By Jim Spencer
SpencerSpeaks.com
July 25, 2007
For
Even as the CU regents agreed with Brown’s recommendation to fire Churchill after a day-long executive session Tuesday, the remedy appeared little more than an interim step in a long and expensive treatment that - like a stubborn sexually transmitted disease - resulted from a years-old error in judgment.
CU’s seduction by Ward Churchill was consummated with a tenured teaching job for a guy without an academic pedigree and with a taste for controversy. Climb into bed with a guy like that in a moment of radical chic and he’s yours for life.
So, even as the CU regents fired Churchill Tuesday on an 8-1 vote, the inevitability of his law suit against them neutered their resolve.
Sentiments outside the
None urged the ethnic studies professor’s firing.
“It’s not about scholarship. It’s about politics,†said one T-shirt popular among students.
“Honor dissent,†read a sign.
“Bull shit,†students shouted after the regents voted.
There was disappointment and anger. Still, you wonder if Churchill, who smokes a lot, might actually die before the witch hunt ends. It’s been two and a half years since vast right-wing conspirators, opportunistic politicians, chagrined university administrators and outraged taxpayers began calling for his job for saying some victims of the 9/11 terrorist attacks were “little Eichmanns.”
But Churchill has collected his 90-grand publicly subsidized annual salary all along. He has been banned from the classroom presumably to protect the impressionable minds of Generation X Box.
Please, someone throw me in this briar patch.
Churchill’s lawsuit, scheduled to be filed Wednesday in
“We’ll be done by year four,â€Churchill’s lawyer,
Lane’s plan to take a federal civil rights complaint to a
Metal detectors were in place. Security was everywhere.
Churchill, chatty and relaxed, slumped in a chair in the back, wearing his shoulder-length gray hair tucked behind his ears and wearing sunglasses. News photographers, TV cameramen and reporters surrounded him like Paris Hilton at the LA County Jail.
But this was not a prison. It was, effectively, a theater.
If memory serves, the Glen Miller Ballroom was the same place that the American Indian Movement and other Native American supporters staged a support rally for Churchill, a wanna-be Indian, in 2005. That was shortly after vast right-wing conspirators unearthed the professor’s 2001 “little Eichmanns†quote in an obscure article that was buried and, therefore, without impact until the witch hunters dusted it off to prove what a sordid liberal place the state’s flagship university was.
The plagiarism charges that supposedly cost Churchill his job would not exist without the “little Eichmanns†line. Those who believe otherwise are as naïve about the motives of Churchill’s critics as CU was about the professor’s potential to embarrass the school.
After the regents’ vote Churchill said he looked forward to a trial that “could demonstrate the invalidity of the conclusions†of the CU committee that charged him with academic misconduct, including plagiarism.
Churchill said he “wants to rebut the distortions of the scholarly report†used to fire him. It was, Churchill insisted, anything but scholarly.
But though a vast right-wing conspiracy – not bad research - was the genesis of Churchill’s troubles, it was merely the messenger. The professor’s glib rhetoric created the “little Eichmanns†mess.
And, of course, the
The regents could no more let him keep his job than Brown could have, even with the recommendation of a faculty committee that Churchill be disciplined but not canned.
Whatever it costs to get rid of Churchill will be less than what it will cost CU in lost donations if he hangs around. So his dismissal is not about scholarship or politics. It’s about money.
Off the record, CU fund raisers will tell you that Churchill’s name comes up often in response to solicitations.
On the record, it’s all about due diligence.
Ask Lane if there is any amount of money that would settle the case and he replies, “The answer is always going to be yes. If they gave Ward Churchill three billion dollars, he’d setlle. But Ward Churchilll has to get his reputation back, and that means a jury trial.”
Personally, I’m not sure Churchill can recover his rep. I lost my stomach for the guy when he greeted the controversy created by his Nazi analogy by publicly suggesting that enlisted soldiers in
That said, it is also true that Churchill has never been anything except true to his obnoxious, contrary nature. That makes him a whole lot less hypocritical than the school that decided it could no longer afford his services after it hired him knowing he was a provocateur.
The
A long time ago, CU bet against the odds on Ward Churchill’s sense of discretion.
The university continues to lose big time.
Copyright 2007 by Jim Spencer. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission.
16 users commented in " Beware the Seductions of Outlaw Professors "
Follow-up comment rss or Leave a TrackbackMaybe the university will think twice before hiring another rabel rouser in the name of diversity.
No Eichmann comment, no controversy. Witchunt.
Great column, Jim. I’ve really enjoyed reading your post-Post stuff. You’ve caught on among some journalists down here in Tennessee. It sounds cliche, I suppose, but keep up the good work.
A great way to wrap it up - for now. I am afraid this story will not die…and it will go on and on. Your grandchildren will be writing about this story the way it is going - for now, a good job.
Regardless of why an investigation into Mr. Churchill’s scholarly work was done, it clearly showed that he was not a scholar but a plagiarist. A one line footnote turns plagiarism into research. There seems to be evidence that he is not who he purports himself to be. Jim, you are right, the stench left by Churchill is beyond the pale. The only mistake my alma mater made was hiring him without researching the claims he made about himself. His equivocating victims of 9/11 with being among those who saw a group of people as less than human and no more worthy of life than a mosquito is so far off the charts that no left leaning liberal with any sense of humanity could accept it as merely expressing his freedom of speech. Expressions such as that proved to me - a flaming liberal in the minds of many - that he is incapable of teaching anything worthwhile.
Man, am I glad to see you’re still out there, Jim, writing and publishing. Forget the Post (they don’t deserve your 200 proof Objectivity), you have the worldwide web! Good move. So I don’t care what you write about, as long as you keep putting it out there. But I will say you nailed it again in this article. Churchill pushes all our gullets to the limit. But free speech is free speech. I just hope they don’t cop a policy that says you have to be polite and politically correct to work for CU. THAT would be death.
–former CU grad student and instructor
I remain uneasy about this, not Churchill himself, I’ve seen the type before, but about the broader implications. What do you have to be to speak your mind - like Caesar’s wife, above reproach? If someone makes a controversial statement, should we immediately investigate their background, look for the skeletons? How many people with discoverable vulnerabilities will fail to say something in the future that would be valuable to the community? Prof. Churchill made a statement repugnant to most of us, but that is where it should have stopped. After all, one way to discourage such behavior is not to give it face time. The problem came when someone in a $1,000 suit didn’t like what he heard and suggested an archaeological dig on Churchill’s reputation to blast him out of that position. So here we are. Again I ask the question, can a sinner in this world speak his mind?
As a formal student in one of Ward Churchill’s classes, I can honestly say that he is an extremely engaging and worthwhile professor for students. By no means was I “brainwashed” like many of the conservative enemies of Churchill would claim, as I do not agree with many or all of his opinions. He is a professor that a student would never forget. For a topic that is so rarely understood, studied, or discussed such as the Native American genocide, it is very important to have an engaging and strong professor such as Ward Churchill to get the concepts across to what is typically a very privileged and white classroom. Further, it is hard to deny the fact that Churchill is one of the leading scholars on this issue–from what I understand, there are few scholars of Native America out there that do not credit him as an extremely important contributor in the field.
Putting an unqualified person in a tenured position was a bad decision. He wasn’t even worthy of his ten minutes of fame. The point of going to college is to “grow” the child’s mind. The far right can’t tolerate that their children will hear other viewpoints besides the narrow ones they have indoctrinated their kids with in their insular world. A perfect example of this indoctrination is the young woman with the abortion petition.
End result=tuition and tax hikes…reminds me of the You Tube video at the Dem debate..the guy sang about taxes he paid for other peoples’ kids to to to college but he couldn’t afford to send his own…
I do not support Churchill’s “Eichmann” comment or whatever he said about “fragging.” I also don’t support those who have obsessed over him in print or on the radio. I do support his freedom to express his opinion, no matter how offensive I might find it. I am, however, sick of all the attention he continues to get from the news media.
It is painfully obvious that the investigation into his academic qualifications that led to his firing was done in response to his comments being made public.
As offensive as Churchill’s comments might have been, they did not help start a war which has claimed thousands of lives and shows no signs of ending. The people who told the lies which led to the slaughter in Iraq should have been fired long before Ward Churchill was.
Glad we can still get your great incites as to what is truly happening.
You are 110% correct on the Indian wannabe Churchhill, a true blister on the fannie of education. This man is “sick”, his lawyer has the same ailment, but needs the money and the publicity……poor guy. Hitch your wagon to a farce.
Keep it up Jim, it’s great.
Hear, hear, usersuz. I agree. Had sensible and truly patriotic people applied the old if-a-tree-falls-in-the-forest-does-anybody-hear-it test and just ignored Churchill’s grenade-throwing outburst, we wouldn’t be here today bemoaning veiled assaults on free speech and academic freedom.
But now we “get” to roll on through more legal entanglements … I’m guessing by the time all is through, Churchill will be ready for retirement. He who laughs last …
And BTW, Churchill said in incendiary style and tone (”little Eichmanns”) what many critics of the United States government’s latter-day Pax Americana (more like Bellum Americanum) have been saying for decades. The American military-econo-cultural-industrial complex DOES run on the work of technocrats in finance, media, industry and natural resources exploration/exploitation, to name a few fields. He only gave provocative voice to criticisms mouthed daily by growing numbers here and abroad.
I encourage anyone to go read again, in its entirety, the Churchill essay that ignited this whole thing. If read away from the post-9/11 angst, anger and yes, hysteria, it is nothing more (or less) than a counter-cultural treatise on what’s been wrong for decades with the “American way” of getting along with the rest of the kids in the global sandbox.
P.S. - Nice column, Jimbo.
The question, “Is Ward Churchill worth saving/fighting for?” is an easy answer, but as Jim points out, it’s not the real question. Is “freedom of speech worth protecting?” really isn’t the question either. I think a great question is, “is academia worth protecting from the attacks of the neo-right?” If that means saving the likes of the Ward Churchill’s, then it’s something we should hold our nose and do. This all transcends beyond Churchill or freedom of speech. It’s ALWAYS about economics, but its still beyond that too. Whether Churchill fails or succeeds with his post-firing appeal, “may” have a significant effect on how our academics are treated, and protected, from the onslaught of the anti-academics and elitist right. Keep hope alive!
It is enlightening for me to read the comment from the former student of Churchill’s because I share your view that the guy is an idiot and an incompetent researcher and writer. His “little Eichmans” article was so bad it was painful to read. Perhaps he is a gifted teacher, however, which is something to think about. I agree that there is no question that the problems with his writing and research would never have come to light without the Eichmans comment. So, what then? It will be a tough call for a jury. I too am bothered by the fact that tax-payer money goes to this circus. On some level, I can’t help but admire CU’s balls, I really didn’t thnk they had it in them.
Let’s see now, is this whole mess political?
Why yes it is! And it’s become an embarrassing
Circus! Former Gov. Bill Owens appoints political buddies from the Republican Party to
the Office of President at three of Colorado’s
major higher educational institutions…and then he tried to get another GOP political buddy of his into the vacancy at CSU with an applicant who didn’t even have a master’s degree in any subject!
Yea, Bill Owens, Hank Brown, Tim Foster, Jane
Norton and other Republicans striving for political entrenchment are “really interested in integrity”.
Yea sure, Give Me a Break.
As an expatriated Coloradan/taxpayer and father of a CU graduate (I think that counts) I can ask myself the question: If Ward Churchill is a tree of knowledge and scholarship, what’s the fruit? Anti-Americanism, Anti-Semitism. Anti-the very system that allows him the platform he squandered on egomania, a chosen state that rivals only his eternal love to hear himself think. Anybody who “defends” this professorial acting out is defending Anti-Americanism and Anti-semitism. Even if a jury were to award Churchill damages, or a board of regents grant him hush money, they would be rewarding the enemy of all that is good and decent.
You go, Jimbo….
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