech relating to the core of his or her field of expertise, for it is within that field that "fitness" can best be appraised. On the other hand, a case could be made for offering greater tolerance to a professor who speaks controversially in his or her field of expertise. The advancement of knowledge depends upon the free airing of unpopular views by scholarly experts, and thus societal interests are more clearly served by expression close to the core of one's field. Moreover, such expression reflects the basis on which the speaker has been recruited and supported. Thus one might expect broader latitude to be given to a Churchill speaking of ethnic matters or a Mirecki speaking about religious beliefs. One might insist on tolerating extreme statements within the speaker's discipline that might seem intolerable if made by a stranger to the subject.

Both the Churchill and Mirecki cases raised but failed to resolve yet another issue: how far the protections of academic freedom extend to administrative positions. The issue became moot in Boulder because Churchill resigned his department chairmanship as soon as the controversy broke--although the first Colorado faculty committee's initial report noted with relief that Churchill had voluntarily done so since, had he not, the "outrage" generated by his essay "most likely would have warranted his removal" from the administrative position. The issue of the potentially corrosive effects of highly provocative statements on continuing administrative service was also mooted in the Mirecki case, since he quickly announced that he would step down as department chair--

______________________________

Robert M. O'Neil is a professor of law at the University of Virginia and director of the Thomas Jefferson Center for the Protection of Free Expression. He previously served as president of the University of Wisconsin System and of the University of Virginia. He is currently the coordinator and program director of the Ford Foundation's Difficult Dialogues project and chairs the Committee on National Security and Academic Freedom in Time of Crisis of the American Association of University Professors (AAUP).

Professor Churchill found guilty of "misconduct and plagiarism"

Last week the University of Colorado panel investigating Ward Churchill found that the controversial professor of Native American studies committed serious acts of research misconduct and plagiarism. It’s now up to the university to decide on an appropriate punishment for the tenured professor, who could be fired or suspended without pay. I don’t know enough about the situation to support or challenge the panel’s unanimous findings, or to suggest what the university should do about them, but one aspect of the committee’s 125-page report signals a chilling warning to academics: If you want to stay below the radar, keep your politics and your scholarship to yourself.
Dennis Barron, "Churchill Fallout: It’s About Academic Freedom," Inside Higher Ed, May 26, 2006 --- http://www.insidehighered.com/views/2006/05/26/baron

Colorado Moves to Fire Churchill
It’s possible that Ward Churchill may never again teach a class at the University of Colorado at Boulder. The interim chancellor at Boulder on Monday issued a “notice of intent to dismiss” the controversial professor, citing findings of serious and repeated research misconduct. Churchill still has appeal rights — and has 10 days to take his case to a faculty review committee. After any appeal, a final decision rests with the president of the University of Colorado System and the Board of Regents. And Churchill has vowed to sue the university to block any firing.
Scott Jaschik, "Colorado Moves to Fire Churchill," Inside Higher Ed, June 27, 2006 --- http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2006/06/27/churchill

Bob Jensen's threads on Ward Churchill are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/HypocrisyChurchill.htm

Related stories

• Blackballed at Yale, June 5
• Churchill Fallout: There Are More Like Him, May 26
• Vanderbilt Rising, May 22
• The Footnote Police vs. Ward Churchill, May 19
• Truth and Consequences, May 17

Should Academic Left Defend Churchill?
The debate might be summed up in an analogy offered by one of the faculty panels that reviewed Churchill and found that he committed, intentionally, all kinds of research misconduct. Committee members said that they were uncomfortable with the fact that Colorado ignored serious allegations against Churchill for years, and took them seriously only when his politics attracted attention. The panel compared the situation to one in which a motorist is stopped for speeding because a police officer doesn’t like the bumper sticker on her car. If she was speeding, she was speeding — regardless of the officer’s motives, the panel said.
Scott Jaschik, "Should Academic Left Defend Churchill?" Inside Higher Ed, July 25, 2006 --- http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2006/07/24/churchill

Student votes are largely symbolic on campus
I'm a bit surprised this vote to fire Ward Churchill was even taken.
The University of Colorado student union voted Thursday in support of firing tenured ethnic studies professor Ward Churchill.
Anna Uhls, "CU student union votes to fire Churchill," County News, August 25, 2006 --- Click Here

Question
Should the academic freedom principles guarantee the right to teach astrology?

"Conspiracy Theories 101," by Stanley Fish, The New York Times, July 23, 2006 --- http://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/23/opinion/23fish.html?_r=1&pagewanted=print&oref=slogin

KEVIN BARRETT, a lecturer at the University of Wisconsin at Madison, has now taken his place alongside Ward Churchill of the University of Colorado as a college teacher whose views on 9/11 have led politicians and ordinary citizens to demand that he be fired.

Mr. Barrett, who has a one-semester contract to teach a course titled “Islam: Religion and Culture,” acknowledged on a radio talk show that he has shared with students his strong conviction that the destruction of the World Trade Center was an inside job perpetrated by the American government. The predictable uproar ensued, and the equally predictable battle lines were drawn between those who disagree about what the doctrine of academic freedom does and does not allow.

Mr. Barrett’s critics argue that academic freedom has limits and should not be invoked to justify the dissemination of lies and fantasies. Mr. Barrett’s supporters (most of whom are not partisans of his conspiracy theory) insist that it is the very point of an academic institution to entertain all points of view, however unpopular. (This was the position taken by the university’s provost, Patrick Farrell, when he ruled on July 10 that Mr. Barrett would be retained: “We cannot allow political pressure from critics of unpopular ideas to inhibit the free exchange of ideas.”)

Both sides get it wrong. The problem is that each assumes that academic freedom is about protecting the content of a professor’s speech; one side thinks that no content should be ruled out in advance; while the other would draw the line at propositions (like the denial of the Holocaust or the flatness of the world) considered by almost everyone to be crazy or dangerous.

But in fact, academic freedom has nothing to do with content. It is not a subset of the general freedom of Americans to say anything they like (so long as it is not an incitement to violence or is treasonous or libelous). Rather, academic freedom is the freedom of academics to study anything they like; the freedom, that is, to subject any body of material, however unpromising it might seem, to academic interrogation and analysis.

Academic freedom means that if I think that there may be an intellectual payoff to be had by turning an academic lens on material others consider trivial — golf tees, gourmet coffee, lingerie ads, convenience stores, street names, whatever — I should get a chance to try. If I manage to demonstrate to my peers and students that studying this material yields insights into matters of general intellectual interest, there is a new topic under the academic sun and a new subject for classroom discussion.

In short, whether something is an appropriate object of academic study is a matter not of its content — a crackpot theory may have had a history of influence that well rewards scholarly scrutiny — but of its availability to serious analysis. This point was missed by the author of a comment posted to the blog of a University of Wisconsin law professor, Ann Althouse: “When is the University of Wisconsin hiring a professor of astrology?” The question is obviously sarcastic; its intention is to equate the 9/11-inside-job theory with believing in the predictive power of astrology, and to imply that since the university wouldn’t think of hiring someone to teach the one, it should have known better than to hire someone to teach the other.

But the truth is that it would not be at all outlandish for a university to hire someone to teach astrology — not to profess astrology and recommend it as the basis of decision-making (shades of Nancy Reagan), but to teach the history of its very long career. There is, after all, a good argument for saying that Shakespeare, Chaucer and Dante, among others, cannot be fully understood unless one understands astrology.

The distinction I am making — between studying astrology and proselytizing for it — is crucial and can be generalized; it shows us where the line between the responsible and irresponsible practice of academic freedom should always be drawn. Any idea can be brought into the classroom if the point is to inquire into its structure, history, influence and so forth. But no idea belongs in the classroom if the point of introducing it is to recruit your students for the political agenda it may be thought to imply.

And this is where we come back to Mr. Barrett, who, in addition to being a college lecturer, is a member of a group calling itself Scholars for 9/11 Truth, an organization with the decidedly political agenda of persuading Americans that the Bush administration “not only permitted 9/11 to happen but may even have orchestrated these events.”

Is the fact of this group’s growing presence on the Internet a reason for studying it in a course on 9/11? Sure. Is the instructor who discusses the group’s arguments thereby endorsing them? Not at all. It is perfectly possible to teach a viewpoint without embracing it and urging it. But the moment a professor does embrace and urge it, academic study has ceased and been replaced by partisan advocacy. And that is a moment no college administration should allow to occur.

Provost Farrell doesn’t quite see it that way, because he is too hung up on questions of content and balance. He thinks that the important thing is to assure a diversity of views in the classroom, and so he is reassured when Mr. Barrett promises to surround his “unconventional” ideas and “personal opinions” with readings “representing a variety of viewpoints.”

But the number of viewpoints Mr. Barrett presents to his students is not the measure of his responsibility. There is, in fact, no academic requirement to include more than one view of an academic issue, although it is usually pedagogically useful to do so. The true requirement is that no matter how many (or few) views are presented to the students, they should be offered as objects of analysis rather than as candidates for allegiance.

There is a world of difference, for example, between surveying the pro and con arguments about the Iraq war, a perfectly appropriate academic assignment, and pressing students to come down on your side. Of course the instructor who presides over such a survey is likely to be a partisan of one position or the other — after all, who doesn’t have an opinion on the Iraq war? — but it is part of a teacher’s job to set personal conviction aside for the hour or two when a class is in session and allow the techniques and protocols of academic research full sway.

This restraint should not be too difficult to exercise. After all, we require and expect it of judges, referees and reporters. And while its exercise may not always be total, it is both important and possible to make the effort.

Thus the question Provost Farrell should put to Mr. Barrett is not “Do you hold these views?” (he can hold any views he likes) or “Do you proclaim them in public?” (he has that right no less that the rest of us) or even “Do you surround them with the views of others?”

Rather, the question should be: “Do you separate yourself from your partisan identity when you are in the employ of the citizens of Wisconsin and teach subject matter — whatever it is — rather than urge political action?” If the answer is yes, allowing Mr. Barrett to remain in the classroom is warranted. If the answer is no, (or if a yes answer is followed by classroom behavior that contradicts it) he should be shown the door. Not because he would be teaching the “wrong” things, but because he would have abandoned teaching for indoctrination.

The advantage of this way of thinking about the issue is that it outflanks the sloganeering and posturing both sides indulge in: on the one hand, faculty members who shout “academic freedom” and mean by it an instructor’s right to say or advocate anything at all with impunity; on the other hand, state legislators who shout “not on our dime” and mean by it that they can tell academics what ideas they can and cannot bring into the classroom.

All you have to do is remember that academic freedom is just that: the freedom to do an academic job without external interference. It is not the freedom to do other jobs, jobs you are neither trained for nor paid to perform. While there should be no restrictions on what can be taught — no list of interdicted ideas or topics — there should be an absolute restriction on appropriating the scene of teaching for partisan political ideals. Teachers who use the classroom to indoctrinate make the enterprise of higher education vulnerable to its critics and shortchange students in the guise of showing them the true way.

Stanley Fish is a law professor at Florida International University.

Jensen Comment
It has always seemed to me that professors should have extreme freedom to teach what fits within the constraints of the curriculum plan adopted by the college as a whole. Every college has what is tantamount to a Curriculum Council that approves contents of the curriculum. The fact that Barrett is allowed to teach that the President of the United States deliberately targeted the deaths of over 3,000 Americans on 9/11 implies that the University of Wisconsin has approved this nonsense in the curriculum plan.

Bob Jensen's threads on higher education controversies are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/HigherEdControversies.htm

Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but not their own facts.
Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan

Question
Was the recommendation to fire Ward Churchill based mainly on plagiarism, biased research, or politics?

Ward Churchill should be fired for academic misconduct — that’s the decision made by the interim chancellor at the University of Colorado at Boulder, after receiving a report from a faculty committee concluding that Churchill is guilty of falsification, fabrication and plagiarism. That report shows that, even under difficult political conditions, it’s possible to do a good job dealing with charges of research misconduct. The Colorado report on Churchill provides a striking contrast to the flawed 2002 Emory University report on Michael Bellesiles, the historian of gun culture in America, who was found guilty of “falsification” in one table. The contrast says a lot about the ways universities deal with outside pressure demanding that particular professors be fired.
Jon Wiener, "A Lesson From the Churchill Inquiry," Inside Higher Ed, June 30, 2006 --- http://www.insidehighered.com/views/2006/06/30/wiener

Jensen Comment
Jon Wiener clearly takes the side that plagiarism discoveries in Churchill's writings are relatively minor and that politics played the major role in this decision by the interim chancellor at the University of Colorado. What's more clear is that what Churchill and Bellesiles call academic "research" is unethically called "research" writing rather than "persuasive" writing with cherry picking of facts used in support of opinion. If cherry picking is grounds for firing in academe, an enormous number of professors would be fired around the world, although this bias in academic "research" is one of my pet peeves with the academy. Clearly this bias has not been grounds for firing in most instances in our academy.

"Churchill Fallout: There Are More Like Him," by Anne D. Neal, Inside Higher Ed, May 26, 2006 --- http://www.insidehighered.com/views/2006/05/26/neal

The American Council of Trustees and Alumni’s report “How Many Ward Churchills?” has caused an uproar in some corners of the Internet. Criticism has centered on two issues: method and message. The report’s principal critics, Swarthmore history professor Timothy Burke and The Myth of Political Correctness author John K. Wilson, have attacked it, respectively, as a “casual, lazy, cherrypicking survey of whatever materials the author(s) were able to access on the Web,” and as part of “a vast new right-wing witch hunt on college campuses.” Both critiques share confused and erroneous assumptions about the report’s message and about ACTA’s right to criticize academic culture.

rke complains that the report’s criticisms are ill-founded: They “see what they want to see,” they “ignore context or specificity,” and they “avoid REAL argument of the kind that scholars routinely engage in,” he grumbles. “The report talks about the need to guarantee that students have unrestrained rights to the free exchange of ideas in the classroom. Seriously, unless you bother to get off your ass and stop reading catalogues online, you have no idea what happens in classrooms.”

Setting aside Burke’s contemptuous tone, let’s examine the gaps in his reasoning. Burke’s initial objections are throw-away examples of faulty logic. The first, in which he accuses ACTA of post ergo propter hoc thinking, is itself an example of that logical fallacy: Burke sees ACTA seeing what ACTA wants to see because Burke wants to see ACTA that way. But the course descriptions ACTA cites are hardly unique or isolated. There are hundreds of similarly tendentious descriptions published by institutions across the country. They were chosen for their utter typicality, not their uniqueness.

Burke’s second objection is remarkably solipsistic — context and specificity are whatever he defines them to be. ACTA quotes course descriptions verbatim, working from exactly what students (and interested parents) read to select a class. The reason? Course descriptions are designed to stand alone — if they are all a prospective student needs to know about a class, then they are also all tuition-paying parents, taxpayers, and concerned citizens need in order to form a preliminary judgment.

This objection is part of Burke’s larger criticism of the report’s reliance on course descriptions. But his claim that these documents — the main resource students use to decide whether or not to register for a class — do not tell us anything about what happens in the classes in question is illogical at best, disingenuous at worst. If true, this charge would mean either that professors routinely engage in false advertising or that the process by which students choose courses is a charade that fools no one but students themselves.

In so arguing, Burke has chosen to stretch a point ACTA freely concedes — that course descriptions are neither courses nor perfect windows into the curriculum — in order to avoid ACTA’s more fundamental argument about why course descriptions matter. They matter because they are professors’ own public representations of what happens in their classrooms. That so many professors describe their pedagogical aims in ideologically loaded ways raises entirely legitimate questions about accountability and balance.

Of course, ACTA has never claimed to know exactly what is happening in classrooms, and does not assume authority to determine whether a class is pedagogically sound. All ACTA’s report does is to urge college and university presidents, deans, and faculty to examine the issue themselves. ACTA has already outlined ways campus leaders can review departments and programs while still being fair, respectful, and sensitive to academic freedom and academic autonomy. Our 2005 report, “Intellectual Diversity: Time for Action,” was praised for its sensitivity to academic freedom and self-governance. Burke’s hasty and intemperate critique studiously evades these points.

Burke’s other criticism, that ACTA avoids “REAL” argument because it does not argue in the same manner as scholars do, is self-servingly dismissive: ACTA’s argument need not be considered, Burke implies, because ACTA has not made its argument as Burke thinks arguments should be made. But the truth is that ACTA’s report is expressly not an academic paper. It is a report designed to initiate dialogue about the college curriculum by outlining some of the dominant terms and patterns displayed in course offerings across the country. To condemn it, as Burke has, for failing to maintain scholarly standards of data analysis is like damning an apple for not being an orange.

Burke thus badly misunderstands ACTA’s report. He both thinks ACTA isn’t qualified to judge the academic curriculum and complains that ACTA has not framed a satisfactory program of reform. But ACTA stresses that academics should address the problem of self-regulation, and that they should do so now — in the face of mounting legislative interest in controlling the curriculum. ACTA’s report is as friendly to institutional self-governance and academic freedom as it is possible for a watchdog organization to be.

Now for Mr. Wilson.

Writing at Inside Higher Ed, John K. Wilson treats ACTA’s report as Exhibit A in “a vast new right-wing witch hunt on college campuses”: “The far right is already pursuing leftist academics for expressing their views in the classroom,” Wilson writes. “ACTA threatens that academic freedom will be revoked from colleges unless they start censoring their professors and ban [courses that mention social justice, sex, or race].” But Wilson’s scaremongering misrepresents the report to an audience who, he seems to expect, will not check his sources.

Nowhere does ACTA advocate censoring professors or banning courses. The report urges academic officials to address — voluntarily, and in institutionally appropriate ways — professors’ obligation to respect students’ academic freedom to learn about controversial issues. The report recommends institutional self-study, hiring administrators committed to intellectual diversity, careful vetting of job candidates’ work, review of personnel practices, post-tenure review, and — most importantly — fostering robust debate on campus.

Here are the study’s concluding paragraphs, which follow directly from the sentence Wilson quoted to argue that ACTA is endorsing censorship:

Ultimately, greater accountability means more responsible decision-making on the part of academic administrators, more judicious hiring on the part of departments, and more balanced, genuinely tolerant teaching on the part of faculties. It also means acknowledging—openly and unapologetically—that education and advocacy are not one and the same, that the invaluable work of opening minds and honing critical thinking skills cannot be done when professors are more interested in seeing their own beliefs put into political practice.Finally, it means defending the academic freedom of even the most militantly radical academics. Our aim should not be to fire the Ward Churchills for their views, but to insist that they do their job—regardless of their ideological commitments. We must insist that, in their classrooms, they teach fairly, fostering an open and robust exchange of ideas and refusing to succumb to a proselytizing or otherwise biased pedagogy. Only then will their ideas be subject to debate; only then will they and their students learn to defend their positions in the marketplace of ideas. Only then will other views challenge, complicate, and even displace theirs. Only then can we hope to create a truly diverse academy.

Far from calling for censorship or the banning of classes, ACTA urges transparency about what professors teach; far from trying to silence politically engaged professors, ACTA defends academic freedom while at the same time noting that 1) academic freedom does not mean freedom from criticism or freedom from accountability; and 2) students have academic freedom too. Also worth noting: When the Ward Churchill scandal broke in 2005, ACTA defended Churchill from those who sought to fire him for his speech.

Wilson mistrusts definitions of research misconduct that include egregiously misleading citations — and no wonder. His own argument about ACTA depends on the willful manipulation of sources.

Neither Burke nor Wilson reads ACTA’s report objectively, choosing instead to see it as proof of that worn professorial complaint, that no one outside the ivory tower understands academics. But what neither grasps is that it is not the public’s job to intuit the special worth of professors. Insofar as Burke and Wilson represent an academic consensus that outsiders are not qualified to judge — or scrutinize, or question — higher education, they signal the depth of the complacent insularity ACTA’s report takes to task.

If ACTA’s report has a take-home message for academics, it is that they urgently need to justify to a skeptical public why their work deserves special protections. Only then, ironically, will they have a chance of preserving the independence they cherish. With transparency comes respect; with accountability comes autonomy. That’s the paradoxical point of “How Many Ward Churchills?” — that the more open one is about one’s practices, the more willing one is to allow one’s work to be scrutinized, the more responsive one is to legitimate criticisms, the more likely one is to be allowed to carry on without undue interference. What a pity that Burke and Wilson could not take off their ideological blinders long enough to see that.

Anne D. Neal is president of the American Council of Trustees and Alumni.

Many comments accompany the above article --- http://www.insidehighered.com/views/2006/05/26/neal

Some words from an anti-establishment professor that did not receive the sound of silence, but the reactions are extremely divided between academics who abhor Churchill's choice of words versus academics who defend his  wording.

After the essay was brought to light, Hamilton College said it had to honor its invitation in the interests of free speech, though the college president, Joan Hinde Stewart, said she found the remarks personally repugnant.
"Professor Is Assailed by Legislature and Vandals," by Michelle York, The New York Times, February 3, 2005 --- http://www.nytimes.com/2005/02/03/nyregion/03hamilton.html?oref=login  

Colorado lawmakers yesterday denounced an embattled professor whose scheduled appearance at an upstate New York college was canceled amid protests over his writings on the Sept. 11 attacks, in which he compared the victims to Nazis.

The professor, Ward Churchill, meanwhile, rebuffed calls to resign and said yesterday that his truck had been painted with swastikas overnight as it sat in his driveway. The Boulder County Sheriff's Department said it was investigating.

Calling his written remarks an "evil and inflammatory blow to the healing process," the Colorado House of Representatives unanimously approved a resolution condemning Professor Churchill. "The victims of the World Trade Center were innocent in every sense of the word and should always be remembered as innocent," the resolution states.

The uproar concerns a three-year-old essay by Professor Churchill, who teaches ethnic studies at the University of Colorado at Boulder. In it, he called the workers killed in the World Trade Center on Sept. 11 "little Eichmanns," technocrats who had a role in their country's economic power and its foreign policy, which included the 1991 gulf war.

Continued in the article

Some Students are Challenging Ward Churchill:
A small group of students at the University of Colorado confronted Ward Churchill outside his classroom Wednesday about his essay on the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center. "Who do you think deserved to die?" asked Ian VanBuskirk, 23, chairman of the College Republicans. "Why don't you circle the names?" he said as he tried to hand Churchill a marker while pointing to a large banner carried by other students that listed the names of all the victims of the Sept. 11 attacks. Churchill, who was surrounded by students, as he made his way to his basement...
Tillie Fong, "Challenging Churchill:  College Republicans stage confrontation outside class," Rocky Mountain News, December 1, 2005 --- http://www.insidedenver.com/drmn/local/article/0,1299,DRMN_15_4279691,00.html

Another Win for Ward Churchill
A University of Colorado misconduct committee has rejected a set of allegations that were made against Ward Churchill by the family of his late ex-wife. Churchill is once again claiming that he has won a victory, but the most serious charges against him remain alive. Churchill, an ethnic studies professor at the university’s Boulder campus, has been under investigation since a furor arose over controversial statements he made . . .
"Another (Short-Term?) Win for Ward Churchill," Inside Higher Ed, September 8, 2005 --- http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2005/09/08/churchill

An early (January 28, 2005) reaction, along with Ward Churchill's picture, is available at http://www.opinionjournal.com/taste/?id=110006217 

"9/11 essay feeds furor on campus, beyond Anger builds over words as professor defends self," by Patrick O'Driscoll, USA Today, February 9, 2005 --- http://www.usatoday.com/printedition/news/20050209/a_professor09.art.htm 

A University of Colorado professor at the center of a national controversy over free speech and a person's right to criticize the United States stepped forward to defend himself Tuesday night as college administrators consider firing him.

The source of all the fury: an essay that ethnic studies professor Ward Churchill wrote in the hours after the Sept. 11 attacks. In it, Churchill rationalized the attacks and likened some World Trade Center victims to the Nazi war criminal Adolf Eichmann.

Churchill's essay was little noticed until about a week before he was scheduled to speak at Hamilton College in Upstate New York about the “limits of dissent.” And then all hell broke loose.

The essay has stirred debate about whether it's taboo in American discourse to take an alternative view about what happened on 9/11.

New York Gov. George Pataki called Churchill a “bigoted terrorist supporter.” James Giaccone, whose brother Joseph died at the Trade Center, labeled Churchill “a nut case.” Hamilton canceled last week's talk because of death threats and other security concerns.

Here in Colorado, the Legislature branded Churchill's words “evil and inflammatory.” Gov. Bill Owens asked the university to fire him. The university's Board of Regents apologized, disavowed Churchill's words and ordered a month-long investigation to see whether there are grounds to dismiss him. Churchill, 57, holds a tenured position at the university.

More than three years after 9/11, the controversy shows the attacks are as sensitive a subject as ever.

The Churchill debate pits advocates for free speech and academic freedom against those who argue that there are limits if the words in question suggest a bent toward violence — or even treason.

In his essay, Churchill used the incendiary words “little Eichmanns” to suggest that some of the Trade Center victims were like the notorious Nazi bureaucrat. He called them “a technocratic corps at the very heart of America's global financial empire” who, like Eichmann, didn't kill anyone directly but were part of the infrastructure of an imperialist government.

Churchill said Tuesday that the “one phrase out of one sentence in a 20-page essay” applied to the “technical cadre that make this system hum,” not the janitors, service workers and other innocent victims of the Sept. 11 attacks.

Churchill, who teaches American Indian studies and is an activist on Native American issues, posited in his essay that America's crimes abroad ultimately led terrorists to hijack and crash jetliners into symbols of America's military and economic might.

Tuesday's speech in which Churchill defended himself almost didn't happen. Campus officials postponed it Monday for security reasons. Student organizers of the lecture said they had received threats.

But Churchill and his supporters sought a federal court injunction in Denver on Tuesday to override that decision. After university officials met again with the organizers, students “retracted” their reports of death threats and urged that the speech go forward, said Ronald Stump, vice chancellor for student affairs.

Last week, the Board of Regents ordered a 30-day probe into the published writings and spoken remarks of Churchill. He recently told his students he has written 24 books and 70 chapters in other publications.

Campus police used handheld metal detectors to screen those entering the hall for Tuesday's speech. Two campus activists were arrested in a raucous display at last week's meeting of the regents. Churchill has said that he has received more than 100 death threats and that last week, someone spray-painted swastikas on his pickup.

In a written statement 10 days ago, Churchill said his essay was not meant to defend the 9/11 attacks but to point out “that if U.S. foreign policy results in massive death and destruction abroad, we cannot feign innocence when some of that destruction is returned.” On Tuesday, he explained further: “I don't want to get biblical here, but do unto others as you would have them do unto yourself.”

Churchill's defenders say the uproar over his remarks reflects the same kind of paranoia that drove Sen. Joseph McCarthy in his search for communist infiltrators in American society in the 1950s.

“It's a witch hunt based on the perceptions of his comments as being politically incorrect,” said Churchill's attorney, David Lane of Denver.

Churchill has vowed to sue if the university tries to dismiss him. And he says he will not apologize. “I'm not backing up an inch,” he said Tuesday.

The dispute has ripped through a campus reeling from months of unwelcome attention. Last year, Colorado's athletic department was the subject of national scrutiny and continuing lawsuits over sexual-harassment and sex-for-recruits scandals in the football program. Last fall, a fraternity pledge died of alcohol poisoning just as the university sought to overcome its image as a party school in the Rockies.

Churchill's critics on talk radio and the Internet have been combing through his writings, recorded speeches and other statements. Among the loudest are Denver radio commentators Dan Caplis and Craig Silverman, two lawyers who play excerpts daily from a recorded appearance Churchill made in California after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. “This man is actively promoting violence against the United States,” said Silverman, a former Denver prosecutor.

Free-speech advocates stress that Churchill has a right to his views, no matter how unpopular.

“Much of the history of free speech in this country is defending people who are outrageous or say reprehensible things,” Columbia University historian Eric Foner said.

Ward Churchill argues his side of the case in The Denver Post, Tuesday, February 01, 2005
Jensen Comment:  My reaction is that I've no objection to his right to argue his case in every legitimate manner even though I might argue the opposite on some issues.  What I object to is the use of inappropriate words and ethnic slurs that are not necessary to the argument and are offensive to many persons on both sides of the issues. In the past two decades, ethnic groups and feminists have hammered into us that some "languages" are inappropriate in virtually every context.   I would be condemned if I used these languages. Why should Churchill get away with it just because he argues on the side against the establishment?  

He claims some things were taken out of context, but I don't think the context justifies his language.  A Jew does not become a Nazi just because she or he works for a bond trading firm in the World Trade Center before 9/11.

(Note that not getting away with it does not necessarily mean that Churchill should be fired from his job.  I am not siding with the type of punishment being contemplated.)

Some anti-establishment academics are defending Professor Churchill's language and positions --- http://www.columbia.edu/~lnp3/mydocs/indian/churchill.htm 

February 7, 2005 message from Bob Jensen

I concluded the following (above) with respect to Ward Churchill at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/hypocrisyEvilEmpire.htm 

****************** 
I don't think Ward Churchill should lose his job over this incident even though I do think he violated the trust we place in academic freedom of speech and debate. My recommendation would be that he make a public apology to the people he accuses of being Nazis, including victims of the 9/11 attacks and American business. 
*****************

If the academy's reaction is rougher than a request for an apology, then the academy may be over reacting. An example of what I consider an over reaction is the action of the President of Eastern Washington University that is entitled "Statement from EWU President Stephen Jordan on campus speakers Ward Churchill and Ron Jeremy," --- http://www.ewu.edu/x20655.xml  

The safely and security argument to me seems contrived. We've had speakers at Trinity that probably were as much or more of a security risk. As I recall, one speaker at Trinity had a stalker group that followed that speaker about the country.

You can read more about Ward Churchill at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/hypocrisyChurchill.htm 

I don't know much of anything about Ron Jeremy other than the titles of two of his movies. I won't comment about Jeremy other than to note that he suspiciously sounds like a porn star in such films as "Buttman at Nudes a Poppin' 7" and "What's the Lesbian Doing in My Pirate Movie?" I'm not at all certain, however, that these are truly pornographic since I've never seen the movies nor have I read any of the reviews. But I suspect there's a porn popper aspect to his films.

As far as I know, academic freedom allows non-pornographic performances from porn stars (whether or not Jeremy might be a porn star). Campus reaction may be negative, but I don't know that a porn star would either be in physical danger or cause physical danger. There are heckling dangers, but many speakers are in danger of heckling.

Bob Jensen

The Denver Post Text of Churchill statement Tuesday, February 01, 2005 -

Here is the text of a statement distributed to the media Monday on behalf of University of Colorado professor Ward Churchill. Spelling and punctuation have been left unaltered.

Press Release - Ward Churchill January 31, 2005

In the last few days there has been widespread and grossly inaccurate media coverage concerning my analysis of the September 11, 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, coverage that has resulted in defamation of my character and threats against my life. What I actually said has been lost, indeed turned into the opposite of itself, and I hope the following facts will be reported at least to the same extent that the fabrications have been.

* The piece circulating on the internet was developed into a book, On the Justice of Roosting Chickens. Most of the book is a detailed chronology of U.S. military interventions since 1776 and U.S. violations of international law since World War II. My point is that we cannot allow the U.S. government, acting in our name, to engage in massive violations of international law and fundamental human rights and not expect to reap the consequences.

* I am not a "defender"of the September 11 attacks, but simply pointing out that if U.S. foreign policy results in massive death and destruction abroad, we cannot feign innocence when some of that destruction is returned. I have never said that people "should" engage in armed attacks on the United States, but that such attacks are a natural and unavoidable consequence of unlawful U.S. policy. As Martin Luther King, quoting Robert F. Kennedy, said, "Those who make peaceful change impossible make violent change inevitable."

* This is not to say that I advocate violence; as a U.S. soldier in Vietnam I witnessed and participated in more violence than I ever wish to see. What I am saying is that if we want an end to violence, especially that perpetrated against civilians, we must take the responsibility for halting the slaughter perpetrated by the United States around the world. My feelings are reflected in Dr. King's April 1967 Riverside speech, where, when asked about the wave of urban rebellions in U.S. cities, he said, "I could never again raise my voice against the violence of the oppressed . . . without having first spoken clearly to the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today - my own government."

* In 1996 Madeleine Albright, then Ambassador to the UN and soon to be U.S. Secretary of State, did not dispute that 500,000 Iraqi children had died as a result of economic sanctions, but stated on national television that "we" had decided it was "worth the cost." I mourn the victims of the September 11 attacks, just as I mourn the deaths of those Iraqi children, the more than 3 million people killed in the war in Indochina, those who died in the U.S. invasions of Grenada, Panama and elsewhere in Central America, the victims of the transatlantic slave trade, and the indigenous peoples still subjected to genocidal policies. If we respond with callous disregard to the deaths of others, we can only expect equal callousness to American deaths.

* Finally, I have never characterized all the September 11 victims as "Nazis." What I said was that the "technocrats of empire" working in the World Trade Center were the equivalent of "little Eichmanns." Adolf Eichmann was not charged with direct killing but with ensuring the smooth running of the infrastructure that enabled the Nazi genocide. Similarly, German industrialists were legitimately targeted by the Allies.

* It is not disputed that the Pentagon was a military target, or that a CIA office was situated in the World Trade Center. Following the logic by which U.S. Defense Department spokespersons have consistently sought to justify target selection in places like Baghdad, this placement of an element of the American "command and control infrastructure" in an ostensibly civilian facility converted the Trade Center itself into a "legitimate" target. Again following U.S. military doctrine, as announced in briefing after briefing, those who did not work for the CIA but were nonetheless killed in the attack amounted to no more than "collateral damage." If the U.S. public is prepared to accept these "standards" when the are routinely applied to other people, they should be not be surprised when the same standards are applied to them.

* It should be emphasized that I applied the "little Eichmanns" characterization only to those described as "technicians." Thus, it was obviously not directed to the children, janitors, food service workers, firemen and random passers-by killed in the 9-1-1 attack. According to Pentagon logic, were simply part of the collateral damage. Ugly? Yes. Hurtful? Yes. And that's my point. It's no less ugly, painful or dehumanizing a description when applied to Iraqis, Palestinians, or anyone else. If we ourselves do not want to be treated in this fashion, we must refuse to allow others to be similarly devalued and dehumanized in our name.

* The bottom line of my argument is that the best and perhaps only way to prevent 9-1-1-style attacks on the U.S. is for American citizens to compel their government to comply with the rule of law. The lesson of Nuremberg is that this is not only our right, but our obligation. To the extent we shirk this responsibility, we, like the "Good Germans" of the 1930s and '40s, are complicit in its actions and have no legitimate basis for complaint when we suffer the consequences. This, of course, includes me, personally, as well as my family, no less than anyone else.

* These points are clearly stated and documented in my book, On the Justice of Roosting Chickens, which recently won Honorary Mention for the Gustavus Myer Human Rights Award. for best writing on human rights. Some people will, of course, disagree with my analysis, but it presents questions that must be addressed in academic and public debate if we are to find a real solution to the violence that pervades today's world. The gross distortions of what I actually said can only be viewed as an attempt to distract the public from the real issues at hand and to further stifle freedom of speech and academic debate in this country.

A nicely written essay about Native Americans written by Ward Churchill is available at http://www.colorado.edu/EthnicStudies/faculty/w_churchill.html 

A serious punishment for Ward Churchill would be to make him continue to teach and conduct research year in and year out for the miserable faculty raises in academe, although his present nine-month salary of $94,000 is relatively high for for a professor of ethnic studies.  If CU prefers a more harsh punishment, he should be made Chair of the Faculty Senate.  If Mr. Churchill gets a buyout offer of $10 million, then I'm going to write a hurried essay plastered with swastikas.   "Dear Dr. Brazil:  I'll quickly settle for a mere 5% of the targeted capital campaign funds in our current fund drive at Trinity University."
Internal discussions at Colorado University are centering on a buyout offer to controversial professor Ward Churchill in order to quell the tempest caused by his characterizations of victims of Sept. 11, 2001, as "little Eichmans" and to avoid a costly, drawn-out lawsuit, the Denver Post reports. David Lane, Churchill's attorney said he had not yet received word of such an offer, but he would consider it. "If they offer $10 million, I would think about it. If they offer him $10, I wouldn't," Lane said. As WorldNetDaily reported, Churchill has most recently come under fire for making an Indian-themed serigraph...
"University considering Ward Churchill buyout:   Daily publicity over controversial professor, faculty protests damaging school's reputation," World Net Daily, February 25, 2005 --- http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=43065 

200 Professors at CU can find better uses for $10 million
A full-page ad taken out by 200 University of Colorado faculty members calls for the school to drop an inquiry into the writings of professor Ward Churchill.  The 200 faculty members' statement defends Churchill's "right to speak what he believes to be the truth" based on academic freedom rules designed to prevent faculty members from being fired for unpopular views.
"CU faculty protest Churchill inquiry," Rocky Mountain News, February 26, 2005 --- http://www.rockymountainnews.com/drmn/local/article/0,1299,DRMN_15_3579112,00.html 

The Price of Fame
KCNC-TV Channel 4 in Colorado recently approached Churchill and tried to query the wannabe Indian on whether he had broken a copyright law by making a mirror image of an artist's work and selling it as his own.  When the "work" of Churchill is placed beside that of renowned artist Thomas E. Mails and the two look like mirror images. (you can compare yourself using the link below).  . . . Churchill later emerged with a convoluted explanation on how it was not his fault that no one knew the image was "an orignial artwork by me after Tomas Mails."  Huh? Is he saying he just copied (and sold) it and believed that was okay?
"Ward Churchill, a Mirror Image," The National Ledger, February 26, 2005 --- http://www.nationalledger.com/scribe/archives/2005/02/ward_churchill_6.shtml 

If CU suspected he was not truthfully a Native American, would they have hired Mr. Churchill for a tenure track position without holding a doctoral degree?
Churchill claims to be Indian to emphasize his own anti-American agenda. He has used a life-long fabricated association with Indians to create a political career, which he otherwise could never have achieved. In view of such fraud, it is high time to examine just how one is identified as an Indian these days,...
David Yeagley, "Ward Churchill Exploits Indians," FrontPageMagazine, February 28, 2005 --- http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=17172 
Jensen Comment:  Why can't we all be Native American?  Mr. Churchill doesn’t believe in blood quantum requirements anyway. “You don't measure identity by either pounds or percentage points unless you're some kind of Nazi,” he said in 1994.

Newt Gingrich -- a professor turned politician -- thinks it's time to get rid of tenure
Aren't you a little glad he didn't have it?
According to a report on The National Review's Web site, Gingrich on Friday said that the Ward Churchill controversy shows that "you don't need tenure in this country anyway." Gingrich said that there are "75 whacked-out foundations that would hire him for life." More broadly, Gingrich reportedly told an audience at the American Enterprise Institute: "We ought to say to campuses, it's over. We should say to state legislatures, why are you making us pay for this? Boards of regents are artificial constructs of state law. Tenure is an artificial social construct. Tenure did not exist before the 20th century, and we had free speech before then. You could introduce a bill that says, proof that you're anti-American is grounds for dismissal." There are lots of arguments about tenure, of course, and plenty of critics of the tenure system are not seeking to squelch controversial ideas. Some younger scholars see tenure protecting professorial deadwood in jobs they covet. Princeton's president, Shirley Tilghman, once published an article (which she disavowed after getting her current job) suggesting that the tenure system hurt female academics because of the overlap in scholars' lives between the period for winning tenure and having children. But Gingrich's statement that free speech existed prior to tenure is worth examining.
Scott Jaschik, "Ward & Newt & Tenure," Inside Higer Ed, February 28, 2005 --- http://www.insidehighered.com/insider/ward_newt_tenure 

After the adverse publicity, I wonder if his speaking fees have increased or decreased?
Administrators (University of Wisconsin --- Whitewater) wrestled with the decision to host Churchill, as Hamilton and several other schools canceled appearances. It was decided to go forward as planned only when it was determined that the event could be held safely, and after an exchange of letters with Churchill in which he said he expected to be paid his $4,000 honorarium even if the event was shelved, and that he would use some of the money to come and speak on another occasion to those who wanted to hear him.
"Wisconsin university prepares for Churchill," Rocky Mountain News, March 1, 2005 ---  http://rockymountainnews.com/drmn/local/article/0,1299,DRMN_15_3584230,00.html  

March 7, 2005 message from Alexander Robin A [alexande.robi@UWLAX.EDU] 

Churchill's words were certainly incendiary and exaggerated. Not everyone in the WTC was a powerbroker making decisions negatively affecting people around the globe. But toning it down and looking at the essence, there are some disturbing issues lurking in his remarks.

First, I must stress that I am totally and utterly against random killings as a means of striking back, making a point or for whatever purpose. The suffering thereby caused has to bring pain to anyone of compassion and who thinks about the families affected, whose lives will never fully recover from the tragedy of loss.

And the same holds for others around the world. One must weep for the innocents and their bereaved families in Iraq and Afghanistan who were killed accidentally by our bombs.

Now, the troubling issues. Churchill raises the point of whether they were "innocent." I have to raise the same question about myself. If one is aware of injustice and suffering of others, yet does little or nothing about it, is one totally innocent? Innocence, like freedom, are not on-off dichotomies where one is one or the other. It is much more complicated than that. So translating his point to this: that too many of us go about our lives and do our jobs not fully conscious about the consequences of what we do and what we don't do. What was so shocking that came out at Nuremburg is that the people administering the Nazi death machine were not people who we would ordinarily think of as evil; rather they were just doing what they were told were their jobs and not thinking too much about the consequences.

One of the main reasons I resigned from teaching accounting is that I finally decided it was too amoral. Some of my students would work on and assist organizations such as the Red Cross that does fine work (usually). Some (perhaps the same ones) would work on and assist General Dynamics to produce better weapons systems. Some, like my infamous fellow alumn at Northwestern would help engineer the next major accounting fraud. In other words, my teaching accounting would not further my goal of helping solve some of the world's problems and reducing suffering and strife.

I find that Americans are relatively disinterested in international affairs and what our government and what the corporations are doing out there. Until it comes back to bite us. Then since we have no solid sense of history behind these events, we are confused and dismayed. We then follow leaders who have a definite and simple story about what happened and why.

I'm sitting comfortably in my living room looking out over our beautiful meadow and trees as I write this. I can't imagine what it's like to live hungry, with intermittent electricity, bad water and the risk of being blow up any minute by some indoctrinated suicide bomber. I think we better start paying attention to what we do. The world is getting increasingly interconnected and our ability to isolate is declining. I'm truly fearful that if we (meaning everyone) keep doing what we're doing, it is only a matter of time until some drives into one of our cities with a nuclear device in the trunk of their car.

Robin Alexander

Updates after March 6, 2005

Not a happy time for the academy.
University of Colorado President Elizabeth Hoffman announced Monday that she is resigning amid a football recruiting scandal and a national controversy over an activist professor who had compared victims of the Sept. 11 attacks to a Nazi.  Hoffman, who has been president for five years, told the Board of Regents in a letter that her resignation is effective June 30 or whenever the board names a successor.
SI.com, March 7, 2005  --- http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2005/football/ncaa/03/07/cu.hoffman.ap/index.html?cnn=yes 

Hoffman said last week that Churchill would not be fired if the review turns up only inflammatory comments, not misconduct.

The furor over Churchill erupted in January after he was invited to speak at Hamilton College in upstate New York. Campus officials discovered an essay and follow-up book by Churchill in which he said the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks were a response to a history of American abuses abroad, particularly against indigenous peoples.

Among other things, he said those killed in the trade center were "little Eichmanns," a reference to Adolf Eichmann, who organized Nazi plans to exterminate Jews. The college canceled Churchill's appearance, citing death threats and concerns about security.

Jensen Comment:  A review of Ward Churchill's speeches and writings is being conducted to determine if the professor overstepped his boundaries of academic freedom and whether that should be grounds for dismissal.  

Purge of conservatives at Colorado University?
Mitchell taught at the Hallett Diversity Program for 24 straight semesters. That is, until he made the colossal error of actually presenting a (gasp!) diverse opinion, quoting respected conservative black intellectual Thomas Sowell in a discussion about affirmative action.  Sitting 5 feet from a pink triangle that read "Hate-Free Zone," the progressive head of the department berated Mitchell, calling him a racist.  "That would have come as a surprise to my black children," explains Mitchell, who has nine kids, as of last count, two of them adopted African-Americans.  People say liberals run the university. I wish they did," Mitchell says. "Most liberals understand the need for intellectual diversity. It's the radical left that kills you."  So Churchill may play the part, but Mitchell is the true dissenter at CU.  Why did he stay this long?  "I stay to create enthusiasm and love for history," Mitchell says. " And I am successful at that. I love the classroom, and I love my students."  Once, president Hoffman promised increased intellectual diversity at CU - not a purge of conservatives.  Another promise broken.
David Harsanyi, "A CU prof deserving of sympathy," Denver Post, March 7, 2005 --- http://www.denverpost.com/Stories/0,1413,36~31908~2748616,00.html 

Also see "Heretics in the Academy?:  On campuses across the country, conservative professors face a sea of hostility and ideological bias," by Jennifer Jacobson, The Chronicle of Higher Education, pp. A8-A11.

These are sources you might look at when tracking the resignation of the president of Colorado University and the saga of Ward Churchill and his little eichmans:

CBS4 Denver --- http://news4colorado.com/cuscandal 

She says it's the budget rather than her bad boys
The president of the University of Colorado, Elizabeth Hoffman, resigned Monday after struggling with a football recruiting scandal and a firestorm over a professor who likened some Sept. 11 victims to Nazis . . . She said in a telephone interview that the Churchill case was not the impetus for her resignation, but that it had become a distraction that was hindering her ability to address what she called a more serious problem, a budget crisis at the university over a shortage of state financing.  "It was becoming increasingly difficult to be strong on the issues that were important in the long run because it kept coming back to questions about me," Dr. Hoffman said, "so I decided I had to take my future, my job, off the table." Dr. Hoffman, 58, was named the university's president on Sept. 1, 2000, after serving as provost at the University of Illinois at Chicago.
Kirk Johnson, "University President Resigns at Colorado Amid Turmoil," The New York Times, March 8, 2005 --- http://www.nytimes.com/2005/03/08/national/08colorado.html 

Ideologies make them both predictable and dreary
I am growing tired of academics whose ideologies make them both predictable and dreary, and I care not a fig if they are professional America knockers or professional America boosters. As with any country possessing the power to "murder and create" (T.S. Eliot's phrase), America has not always used its might wisely, but there are hundreds of crosses dotting the Normandy beachheads that remind us of the times when we were prepared to sacrifice to set others free. Among the many things Mr. Churchill needs to learn is this lesson and others like it.
Sanford Pinsker, The Irascible Professor, March 10, 2005 --- http://irascibleprofessor.com/comments-03-10-05.htm 
Bob Jensen's “Evil Empire” essay --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/hypocrisyEvilEmpire.htm

A Done Deal with Ward Churchill Blows Up
Settlement negotiations between the University of Colorado and professor Ward Churchill stalled Friday because of renewed opposition by groups that want to see him fired even if it takes a court fight to make him go away. "The ball is in CU's court," said Churchill attorney David Lane, who confirmed negotiations have hit a wall. Late Thursday, a settlement was all but done after lawyers for Churchill and the university agreed on financial terms. But when revelations arose Friday about a plagiarism complaint against Churchill, regents balked. Churchill critics, including former state Senate President John Andrews, and private citizens across...
Arthur Kane and Dave Curtin "Regents balk at Churchill deal:  Plagiarism allegation stalls buyout proposal," Denver Post, March 12, 2005 --- http://www.denverpost.com/Stories/0,1413,36~53~2758694,00.html 
Also see http://www.insidehighered.com/insider/a_deal_collapses 

If CU suspected he was not truthfully a Native American, would they have hired Mr. Churchill for a tenure track position without holding a doctoral degree?
Churchill claims to be Indian to emphasize his own anti-American agenda. He has used a life-long fabricated association with Indians to create a political career, which he otherwise could never have achieved. In view of such fraud, it is high time to examine just how one is identified as an Indian these days,...
David Yeagley, "Ward Churchill Exploits Indians," FrontPageMagazine, February 28, 2005 --- http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=17172 
Jensen Comment:  Why can't we all be Native American?  Mr. Churchill doesn’t believe in blood quantum requirements anyway. “You don't measure identity by either pounds or percentage points unless you're some kind of Nazi,” he said in 1994.

Churchill said his mother and grandmother told him he was part Indian, and he thought of himself that way while growing up in Illinois.
Dan Elliott, "Prof Weary in Fight on 9/11 Comments," ABC News, March 18, 2005 --- http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory?id=592952&page=1 

Churchill has many critics, some on his own campus. Law professor Paul Campos said Churchill's writings are unfair and unbalanced, and there is evidence he has plagiarized and fabricated material.  "That goes beyond being an ideological hack and having no balance or nuance or intelligence in your work," Campos said. "It goes into the realm of academic fraud, which is a firing offense."  Churchill said his critics have mangled the facts in their rush to condemn him.  He said the inquiry is not merely an investigation of his work but a pretext for a broader campaign to discourage critical thinking and reduce higher education to "an advanced vo-tech" where students are taught skills useful to corporations.  "It's not about me, and it's not about 'little Eichmanns,' either," he said.
Dan Elliott, "Prof Weary in Fight on 9/11 Comments," ABC News, March 18, 2005 --- http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory?id=592952&page=1 

Updates on March 25, 2005

The report notes six allegations of either plagiarism or distortion of scholarly materials
Where Churchill may face difficulty is in allegations of research misconduct. The report notes six allegations of either plagiarism or distortion of scholarly materials. In one of the cases, the report notes, a lawyer at Dalhousie University, in Nova Scotia, concluded that one of its professors had been plagiarized by Churchill. The Dalhousie professor also charges that Churchill made a threatening phone call to her — a charge he has denied.
"Churchill Survives — For Now,," Inside Higher Ed, March 25, 2005 --- http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2005/03/25/churchill

The university received complaints from Indian leaders 10 years ago that Churchill was being untruthful
The report also examined an unusual allegation that has been raised: That Churchill is not an American Indian, as he has claimed. According to the report, Churchill has always identified himself to the university as an American Indian, and the university received complaints from Indian leaders 10 years ago that Churchill was being untruthful. At the time, the university concluded that self-identification was an appropriate way for Churchill to declare himself an Indian, so the matter was dropped. Since the university ruled on the matter a decade ago, the review concluded that it could not investigate questions with regard to Churchill’s hiring. But, it did say that if Churchill is misrepresenting himself as an Indian, that could constitute research misconduct.
"Churchill Survives — For Now,," Inside Higher Ed, March 25, 2005 --- http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2005/03/25/churchill

“A remaining question is whether Professor Churchill has attempted to gain a scholarly voice, credibility, and an audience for his scholarship by wrongfully asserting that he is an Indian. There is evidence that Professor Churchill’s assertion of his Indian status is material to his scholarship, yet there is serious doubt about his Indian identity,” the review said. “The evidence is sufficient to warrant referral of this question to the Committee on Research Misconduct for inquiry and, if appropriate, investigation to determine whether Professor Churchill relies on his Indian identity in his scholarship and, if so, whether he has fabricated that identity.”
"Churchill Survives — For Now,," Inside Higher Ed, March 25, 2005 --- http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2005/03/25/churchill

Colorado University is an "lunatic asylum" says one of its inmates
Both Ward Churchill and one of his legislative critics compared the University of Colorado to an asylum this weekend — showing that the debate over the controversial professor has not been put to rest by a university review released Thursday.   Churchill says that the new investigation requested by the review — this time an inquiry into whether he engaged in plagiarism and other forms of research misconduct — is unfair. In a speech in San Francisco Friday night, he said that the new investigation at Colorado, which will examine among other things his claims of being an American Indian, was befitting to a  “lunatic asylum,” and he vowed not to cooperate with the investigation, according to a report in The Rocky Mountain News.
Scott Jaschik, "Churchill Wars Continue," Inside Higher Ed, March 28, 2005 --- http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2005/03/28/churchill

Bob Jensen's essay on the Evil Empire is at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/hypocrisyEvilEmpire.htm