Genociding Ward Churchill for over a 20th of a century

CNews 31July07

The lone dissenting vote among the CU Regents last week, Cindy Carlisle, is catching heat from some of her republican constituents for her vote.

I would rather see progressives do it [reform the academy], for their liberal ideas fit better with the underlying concepts of “liberal arts” (see Michael Bérubé’s What’s Liberal About the Liberal Arts?). But progressives, like John K. Wilson (who wrote the other article, titled “Ward Redux”), seem to have fixated on First Amendment rights to the point where they are doing no more than chasing their own tails. Certainly, they aren't contributing to the needed debate underlying future reform. They refuse to admit, for example, that Churchill was (and is) a problem for academia and continue to try to defend the indefensible. This does not help at all.

Wilson writes, in response to my assertion that Churchill had no business teaching, that “Churchill’s popularity among many students shows that it was a disservice to fire him.” Rapper 50 Cent is popular with students, too, but that wouldn’t earn him a place among the faculty.

CNews 30July07

From our Déjà Vu All Over Again, The Sequel department: Professor John M. Ellis has "Two Cheers for Ward Churchill's Dismissal" (not three, because CU hasn't been taken to task for hiring and tenuring The Perfesser in the first place). (via Drunkablog) We first used the Capone analogy as it applies to Churchill's case back in June '05 (comments section), then Churchill himself used it in September of that same year; Opinion Journal used in it in May '06.
Update: And LA Times columnist Gregory Rodriguez capones CU. Considering what the word "capone" means, its use to describe virtually anything connected with Churchill seems almost too apt.

Many conservatives believe the firing of University of Colorado Professor Ward Churchill will now reduce liberal politics in academia. Many liberals believe that his firing will uphold high standards of academic scholarship. Both are wrong — because the firing of Churchill reveals a very pernicious kind of exclusionary dogmatism in scholarly research and writing and media reporting. The firing of Professor Churchill for alleged research misconduct ignored evidence to the contrary provided by professors who know his work best, ignored evidence from a committee of scholars who found the investigating committee itself guilty of research misconduct, and ignored all Indigenous evidence and perspectives that are critical of Eurocentric versions of the history of the European invasion of the Americas.

...More than one commenter to Witherspoon's essay remains unconvinced. The best expression of this lack is from "DBL":

I read Mr. Witherspoon’s looking for some defense of Churchill and found none. Churchill was fired for fabrication, lying and other academic misconduct and Mr. Witherspoon offered no explanation or defense on these charges. Instead, Mr. Witherspoon merely amplified on his views of how horrible the European explorers and settlers of the New World were.

Well, as experienced lawyers teach youngsters, when the facts are on your side, pound on the facts, when the law is on your side, pound on the law, and when neither the facts nor the law is on your side, pound on the table. Mr. Witherspoon has done an admirable job of pounding on the table, but I doubt that will be enough to persuade anyone of Churchill’s innocence of the charges of academic misconduct.

We stood on the sidewalk in front of the club while Sergeant Madden cuffed [Jaimes] and put in the back of the patrol car. Carole [Standing Elk's] face was bleeding, her glasses damaged, and her wrist was broken, but while the officer was busy with the woman, Churchill came and stood in front of Carole. He is a very tall, big man, and he stooped over and got face to face with Carole, called her a filthy name I would never repeat, and spit in her face.

Complaints about Churchill Predate 'Little Eichmanns' Remark

As two of the four older Indian women Churchill and his ex-wife, Professor M.A. Jaimes of San Francisco State University, assaulted in 1994 at the San Francisco Press Club, we are intimately familiar with the problems Churchill creates and leaves in his wake. While we hold CU ultimately responsible for licensing, nurturing, and supporting his plagiarism and deceit, we also understand how he misled them with skillful hucksterism. We would also like to remind the public that CU was contacted repeatedly about Churchill's fraudulent and volatile activities years before he made the "Little Eichmann's" comment.

CU turned a blind eye to his spurious, often violent activities toward Indians, on and off campus. They turned their back on the many complaints they received with typical Ivory Tower lack of respect for Indians - but also out of fear.

As he has demonstrated during this investigation, Churchill goes on the extreme attack when confronted. In California he and his former wife assaulted us - Indian women between the ages of 42 and 86, to try to stop us from distributing a statement denouncing his fraudulent activities in the Bay Area Indian Community.

And as he has also demonstrated over the course of this investigation, he does not mind biting the hands that feed him. We are quite sure that many at CU found him an embarrassment, but taking him to task would have meant admitting their duplicity in his empowerment. After all, handing a lucrative, Indian-specific professorship to a non-Indian without adequate credentials - in this case, only a Master's degree and an "honorary" tribal membership card - is reprehensible to say the least, and for that, they should be ashamed.

Some say Churchill is a media clown that no one takes seriously. He’s also called a poster boy for free speech in academia, yet there is method behind this poster boys' madness. His “scholarship,” long refuted by many Indian scholars, has been widely used in college classrooms for years. An entire generation is now wandering around with his scurrilous notions about Indians and tribes implanted in their brains. Many take him seriously, certain academics included.

His “buffoonery” is well known and largely loathed in the American Indian community. Using mean-spirited rumors, sophomoric name calling, distorted facts, figures, and accusations, as well as threats and violence, he has bullied his way through Indian America, sowing seeds of discord among organizations and tribes, wherever he ventured. In the atmosphere of disunity and suspicion he has created, supported by his university "credentials," his work has served a seemingly greater purpose - the further marginalization of Native Americans.

Some call him a "crazy." Long ago many Indians understood him to be not crazy, but as a wolf in sheep's clothing-a "radical, non-Indian, Indian activist" who confused and confounded instead of explained and enlightened complicated issues of Native America. Crazy? Or crazy like a fox?

During this investigation, CU admitted Churchill's native identity was becoming "increasingly dubious." This very statement exemplifies how little respect CU held for Indians in this matter. Over a decade ago, three different tribes he tried to align himself with, flatly denied his membership, or that of his ancestral family. Why wasn't tribal authority respected? Ironically, one reason is that through his "scholarly work" Churchill has cast a shadow of disrespect, doubt, and disbelief over tribes. The consequences have been sorely felt throughout Indian and scholarly communities across the nation.

When complaints over Churchill's "Little Eichmann's" essay first hit the newswire, many Indian in the know rolled their eyes and sighed. No one cared when he was simply beating up Indian women and writing book after book of misleading native history. But we knew that after attacking mainstream Americans, there would be great outcry - not that it wasn't deserved, but why was the Indian community completely disregarded? After the charges against him were filed, and the media circus raged, certain reporters drug us out to "testify" against him and apprise the public of all that we had gone through in order to plunge the knife in a bit further. Of course we did discuss our problems with him publicly. At last someone wanted to hear what we had to say. But instead of supporting us, as soon as we served their purposes, we were ignored again. This, however, began in the Indian community, has marginalized the Indian community, and concerns the Indian community. We are left now, to deal with the hurtful and false information he has so masterfully disseminated all these many years.

As far as his comments on the World Trade Center victims go, many people believe that by behaving like a "whacked-out, radically liberal professor," Churchill's other goal has been to enrage conservative education critics, pitting them fiercely against the thing he claims to revere most - academic freedom. His real intention is to divide rather than unite forces for positive change. While we can not be sure about this theory, it certainly fits his MO in his dealings with the Indian community. The publicity he has generated is not favorable toward Indians or academia, and has created public suspicion toward the Indian community, and an outcry for conservative reform in the academy.

We urge you not to believe for one instant, that Mr. Churchill has lost one wink of sleep over the damage he has done to Indians or CU. His conduct in the light of CU’s decision, confirms what many Indian people have long known: he is a dangerous presence in the University. For their willingness to finally admit that, CU must be congratulated. Indians who once trusted Churchill are now wiser. Only time will tell if CU has learned from its mistakes.

We believe that academic freedom of speech is important, but it is more than a mere right; it’s a grave responsibility to present truths and speculations accurately and honestly. No one understands this better than Indian people who have been victimized through academia for centuries. We have all worked very hard over the past few decades to try to work together with and apart from the academy to try to right these historic wrongs, and Churchill's academic misconduct has severely damaged the positive attainments we have made. The idea that educating is a privilege that should be conducted as objectively as possible, and should never be taken lightly is a notion we all share in common. It demands honesty, which is a most Indian virtue.

Patti Jo King
Carole Standing Elk

CNews 29July07

CNews 28July07

Via Drunkablog: Newsweek interviews Churchill (follow the link to read D-a-B's commentary; Churchill has nothing new to say, and he spends five pages saying it).

Paul Wolf: I read the complaint and was surprised that [Churchill's attorney David Lane] asked for money but not for injunctive relief. That's legalese for a court order for the university to take some action, i.e. reinstating Churchill in his job. He also could have asked for a temporary restraining order to delay the firing. The other thing I noticed is that what happened yesterday was that Churchill amended a previous complaint—he had already filed the lawsuit sometime before. I have only seen what was filed yesterday and not any other motions in the case.

You may find interesting the legal standard that the court will use to instruct the jury in the trial:

To determine "whether a public employer's actions impermissibly infringe on free speech rights, the court applies the four-prong test articulated in Pickering v. Bd. of Educ., 391 U.S. 563 (1968)." Burns v. Bd. of County Comm'rs of Jackson County, 330 F.3d 1275, 1285 (10th Cir. 2003) First, it must determine whether the employee's speech involves a matter of public concern. If so, it balances the employee's interest in commenting upon matters of public concern against the interest of the State, as an employer, in promoting the efficiency of the public services it performs through its employees. Third, if the balance tips in favor of the employee, the employee then must show that the speech was a substantial factor or a motivating factor in the detrimental employment decision. Fourth, if the plaintiff establishes that speech was such a factor, the employer may demonstrate that it would have taken the same action against the employee even in the absence of the protected speech.

The university can base its defense on the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th tests, and will probably use some combination of them. I think the school's defense will basically be that people who live in glass houses shouldn't throw stones. All the attention he attracted to himself brought all these other ethics issues out of the woodwork.

Churchill is going to argue that there is a witchhunt against him, but in reality he was doing all he could to draw attention to himself.

[addressed to a comment by WT Sherman]— Churchill will testify. The University lawyer will subpoena him and he will have no choice. It's not like a criminal trial where the defendant has the right to remain silent.

Normally a lawyer examining a witness can only ask questions relevant to something at issue in the case. For example, it wouldn't be relevant to ask him about one of his wives who was found dead on the road in front of his house, in another unsolved mystery. The university did not fire him for that.

However, Churchill is guaranteed to be a bad witness. He will want to use the witness stand as a political platform to talk about racism, the war in Iraq, and whatever else. Every time he goes off track, he will have "opened the door" to those issues.

He's made so many public statements in his life, that if they go into those areas, Churchill will find himself explaining why he advocates "fragging" (soldiers murdering their superiors to protest war), why he claimed to be a Vietnam war commando when he was really a truck driver, what was his job at Soldier of Fortune Magazine, who is Lee Hill, and on and on and on.

If he doesn't remember then there is endless bizarre material to refresh his recollection. The skeletons in his closet may rival those of Jeff Dahmer. It will be like one of his interactions with the news media where he loses his temper and asks the reporter if he even knows how to spell "CIA". Yet unlike a news interview Churchill will not be able to run away nor will he be able to intimidate the person questioning him. He will be totally out of his element.


Noj: Paul Wolf, what do you think the university's chances are of getting the trial moved to federal court? The lawyer interviewed in the DP thought they had a good shot. And how would changing the venue effect the outcome?


Paul Wolf: A state court can hear almost any type of case. It has what is called general jurisdiction. A federal court has limited jurisdiction to hear cases that involve federal laws, and cases that involve people from different states. So for those kinds of cases, either court could hear it, and it's up to the plaintiff where to bring the lawsuit. It's not supposed to matter, since the same federal laws apply. However, there are practical things like who the actual judges are, where the jury pool is drawn from and so on.

28 USC 1441 provides for removal of a case from state court to federal court. The defendant has 30 days to request it. All the defendant has to do in a federal question case is file a notice of removal— he does not have to ask the court's permission to do so with a motion. So it is totally up to the university, not Mr Lane.

So announcing this strategy to the news media makes little sense, when the decision is not even up to him.

The other thing Mr Lane likes to emphasize is that Churchill's speech was a "motivating factor" in firing him. As I wrote before, this is only one part of a four part test. Also, I am not sure the university was motivated one way or the other by his speech. They paid no attention to it for three years. They were motivated by the cascade of complaints about plagiarism etc that resulted from Churchill using this incident to promote himself in the news. THAT was the speech at issue, his speaking tours and TV appearances which went well beyond defending himself from critics.

I don't think it makes a lot of difference which court this is in. The jury pool is apparently different, and I guess Mr Lane believes the Denver area is more liberal than Colorado in general. That makes sense. If I were him I would be more concerned about the personality of the judge— but there's no way to control which judge you get.

No doubt, when Churchill testifies this website will be the first to post the transcript.


Noj: Thanks Paul. I think Churchill has a reasonable chance on prevailing on the first three prongs of the Pickering test. If so, the battle will be mostly fought on the fourth prong: Would CU have fired Churchill without his insult to the 9/11 victims?

The problem here— for both sides— is the lack of a CU precedent. What do you think the odds are that a judge will allow either of the sides to bring in comparable examples from other universities?


Tom Russell: I continue to think that Mr. Churchill's chances are poor in court. If the law were mechanical, then I don't believe that the facts would warrant a finding in his favor. And, in front of a Denver jury, I don't think he's likely to win enough sympathy to get the jury to side with him. If the case goes to federal court, then jurors will come from outside of Denver county, and they are likely to be even less sympathetic.

As well, I have noted before that I don't think his damages are all that great. If he takes the new job as a cigar store Indian that someone offered, makes money as an "international law scholar," or takes a job somewhere, then his damages are reduced by his new wages. Indeed, his damages are reduced by comparable jobs that he might have but did not take. My bottom line is that the bottom line is not so high as people think. (And, once again, a jury determines that figure.)

Finally, on a different point, I am a little bit interested in the "pretext" argument. Many supporters argue that the academic fraud charges were a pretext for his exercise of free speech. I don't buy that, although one ought to concede, I think, that distaste for his speech can never be fully isolated from the final judgment. On the flip side, though, I think that the academic fraud findings might in some small way also be pretextual with regard to his false claim of Indianness. By this I mean that the Regents had no chance to deal with the phoniness of his claim to being an Indian. Given their inability to address the ethnicity claim, they may have inclined more toward finding the academic dishonesty.

As the original signer of the Fire Ward Churchill petition, I'm pleased with the result. One lesson is that phony Indians who are phony scholars living in glass houses should not throw stones.


Lawyer: Concerning the 4th prong of the Pickering test, I found this summary in American Jurisprudence Proof of Facts 3d (p. 15):

Probable cause

This test is the determination of probable cause. Was the employee's speech a substantial or motivating factor in the employer's decision to terminate or otherwise discipline the employee? If the answer is no, the examination ends. The free speech issue is irrelevant to the employee's complaint. If the answer is yes, the employee still has one more potential hurdle to surmount.

The governmental employer may still avoid liability if the employer can demonstrate that the employment action would have resulted anyway. If this issue is reached, the burden of proof shifts and the employer is required to prove by a preponderance of the evidence that, based upon circumstances actually known to the employer, the adverse personnel action was imminent and would have occurred anyway. While the objectionable episode of protected free speech might have precipitated the action, there will be no liability for the action if it was inevitable.

That last sentence seems relevant to the Churchill case. Although Churchill's remark about 9/11 may have triggered CU's inquiry into his scholarship, CU will not be liable if the termination would have occurred anyway based on legitimate findings of research misconduct.

In a later comment, Lawyer points us to a set of model jury instructions for First Amendment retaliation claims, which he says "may be helpful in understanding what Churchill will have to prove in court."

CNews 27July07

From our Academic Lunch Mob department: Truthforce's whiny "Sacrificing the First Amendment for the Status Quo" (ht Noj)
Ominous Excerpt:

Ward and I appreciate your support in this small piece of the struggle to keep critical thinking alive,  and look forward to working with you on this and many other fronts.

It is indeed Churchill's "ethnic fraud issue" that is problematic, agreed Dr. James Riding In, Pawnee Nation of Oklahoma. Associate Professor of American Indian Studies at Arizona State University, and editor of Wicazo Sa Review: A Journal of Native American Studies.

"It is very problematic in terms [of] sovereignty and credibility when someone claims to be Indian and cannot support that claim with any degree of certainty. Indian nations, not individuals, have the sovereign power to determine who is a member. Anyone who engages in ethic fraud is not trustworthy," Riding In said.

Churchill's research has taken a critical look at federal Indian policy, however, Riding In noted.

"Why couldn't he write as a white man?" Riding In said.

Ahem. Later, Riding In examines another phenomenon:

Riding In said that ethnic fraud is a growing problem and he wishes that universities would go after those who falsely advance their careers as aggressively as the University of Colorado went after Churchill. He pointed to a recent study showing that a thousand historians are now claiming to be Indian compared to a decade ago when there were less than two dozen Indian historians.

"If this information presented in this study is accurate how can one explain such a dramatic jump in numbers without considering the specter of rampant ethic fraud in university hiring processes? This means that non-Indian cheaters who make false claims about their ethnicity have obtained a position of hegemonic control over the writing of Indian history. This situation is scary,'' Riding In said.

CU likely to try to switch courts (ht Leah)
Excerpt:

[Professor Ward Churchill legal sock-puppet David] Lane couldn't be reached for comment late Wednesday but said Tuesday that he was filing in Denver because he believes he can find a more sympathetic jury and the case will move faster. A federal jury would draw "rural, small-town people who are not as particularly enamored with Ward Churchill," he told reporters.

Employment attorney John Lowrie of Ford and Harrison LLP said it is likely the university will try to move the case to federal court.

"This case revolves around federal questions and jurisdiction," said Lowrie, who represents employers and said the case could be moved in 30 days if CU decides to proceed. "It will likely be moved. I would be shocked if it wasn't."

McConnellogue said CU attorneys would not make a decision on that for several days.

John Lowrie? What's Hecuba to him, or he to Hecuba? Ah, well. Never mind. Meanwhile, over at Colorado Daily, Lane indulges in a priceless bit of fantasy:

“I'm quite certain that we will find a jury who will give us a fair trial,” Lane said. “I expect to crush them under the heel of my litigation boot.”

Any tenured University of Colorado professor who says the firing of Ward Churchill will not limit or otherwise affect academic free speech and other freedoms, I wouldn't want teaching my children.

It is so patent a lie that they should have the dignity not to even address it. No, what happened to Ward Churchill should keep them up at night.

What’s the biggest higher education scandal of them all? Ward Churchill? Deconstructionist nonsense? Ideologically biased women’s studies programs? Actually, the biggest higher ed scandal of them all just may be a clever university tactic for tricking the taxpayers into subsidizing all of these abuses. I’m talking about the way colleges and universities collect multi-millions of dollars from the federal government in overhead costs every time they receive money for scientific research. On average, colleges charge the federal government for research overhead at a rate of 52 percent. That means a university can bill the federal government an average of 52 additional cents for every dollar it receives in direct research funding. At private universities, the government is charged an average of 57 percent for overhead.

I was particularly interested in the role of one Panther leader who oversaw the torture and murder of Alex Rackley. In my research I came across passing references to this Panther having served as a government agent. Tracing those references inevitably led to one source: Ward Churchill.

Specifically, the led to a passage in a book Churchill coauthored entitled Agents of Repression. Churchill wrote there that the Panther, "as it turned out, had been a paid FBI informer for a period of time never disclosed by Bureau." (The passage appears in a section titled, "Fabrication of Evidence," meaning fabrication by the FBI.)

That statement is footnoted. It refers to a paper written by late Panther leader Huey Newton that in fact presents no evidence that this Panther was a paid agent.

So I e-mailed Churchill to ask him the basis for the claim. He wrote back on Dec. 2, 2004.

"I've no official paper naming [the Panther] as an FBI operative. The case for his having been a provocateur is entirely circumstantial, but overwhelming," Churchill wrote.

Big HT to PB reader and regular commenter Orson Buggeigh for directing our attention to Rober "K.C." Johnson's "Ward Churchill and the Diversity Agenda"
Excerpt (links and emphasis in original):

Beyond illustrating the flawed conception of academic freedom too prevalent in the contemporary academy, the Churchill case illustrates what happens when universities abandon excellence as the primary criterion in the personnel process. Well before Churchill ever uttered his "Little Eichmanns" line, the University of Colorado - a Tier I research university - had hired, then tenured, and then promoted to department chairman a woefully underqualified academic charlatan. In this respect, the affair provides a case study of "diversity" hiring practices gone awry.

Churchill was hired through a "special opportunity" position, designed by the university to help "recruit and hire a more diverse faculty." He had an M.A. from little-known Sangamon State University and no Ph.D at all. As documents from the time noted, his qualifications included only two items: strong lobbying from Evelyn Hu-DeHart, the chair of the Ethnic Studies program, and the now-disputed fact that "Ward is a Native American," meaning his hire would contribute "to increasing the cultural diversity on campus."

Churchill then received tenure after Hu-DeHart - by this time chair of the newly created Ethnic Studies Department - obtained positive reviews of his scholarship from other professors of ethnic studies. That scholarship, of course, has now been almost completely discredited - as based on plagiarism and willful distortion of sources.

CNews 26July07

CU faculty organ Silver & Gold Record covers the Can-A-Thon:
Regents Dismiss Ward Churchill
Complaints about investigation rebuffed

Churchill is clearly cavalier in his approach to the historical record, twisting and misrepresenting facts in order to make a grand, "anti-imperialist" point. When rereading his controversial essay "Some Push Back"—in which he refers to the "little Eichmanns"—I noticed this passage on Gulf War I:

In trying to affix a meaning to such things, we would do well to remember the wave of elation that swept America at reports of what was happening along the so-called Highway of Death: perhaps 100,000 "towel-heads" and "camel jockeys"--or was it "sand niggers" that week?--in full retreat, routed and effectively defenseless, many of them conscripted civilian laborers, slaughtered in a single day by jets firing the most hyper-lethal types of ordnance.

100,000 killed in the closing days of the war by "hyper-lethal types of ordnance"? (As opposed, I suppose, to moderately lethal ordinance.) Easy to understand "why they hate us," I suppose. Except that Churchill's casualty figures are off by about 99,700.

As Washington Post correspondent Steve Coll wrote, "more Iraqis fled their vehicles and were taken prisoner than were killed by U.S. bombing of the highway. There still are no reliable figures on precisely how many people were killed in the convoy, but reporters who visited the scene as bodies were being collected say the most they saw at any one place was 40, and they estimated that a total of 200 to 300 Iraqis may have died at the scene."

Professor Churchill has been under attack for a long time. His crime - he tried to chip away at the denial that many found comfort in. Some habits are hard to break. Many of us are born and bred to believe that we are the best. Our country has never done anything wrong. The USA has never committed a war crime. We do not torture. Just ask the Attorney General.

Churchill is not alone in his current circumstance. His name will go down in history along with Galileo and others who have dared to challenge the conventional view. Now the trial of the century is about to begin. It has been more than 300 years since the Salem Witch Trials and more than 80 years since the Scopes Trial.

...um, lady, Churchill would belong with Galileo only if Galileo had claimed the universe revolves around the Earth (and that he had irrefutable proof, proof he never seemed able to produce). And the Scopes trial was a defeat for evolutionists. And, as we've wondered before, is it a witch hunt if you actually find a witch?

Churchill is ready to fight back. He is on the offense. Go get'em, Ward. Many are with you.

Will Churchill receive justice through a judicial process? No one knows. The judicial system in the United States often fails to achieve truth or justice.

...so, it's a win-win situation for The Perfesser & his Dune Buggy Attack Battalion. If his lawsuit prevails, he regains his throne in the Kingdom of Any Wound You Can Show, I Can Show Worser. If he loses his lawsuit, then the US judicial system is fatally flawed. Got it.

University spokesman Ken McConnellogue said the school stands behind the Regents' vote to fire Churchill.

"We believe this is a matter of academic integrity for the university, so we will not be settling the lawsuit," he said.

One of the first things University of Colorado president Hank Brown did after its regents fired divisive professor Ward Churchill Tuesday was reach out to donors, some of whom had held back money until the process was resolved.

In a letter dated July 24, Brown said the university was accountable to donors and was obliged "to work to continue to be a place worthy of your investment."

Responses Wednesday were overwhelmingly positive, CU Foundation officials said. Ninety-two percent of the 50 donors who replied to Brown's letter agreed with Churchill's firing.

...It'd be interesting to find out just how much donation money was being withheld.

I read the complaint and was surprised that the lawyer asked for money but not for injuctive relief. That's legalese for a court order for the university to take some action, ie reinstating Churchill in his job. He also could have asked for a temporary restraining order to delay the firing. The other thing I noticed is that what happened yesterday was that Churchill amended a previous complaint - he had already filed the lawsuit sometime before. I have only seen what was filed yesterday and not any other motions in the case.

You may find interesting the legal standard that the court will use to instruct the jury in the trial:

To determine "whether a public employer's actions impermissibly infringe on free speech rights, the court applies the four-prong test articulated in Pickering v. Bd. of Educ., 391 U.S. 563 (1968)" (Burns v. Bd. of County Comm'rs of Jackson County, 330 F.3d 1275, 1285 (10th Cir. 2003)) First, it must determine whether the employee's speech involves a matter of public concern. If so, it balances the employee's interest in commenting upon matters of public concern against the interest of the State, as an employer, in promoting the efficiency of the public services it performs through its employees. Third, if the balance tips in favor of the employee, the employee then must show that the speech was a substantial factor or a motivating factor in the detrimental employment decision. Fourth, if the plaintiff establishes that speech was such a factor, the employer may demonstrate that it would have taken the same action against the employee even in the absence of the protected speech.

The university can base its defense on the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th tests, and will probably use some combination of them. I think the school's defense will basically be that people who live in glass houses shouldn't throw stones. All the attention he attracted to himself brought all these other ethics issues out of the woodwork.

Churchill is going to argue that there is a witchhunt against him, but in reality he was doing all he could to draw attention to himself.

Over at Inside Higher Education, the comments we noted yesterday have multiplied, and as usual, History Professor Art Eckstein cuts to the chase. Here's just one of his pithy comments:

Pico, and then Faculty Brat, when combined, raise a point I hadn’t thought of: Ward grading exams and essays of his students—exams based overwhelmingly on his own work.

Churchill often assigned his books (and ONLY his books) as the reading for his courses at CU; indeed, one former student said on a previous Ward discussion here in insidehighered.com that Ward required—required—that students buy these books, four or five of them, personally from him, in his office, for cash.

Leaving THAT little item aside, the point about Ward assigning his own books as the textbooks for his courses would be this: how many students over the years got a high grade from Ward for repeating to Ward the teacher Ward the “researcher’s” false and lying version of the Mandan Epidemic, complete with ahistorical Army forts on the Upper Missouri manned by ahistorical evil Army surgeons —NONE OF WHICH items ever existed, historically???

The mind boggles.

The Party's Over...

...But everyone suddenly has an opinion. Since we were away from a computer today, and since Drunkablog and Slapstick Politics have done such a fine job rounding up all the best punditry, we'll simply link to them to get you started (and to give us time to reconnoiter).

In an attempt to defend Churchill, some have claimed the only reason his academic offenses were discovered was because his research received increased attention due to the controversy. They say to find academic offences as the result of attention due to his extreme political views is inherently unfair. Here’s the problem with that argument: by publishing essays, publishing “research,” and speaking at other universities, Churchill was trying to garner attention. Because he was seeking attention by his own actions, I am not troubled that controversy brought increased attention to his work. He got all the attention he wanted (and more). He succeeded! I don’t think he can say, “Please examine this essay. Please attend to this idea. ...Whoa! Stop all this attention. I didn’t want that much attention!”

Publishing is, by definition, not a private activity. Published work is out there for anyone to read. His academic offenses were not expressed in private letters or telephone conversations. His offenses were expressed in work he voluntarily published. If his research could not stand public scrutiny, then he should not have published it to the public.

Churchill’s cheating is a stain on academia. I have no sympathy for cheaters, especially those who unapologetically and repeatedly cheat. Good riddance.

Buh-Bye

...Oh, and Ward? This one's for you.

Dismissalooza - post meridiem

Watch this space for the second thrilling episode of Dismissalooza, starting (roughly) at 4pm today (or whenever CU stops staffing its AV department with Ethnic Studies students).

Update (3:59): Live video stream has begun (now finsi. (just CU's logo over crowd noise... time to take bathroom breaks while you still can). One of PB's jackbooted hooligans reports that the same DBAB crew from this morning is there, and that some people were witnessed bringing in a drum, so a musical interlude is, perhaps, in the offing.

Update (4:21): Dang, that's one boring logo. (update: and, apparently, a poorly designed one)

Update (4:42): The logo. The crowd murmur. The excitement.

Update (5:00): Wow, if you stare at that logo long enough, it starts to look like there are mountains in the background.

Update (5:13): The Daily Camera is reporting that CU officials said at 5pm the Regents would reconvene "any minute." (ht Noj)

Update (5:30): Sheesh.

Update (5:36): More than an hour and a half later than anticipated, the CU Regents reconvene to vote publicly on the dismissal of Professor Ward Churchill.

Update (5:38): Motion is made to dismiss Churchill, and is passed by voice vote 8-1. Regents adjourn. video feed ends amid unintelligible shouts apparently protesting the vote.

Update (6:06): Although the press conference following the Regents vote was ballyhooed to be in the live video feed, it is not. One of our commenters says the press conference has begun. ...with a live feed? Where?

Update (6:10): The Denver NBC affiliate is reporting "[i]mmediately after the decision was announced people in the crowd booed and some swore at the board members. Churchill and his supporters then participated in a Native American ceremony outside of the building." The affiliate is also reporting that Cindy Carlisle cast the lone dissenting vote. (ht Leah)

Update (6:14): CU President Hank Brown has a written statement concerning the dismissal vote already posted. (ht John Doe)

Update (6:40): From the Denver CBS affiliate, here's video footage of the press conference—with drums, even! (ht Grad)

Update (7:10): Courtesy TDR, a photo of The Perfesser & DBAB, shortly after the vote. (we just added the caption)

Update (7:48): Slapstick Politics has photos and commentary on the festivities. They also have some YouTube videos of the boos and catcalls after the Regents' adjournment, as well as the supportive, nonjudgmental, culturally-diverse drumfest held by Churchill supporters afterward.

Update (8:58): Hmmm..... "Not everyone around him was a supporter however as one man, a self-described blogger, began a heated exchange with Churchill which eventually forced campus security to monitor the situation." Which reminds us... Anybody seen Drunkablog lately?

Update (9:04): CU has released a statement concerning Churchill's termination.

Update (9:24): Copious Dissent has a unique take on the dismissal: Churchill was done in by his own interpretation of the 9th Amendment. As Spock might say, "fascinating."

Update (9:25): Drunkablog finally returns from his Adventures In Boulderland, with more pics and more snide commentary!

Update (10:08): PB reader El Marco caught some snapshots of the various Dismissalooza protesters.


Special thanks to Michelle Malkin, Hot Air, Instapundit, and Gateway Pundit for linking to our coverage, and particularly to S. Weasel, for the link and the most excellent artwork.

Dismissalooza - ante meridiem

Today is the day (or is it?) most of us have been waiting for: The day Professor Ward Churchill is weaned from the public teat. For nearly two decades, Churchill has been lying, fabricating, and plagiarizing his way toward this day, and we're just glad we were able to be here to share it with him.

We'll be liveblogging the day as events unfold.The audio for the morning CU Regents session will go live approximately 8:15. We'll make this link live as soon as CU does.

Update (8:43am): One of our jackbooted hooligans says CU is just now setting up. BTW: Drunkablog is attending this morning's kick-off, and has promised photos and commentary over on his website later today. Also, El Presidente over at Slapstick Politics will be covering the events.

Update (9am): Still no audio.

Update (9:15): Nope.

Update (9:26): Still no audio, but Denver's CBS affiliate is reporting the Regents met promptly (and in public) at 8am and quickly voted to go into executive session.

Update (9:31): CBS has video of Churchill's legal sock-puppet David Lane telling reporters Churchill waived his right to privacy, but the Regents declined to open their morning discussions to the public. Churchill also steps in to agree with "what my attorney said" plus a lot of his usual sound & fury ("...reverses the polarities"). At this point, we're going to take a SWAG and opine that there will be no audio of this morning's festivities forthcoming from CU.

Update (10:06): Drunkablog has returned from the morning portion of this latest act of the Ward Churchill Burlesque, and we await his posting of photos & snide commentary.

Update (10:19): According to PB reader John Doe, CU experienced "technical difficulties" this morning with the audio, but promises to provide audio and video of this afternoon's Regents vote. Update: CU is reporting the same thing.

Update (10:25): The Rocky is reporting there were almost as many media as Churchill supporters at the morning's event. (via Slapstick Politics)

Update (12:21): Drunkablog has finally posted his photos and the much-anticipated snide commentary on this morning's sedate and auspicious proceedings. It appears some of Churchill's Dune Buggy Attack Battalion were less than cordial ("While [Josh R.] Dillabaugh threatened to kill me only once, he followed me around while I was taking pictures, saying I'd been harassing his wife and threatening to 'kick my ass.'"). Lovely.

CNews 24July07

Ward Churchill is dismissed.

The blogosphere reacts:
Ward Churchill - FIRED!
It’s over for Ward Churchill
SUCK IT WARD CHURCHILL ...
Finally, a School With Some Sense!
Ding dong….
The Charlatan is Gone
Ward Churchill — the Fake Indian — Fired From CU
'Little Eichmann's' vindicated - Ward Churchill fired
Bye Bye Wardy
Churchill Out
Ward is outa there.

The actions of CU administrators in this case have done grave harm to Professor Churchill, to this University and the educational principles it purports to uphold, and to the taxpayers of the State of Colorado. The responsibility for these actions now rests with this Board of Regents. The Regents, too, can yield to the political and financial pressures to fire Professor Churchill in the name of transparently pretextual "research misconduct" charges, or they can reverse this process and begin to restore the University's commitment to its true educational mission.

...that "true educational mission" wouldn't be to lie, to fabricate history, to plagiarize, and to foment insurrection, would it, Ward?

...and let's not forget our favorite stoat, S. Weasel, with Dismissalooza…!. Weasel even offers an artist's representation of the Mighty Debo, as well as some fashion tips ("First, lose a few pounds or lose the turtleneck. Dude. Seriously.")

CNews 23July07

From 'Media Arrangements for Special CU Board of Regents Meeting on July 24'
Excerpt:

Due to the high volume of accredited media requests to cover the meeting, only accredited members of the news media will be afforded access to the press conference hosted by President Brown and Regents' Chair Pat Hayes following the board's vote in public session. Independent journalists, independent filmmakers (those unaffiliated with media networks or organizations), bloggers and Web site hosts are free to observe the morning public session of the board at 8 a.m. and the board's public session later in the afternoon. Individuals who fit in these categories are also free to view the press conference by CU President Hank Brown and CU Board of Regents Chair Pat Hayes online at the CU System Web page at www.cu.edu.

...does this mean a WorldNetDaily 'journalist' could get in, but one of PB's jackbooted hooligans could not? Oh, the humanity!

MALKIN: So Thomas Brown, one of the professors that is accusing him of saying that his remarks about the Army "perpetuating genocide" are wrong, what is he, some sort of tool for the conservatives going after Ward Churchill.

LANE: No, no, no. No, everybody has their own agenda.

MALKIN: These are longstanding accusations. And this is what the university is worried about.

LANE: Exactly. That's the point. There has been a professional rivalry between Brown and Churchill for years. The same with LaVelle, the same with a lot of the people that have been stepping forward dumping on Churchill. That's why I'm done with the staged production here. Let's see what a jury of citizens in the state of Colorado says.

If a jury of citizens in Colorado agrees with the University of Colorado, I've got no gripes. OK? But let's see what an actual jury in an actual courtroom with an actual adversary proceeding that's not a stacked deck against Ward Churchill has to say about this whole incident.

I take these cases on a contingent fee. So for me to be gambling my time on something like this means I think I'm going to win. So...

If nothing else, the Churchill case points out the fact that we need to seriously consider the question of whether we academics are doing enough to police ourselves. The next time those attacking academia come up with a particular person to attack, will we be confident that our defense of that person will not open us up to further accusations of protecting the unqualified or dishonest? We don’t want people saying that we care more about our “friends” than about the quality of the education we offer and the scholarship we are doing. Are we making sure that will be the case?

Ultimately, it shouldn’t be the man himself, Ward Churchill, that we are arguing about inside academia. His weaknesses seem pretty well established. But the conversation should continue about how best we respond to situations like this until we have developed means of insuring we can be confident of our own academic integrity and are able to mount an unambiguous defense of our academic freedom.

Churchill’s defenders, prominently led by the American Civil Liberties Union, maintain Churchill is being persecuted for comments he wrote that compared the victims of the 9/11 terrorist attacks to Nazi Adolf Eichman [sic]. In a letter to the regents last week, the ACLU said, “The investigation of Professor Churchill’s scholarship cannot be separated from the indefensible lynch-mob furor” that followed publicity about his 9/11 comments. The ACLU urged the regents to reject Brown’s recommendation to fire Churchill.

But Brown, in his letter to the regents in May, laid out an irrefutable case that Churchill had fabricated and falsified historical evidence, plagiarized and cited his own work under someone else’s name. Those infractions were enough to demonstrate that Churchill “is not qualified to hold a tenured faculty position at the University of Colorado and should be dismissed for repeated failures to meet minimum standards of professional integrity,” Brown maintained.

Despite the arguments of Churchill’s attorney, the ACLU and others, this is not a First Amendment case. It is about the institutional integrity of the University of Colorado and its ability to enforce minimum academic standards for its faculty. If the regents care about either of those, they will vote to fire Churchill Tuesday.

CNews 22July07

From our Great Moments In Churchillian Hubris department (ht Leah):

Churchill said plagiarism would be an example of conduct falling below minimum standards of professional integrity — and thus grounds for dismissal — but he challenged anyone to find such transgressions in his work. "I actually get criticized for over-annotation," he said."—Silver & Gold Record, February 10, 2005

...and from that same article:

[...] Churchill made it clear that if the CU administration and regents attempt to fire him, they will have a fight on their hands. Churchill said he will send the matter to the Privilege and Tenure Committee, and if he is dismissed, "they can explain it to a federal judge. I could go into court and represent myself and win this case."

CNews 21July07, Part II

Churchill Press Release on CU’s Refusal to Investigate Charges of Falsification, Fabrication, and Plagiarism Against Investigative Committee:

Based on the May 9, 2006 Report of a University of Colorado (CU) Investigative Committee, President Hank Brown has recommended that I be dismissed for “research misconduct.” From the beginning, it has been clear that going through my scholarship with a fine-tooth comb was simply a pretext to fire me for my constitutionally protected speech.

The fraudulent nature of CU’s “investigation” has been clearly documented by 5 sets of research misconduct complaints filed against the Investigative Committee. Two sets of these complaints were filed in May 2007 by 9 CU professors, 6 outside professors and 2 attorneys. I have since filed three additional sets of research misconduct charges. These 5 complaints document, among other things, falsification and fabrication of evidence and plagiarism by the Committee in its Report on my scholarship.

Today I was informed that the University of Colorado will not investigate these charges against the Investigative Committee because its activities “did not constitute research.” This is astonishing, given that the Committee members were purportedly selected on the basis of their scholarly credentials and claim throughout the Report to be engaged in scholarly research and analysis.

The May 9 Report is 124 pages long, with 254 footnotes and 5 appendices. It was immediately published and disseminated under the University’s imprimatur. Investigative Committee Chair Mimi Wesson has publicly acknowledged at least one “error” in the Report and stated that in the interest of “research integrity” the Committee will “take steps to ensure that the error is corrected for the scholarly record.”

President Brown claims that I should be fired to preserve “academic integrity.” Yet he relies on a Report which the University refuses to investigate against credible and well-documented charges of falsifications, fabrications, and plagiarism.

The University cannot have it both ways. If the Investigative Committee’s Report is scholarship, it must be held to the same standards to which it claims to be holding me accountable. If it is not, President Brown’s recommendation is based on no credible evidence at all.

The Regents will vote on President Brown’s recommendation on July 24. We will see if they simply rubber stamp this charade.

Professor Ward Churchill
Boulder, Colorado
July 21, 2007

CNews 21July07

Odd that this page on Wikipedia (here's the page cached by google as it appeared two days ago) no longer exists.
Update (July 24): Michael Jackson (no, not that one. Well, maybe, but we doubt it.) alerts us to a (partially) reinstated page on Wikipedia, now titled "Criticisms of Ward Churchill."

"I don't think Slater should be provided a forum in any event," says [Ward] Churchill, the forum panelist from AIM. "He's a polyester punk pop-up Klansman who's agitating other people to do this stuff. You can see the literature they put out. You can see the results of their action, and it's dead people of color."

George Washington, whose face was deeply pitted as a result of his own bout with smallpox at age nineteen, was initially an outspoken opponent of variolation, believing it would spread the disease. Upon learning of a supposed British plot to use smallpox as a weapon against the Continental Army, however, he assembled a special unit of one thousand pockmarked fighters to counteract the danger that the Redcoats might pose. Shortly thereafter, Washington became a zealous convert to variolation, and in 1777 he ordered compulsory variolation of all new recruits.

CNews 20July07

Ward Churchill files new (heavily footnoted, quelle surprise) charges of misconduct against the Investigating Subcommittee (via DBAB Central)

• Fabrication and Falsification
  
• Falsification & Misrepresentation of Sources
• Plagiarism
  

...and for those following along, here's the subcommittee's report, for easy reference.
Update: We wonder whether The Perfesser raised these issues during the Privilege & Tenure panel's review of the burlesque.

Update II: As we examine Churchill's various charges, we're happy to see he hasn't lost his flair for fabrication, at least when he says "I’ve never published anything remotely resembling an 'essay on Fort Clark,' to say nothing of multiple essays." (here, on page 4)

Well, Google disagrees, somewhat, since most of the results on a list of result are to footnotes in Churchill screeds:

• On the Justice of Roosting Chickens: Reflections on the Consequences of U.S. Imperial Arrogance ... - Page 30

• On the Justice of Roosting Chickens: Reflections on the Consequences of U.S. Imperial Arrogance ... - Page 36

• Since Predator Came: Notes from the Struggle for American Indian Liberation - Page 36

• From a Native Son: Selected Essays in Indigenism, 1985-1995 - Page 32

• Acts of Rebellion: The Ward Churchill Reader - Page 56

...so even Google is aware (as, consequently, are two bloggers and a New Jersey cop) that Churchill has written at least one essay two essays that mention Fort Clark, and a slew of footnotes (including the misleading cite to Thornton in Since Predator Came, which we discussed tangentially here). BTW: There are three pages of Google search results for the term "smallpox and ward churchill", most of the links listed are to books and essays by other authors who cite Churchill as an authority on intentional smallpox infection of Indians. And let's not forget (as The Perfesser seems to have) that he mentions the 1837 intentional "inculcation" of smallpox among the Mandans while writing as his then-wife, M. Annette Jaimes.

Updates III and IV: Our comments section is brimming with refutations of Churchill's latest attempt at fiction-writing (mostly from Noj, who is fast becoming PB's own pseudonymous WC-BSD; the Drunkablog has more fun at Churchill's expense as he merrily cuts a wide swatch through The Perfesser's most loghorreaic exercise in self-defense. Calling "bullshit" on Churchill's various utterances is becoming something of a growth industry, wouldn't you say? We'll be almost sorry to see him go. Almost.

For [the Blood, Hidatsa, Kiowa, Mandan, and Teton Sioux] and other people, the summer of 1837 was horrific. The central event is not disputed [sic]: An American Fur Company steamer carried smallpox-infected men and women up the Missouri River, and they in turn infected others each time they stopped. Bent on exchanging trade goods for robes and furs obtained over the winter, the steamer St. Peters left St. Louis in mid-April 1837 for upper Missouri River posts. After ten or eleven days on the river, a deckhand became feverish. Several days later, the steamer's captain and others discussed the reasons for the fever. Smallpox was raised as a possibility. Some advocated stranding the man ashore as a necessary preventative measure. But the symptoms were ambiguous and the captain, doubting smallpox and needing his hand's labor, refused.

By the time there was no doubt that the deckhand's sickness was due to smallpox, it was too late to isolate the disease. The deckhand had infected others aboard, including three Arikara women. On June 5, the St. Peters reached Sioux Agency and distributed trade goods to awaiting Yankton and Santee Sioux. Fourteen days afterward, the Arikara women left the boat at Fort Clark, a busy trading post, for a nearby Mandan village, and five days later the St. Peters arrived at Fort Union, where it remained briefly before its return downriver to St. Louis, stopping at the same posts en route.

CU Board of Regents Holds Special Meeting to Hear and Vote on Professor Churchill’s Case

Issued: July 19, 2007

WHO: University of Colorado Board of Regents, an elected nine-member board, has broad oversight of the university. One of the board’s responsibilities is to take action on recommendations for faculty dismissal. Regent policy provides that “the board shall take action, which may include adoption or modification of the president’s recommendation or dismissal of the action against the faculty member. The board’s action, which must be taken in public session, is final.”

WHY: CU-Boulder Professor Ward Churchill has requested a hearing in front of the Board of Regents based on CU President Hank Brown’s recommendation to dismiss him. Regent policy provides the faculty member an opportunity to request a hearing before the Board during executive session. The policy can be found at http://www.cu.edu/regents/Policies/Policy5I.htm

WHAT: The board has called a special meeting to provide Professor Churchill an opportunity for a hearing before to the board before it takes action on President Brown’s dismissal recommendation. Since this is a special meeting of the board, no public testimony will be taken as stated in Regent policy. http://www.cusys.edu/regents/Policies/Policy2L.htm

An open mike will be available after the event for anyone desiring to express their personal opinions on topics related to the events of the day.

WHEN and WHERE: Tuesday, July 24, 2007 from 8 a.m. – 5 p.m. at CU-Boulder’s University Memorial Center (UMC)

8:00-8:15 a.m. Board convenes in public to announce it will go into executive session, UMC Room 235 (audio stream will be available at www.cu.edu)

8:15 a.m. – 4:00 p.m. (no earlier)
Board will be in executive session, which includes three parts:
1. Briefing by the board’s counsel
2. Hearing - includes three parties involved in the case (Churchill/attorney, university counsel and faculty’s Privilege and Tenure Committee/counsel). Each party will have a set amount of time to present its case to the board. The board can ask questions, but no new evidence can be presented.
3. Regents deliberate

No earlier than 4 p.m.
Regents will resume public session in UMC’s Glenn Miller Ballroom to vote on the president’s recommendation (video stream will be available at www.cu.edu)

After regents meeting
CU President Brown and Board Chair Patricia Hayes will hold a press conference in UMC, Room 235. All media will need credentials from a recognized news agency to attend press conference, no exceptions. (video stream will be available at www.cu.edu)

VIDEO AND AUDIO STREAM: www.cu.edu
Audio stream of 8:00 a.m. public session and video stream of afternoon public session and press conference

CNews 19July07

From our Here I ComeTo Save The Day! department: The ACLU tells CU Regents 'Don't fire Ward Churchill'
Excerpt:

"The investigation of professor Churchill’s scholarship cannot be separated from the indefensible lynch-mob furor that generated the initial calls for his termination," the [ACLU's] letter said.

Update: Here's the press release and full text of the ACLU and ACLU of Colorado's Open Letter to the CU Regents
Interesting Excerpt:

The investigative committee found six charges of research misconduct. The Appeals Panel of the Privilege and Tenure committee concluded that only three of those were valid. Only one member of the five-member investigative committee believed that dismissal was an appropriate sanction, and a majority of the appeals panel concluded that termination was not warranted. Despite these conclusions, the University President has recommended termination, thus urging the same result as the elected officials who publicly called for Professor Churchill's termination in 2005. The current Governor of Colorado has now added his voice to those clamoring for Professor Churchill to be fired.

I will not make this letter long and drawn out, as I'm sure you will be receiving many a letter such as this one. I am simply writing to declare my distaste for the idea of firing Ward Churchill, one of our country's most distinguished and well-known educators, from your university. I feel it is completely uncalled for, is an exhibition of bowing down to backward political forces, and is in contempt of the very ideas of a "free" country and elite educational institution.

If Ward Churchill is fired for the bogus reasons you have declared, then it is a complete and utter travesty of our supposed way of life. I am determined to see to it that Ward's name is not tarnished by such hypocrisy. Please be sure that if you do decide to make such a grievous move, you must know that you will be going up against forces for positive struggle that are determined more than ever to put a stop to such incredulous people as yourselves.

Luke Patterson, Los Angeles, Calif.

You're a little late on that stopping Ward's name from being tarnished thing, Luke.

...and:

I am writing to urge the CU regents to oppose the firing of Ward Churchill as tenured faculty at the University of Colorado at Boulder. I join the ever-growing list of individuals and institutions who firmly stand in support of Ward and against this charade of a pretextual investigation of his scholarship.

The specific charges against Ward have been debunked. Recently, 15 professors and two attorneys filed two sets of formal research misconduct allegations against the investigative committee which wrote the report used to justify sanctions. These illustrate that the committee members were so determined to convict Ward that they engaged in falsification and fabrication of evidence, twisting the facts to fit their conclusions.

I urge the CU regents and the Denver-Boulder community to not be associated with these efforts to dismiss Ward Churchill from his teaching position at the university.

Jean Caiani, Emeryville, Calif.

...What is it with this "15 professors and two attorneys" meme? We can understand the strength of contemptuous ridicule in "two bloggers and a New Jersey cop" but invoking the mystical power of "15 professors and two attorneys" sounds way too much like the set-up to a bad joke. Oh. Um, never mind.

WARD CHURCHILL IS A PROPHET. HE EXPOSES THE EVIL OF A POLICE STATE IN THIS COUNTRY. TWO CRITICISM OF CHURCHILL IS HE FORGOT TO LECTURE ABOUT THE FOUNDATION OF AMERIKKKAN POLICE. THE FIRST POLICE WERE ENFORCERS OF THE SLAVE LAWS IN THE EARLY CENTURIES ON THE AMERIKKKAN PLANTATIONS AND INTO THE MODERN POLICE GANGS WHO STILL HUNT BLACK MALES IN THE BIG CITIES. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED LISTENING FOR WHITE PEOPLE.

CNews 18July07

Peter N. Kirstein proves to be useful useless (see Drunkablog's latest post on late-breaking schedule changes over at wardchurchill.net), after all:

From Students and Faculty for True Academic Freedom

Will the CU Regents Fire Ward Churchill?
They vote on July 24. Let’s make our voices heard.

JOIN OUR VIGIL & OBSERVE REGENTS’ MEETING:

When: Tuesday July 24 at 7:30 a.m.

Where: meet up in the plaza in front of the UMC
student center
( Euclid Ave entrance just east of Broadway)

>From there, we’ll walk over and attend the Regents’
meeting:
8:00 – 10:00 a.m.
4:00 – 6:00 p.m.

* We are using this meet-up plan because the location of Regents’ meeting has not yet been announced. The UMC is close to UMC parking and centrally located on campus.

Why Mobilize:

The Regents of the University of Colorado have scheduled a meeting on the CU-Boulder campus on July 24, 2007 to vote on the dismissal of Professor Ward Churchill.

The University is pretending to fire him for his scholarship, but it’s clearly in retaliation for his comments about 9/11. To see what’s wrong with the so-called research misconduct charges, visit www.wardchurchill.net or www.defendcriticalthinking.org.

Students and Faculty for True Academic Freedom call upon all those who care about free speech and academic freedom to join us in protesting this charade.

The Regents will open with a “public” meeting at 8:00 am. They will go into a closed session to hear arguments from Prof. Churchill and his attorney, as well as the University’s lawyers. They say they will re-open for their public vote at 4:00 p.m.

As we know, a “public” meeting doesn’t mean that the public will have a chance to speak. (Witness the arrests at their February 2005 meeting.)

Our plan is to have observers at the meeting and hold a vigil outside. It is critical to be there to convey our message:
* Don’t Fire Ward Churchill
* Defend Critical Thinking
* Preserve Academic Freedom

We may not change the Regents’ vote, but the world is watching. This is a test case: The easier they think it is to fire Ward Churchill on bogus charges of research misconduct, the more attacks we’ll see on professors and students, on ethnic studies programs, and on critical thinking.

As usual, this decision will take place when most of the students and faculty are away from campus. And, of course, the Regents may change their plans at the last minute to avoid any real public input. So, spread the word, stay tuned, and check out last minute developments at: www.wardchurchill.net.

Update: As if eager to provide further proof of the aptness of our neologism "dyssentient" (rhymes with "critical thimking"), those critical thimkers over at wardchurchill.net post another dyssentient letter of support for The Perfesser (we're not going to bother to send them more traffic; go read Drunkablog's post on it)

CNews 17July07

According to this site, "international law scholar" Ward Churchill will be serving on a panel of judges for a "International Tribunal On Hurricanes Katrina and Rita" in New Orleans August 29th. (ht Leah) According to the site, "Hurricane survivors have serious charges against the federal, state and local governments for violating their human rights."
Among those charges the tribunal will consider are:

• Crimes against humanity
• Ethnic cleansing and genocide
• Racial discrimination
• Denial of the rights of displaced persons and the right to return

• Hold the US government accountable for its crimes against humanity;
• Demand financial restitution and justice for the Survivors of Katrina and Rita;
• Advance the Katrina-Rita reconstruction movement;
• Build a global campaign against the US government’s program of ethnic cleansing

CNews 14July07

Dissidents have suddenly found their voice, it seems. Here's Professor James Benjamin, pleading for (let 'em hear you in the street now!) Ward Churchill To Be Saved From The Consequences Of His Own Actions™.
Our Favorite Quote:

Keep in mind that contrary to what Churchill’s detractors may be hoping, if Churchill is dismissed there are plenty of other scholars (myself included) who will carry on in his place, speaking those unpopular and politically incorrect but ever so necessary truths to the public.

...Say, Dr. Benjamin, does that mean you're going to start publishing stuff under various names (some stuff you've written, some stuff you've stolen from others), then cite that same stuff to support your own theses? Will you go whole hog, Dr. Benjamin, and fabricate entire historical episodes to further support your theories? We have to say, Dr. Benjamin, those are some mighty big clown shoes you're threatening to fill.

I hope that some are interested to understand how the Churchill-chosen words have been heard by me. I was touched by the force and power of the statements. So many of us who watch the daily devastation raining upon children weep quietly. To hear a leader speak out loudly in support of the children and of the parents and of the families and of the communities and of the friends of these children—this touched me, because it is not the daily bread our culture feeds us. I perceive great latitude in society for orthodox condemnation; I see the words of Ward Churchill as no more strident.

“We have the right to life.” Even Eichmann has the right to life. And Churchill demands that the lives of Iraqi children carry the same meaning as the lives of NYC working professionals.
The fact is clear to me: Dismissing the words of Ward Churchill cannot assuage the choices we make regarding how we spend our brief time on this planet. What brand of SUV would Jesus of Nazareth purchase with his corporate windfalls? The answer, like the facts, is clear to those who see.

CNews 13July07

Drunkablog steals a link from us we weren't aware of and hadn't come across yet (proving what an invidious little sneak he is): Critical Race Theorist Derrick Bell speaks up for The Perfesser.
Our favorite quote: "As I indicated at the outset, I am a supporter of Ward Churchill. His academic output speaks for itself[....]"
Our other favorite quote: "I predict that dismissing the charges against Professor Churchill will cause howls of protest from those outside the University, but will bring quiet sighs of relief from those faculty whose careers and lives are founded on peace and order so necessary to live the life of the mind."
Obviously, Bell is not only a critical race theorist, but a critical thimker, as well. No wonder he teaches at Harvard and NYU. Probably even one of their "most distinguished professors."

My position is simple … as citizens of the empire, each of us is complicit. There are no innocents. So, to go through your list, from the perspective of a military person, the WTC was a legitimate target … in precisely the same manner as all of those people who have died in Iraq as a function of the various means of collateral damage we have inflicted upon them, including the multiple levels of reaction to our behavior.

The university investigative committee concluded Churchill committed academic misconduct by inventing facts, ghost-writing articles he later cited in his work, and plagiarism.

When asked Thursday if he believes it's possible the regents would not fire Churchill, David Lane, the professor's attorney, said “No.”

CNews 12July07

Today's CU faculty organ Silver & Gold has a good overview of the process that will take place during the July 24th all-day Terminapalooza Axe-travaganza Layoffiesta Sackebration Cashiernaval Felice Terminadad Redundanteenth Shitcanboree Bouncemony Pinkslipaballoo (additional one-time use neologisms courtesy of Noj).
Excerpt:

CU spokesperson Michele McKinney said Monday that attorneys for the University, Churchill and P&T met July 5 and scheduled an all-day meeting for July 24 in UCB's University Memorial Center. The bulk of that meeting will be held in executive session, as Churchill has requested a private hearing with the board, as is his right under regental policy. At the conclusion of the closed session, the board will emerge and vote in public on whether to accept or decline Brown's recommendation to dismiss Churchill.

McKinney said the private hearing will likely consist of three parts. First, outside counsel from the Colorado Attorney General's office will brief the board on the day's schedule, the materials available to them and the scope of the hearing. Secondly, she said, attorneys for CU, Churchill and P&T will have a set amount of time to make their presentations to the regents. New evidence may not be presented at the hearing, according to McKinney, although the regents may ask questions regarding the record of the case and the presentations made at the hearing. Thirdly, she said, the regents will be given time to deliberate in private before conducting their public vote in the University Memorial Center Glenn Miller Ballroom.

At the end of the article, there's this interesting little tidbit:

Churchill's supporters are circulating an e-mail message to organize a vigil on the morning of July 24. They plan to meet in the plaza south of the UMC, and then attend the regents meeting, according to the e-mail.

Knowing that our readers will want to attend the vigil—particularly if it is catered as extravagantly as Churchillpalooza—we'll keep our eyes peeled for the full email message.
Update: Looks like Ward Churchill's Dune Buggy Attack Battalion fears public attention more than it longs for public participation; there's nary a word about the alleged vigil to be found on the internet, thus far, no member of PB's crack team of jackbooted counter-insurgents has uncovered a copy of the email.

Prior to his Eichmann comment, Churchill used the following precursor to set up his case: “ [The 9/11 terrorists] did not license themselves to ‘target innocent civilians.’”

There you have it. Churchill was trying to make the argument that the 9/11 terrorists did not target the WTC simply to kill innocent Americans. According to him, the 9/11 attackers went after the WTC because it was a legitimate military target in an act of war. Plain and simple. Of course, Churchill should have clarified his position better in his original essay given the weight of his argument. (He defends and explains himself later, which we’ll see in a moment.) But, unfortunately, his vagueness aroused a plethora of reactionary attacks, both from the right and left.

Churchill should have emboldened this “little Eichmann” argument in “Some Push Back” by pointing out that CIA offices were housed in the WTC 7, along with a large office of cruise missile manufacturer Raytheon within the towers. He could have also stressed that the terrorists likely attacked the WTC in hopes of inflicting a massive wound to the US economy, which is the driving force behind the violent war machine.

The Board of Regents is scheduled to hear Churchill's case behind closed doors, but the elected leaders will vote in public on whether to fire the tenured professor, said Michele McKinney, university system spokeswoman.

Churchill's attorney, David Lane, has said the hearing should be public. But confidentiality rules governing dismissal-for-cause cases — which were drawn up by faculty members and adopted by the regents — call for the hearing to be held in private, McKinney said. The regents will meet in public in the University Memorial Center at 8 a.m. on the day of the hearing so they can vote to go into executive session.

While behind closed doors, the regents will hear from attorneys representing Churchill, the university and a faculty panel that reviewed the academic-misconduct case. All three parties will have about one hour to argue their cases, according to the university.

If amerikkka had any kind of actual robust “left,” there’d be thousands of these voices raised in defense of Ward Churchill not out of the milquetoast liberal sentiment of “free speech” but on the basis of the precise factual correctness of calling amerikkkans Little Eichmanns. Not just raising the banner of the freedom to speak, but that of the freedom to speak the truth to these parasites.

CNews 10July07

CNews 7July07

Four tenured University of Colorado professors filed a formal grievance this week with the school, challenging President Hank Brown's recommendation that Ward Churchill be fired.

The professors say the recommendation is a "violation of faculty rights and privileges."

Attorneys representing Churchill and the university will meet for a closed-door hearing before the Board of Regents, which likely will happen later this month. The regents will then vote on whether Churchill, who is accused of academic-misconduct violations, should be fired.

The professors backing Churchill in the letter filed Thursday are Tom Mayer, Department of Sociology; Martin Walter, Department of Mathematics; Emma Perez and Elisa Facio, both of the Department of Ethnic Studies.

CNews 6July07

Looks like Natsu Nancy Elaine Taylor TruthForce Saito has taken to the airwaves to save her man. Nice voice, TruthForce has. She could have saved AirAmerica. (ht Waldo Pepper)

"The Regents of the University of Colorado will hold a meeting on July 24, 2007 on the Boulder campus of the University of Colorado regarding the termination of Ward Churchill. The location has yet to be determined however it will commence at 8:00 a.m. It is anticipated by Professor Churchill that this meeting will result in his unlawful termination in retaliation for his First Amendment protected speech. Professor Churchill has requested that the entire meeting be held in public and that public testimony be taken by the Regents. As of now, the Regents plan to meet behind closed doors and will not take public testimony."

CNews 5July07

For those who have been following the bizarre (even by Churchillian standards) saga of William "The Incredible Self-Destroying Man" Bradford, Ruth Holladay has a new post about him, along with a link to his latest résumé. (ht Grant Crowell) BTW: Originally sympathetic to Bradford, we washed our hands of him back in 2005 (second item).

Sir:

Now that the Canadian courts have ordered Native leader John Graham to be returned to South Dakota for trial, for the 1975 murder of AIM leader Anna Mae Aquash, we'll see if he can get any better justice than his co-accused Arlo Looking Cloud, who was convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment.

I doubt it. Many Natives in both North American countries think Looking Cloud's sloppy 4-day trial in 2004 indicated a racial prejudice, as well as prejudicial misconduct by both the FBI and the U.S. Attorneys who prosecuted the case.

Many legal experts were and are amazed not only at the specific hearsay of this case, but at the callous attitude of Americans generally towards Native struggles for simple justice, not to mention Treaty rights and human rights.

Graham's attorney in Vancouver, Terry LaLiberte, stated there was not a single shred of forensic evidence against either Looking Cloud or Graham. Looking Cloud confessed under duress in a Denver jail, under the influence of alcohol and heroin, with no lawyer present, to aiding and abetting Graham in homicide. Graham, for his part, has sedulously maintained complete innocence.

Now we'll see if Rapid City can claim as much innocence and hold a fair and thorough examination of the heinous crime.

Sincerely,
David Seals

This is not to say that everyone in Australia is deliciously happy, or that Australia is a prelapsarian Garden of Eden. People who live there, like people everywhere, have their problems. They go bankrupt, divorce, neglect their children, have accidents, die prematurely, kill themselves, overeat, drink too much, get bored, suffer illnesses, and so forth, just like people everywhere else.

The fact is, however, that political reforms in Australia, whatever they might be, are very unlikely to add much to the sum of human welfare there. Australia confronts human beings with their existential responsibility to make happiness for themselves, and this is sometimes a hard responsibility to face up to. For if you are unhappy in a country like Australia, you have to consider the possibility that the problem lies with you rather than with the conditions that surround you.

This is a disagreeable thing, particularly for an intelligentsia, which is deprived by it of a providential role for itself. What does an intelligentsia do when a country is already as satisfactory in its political arrangements and social institutions as any country has ever been? Intelligentsias do not like the kind of small problems that day to day existence inevitably throws up, such as termites in the woodwork or conflict at work over desk-space: they like to get their intellectual teeth into weightier, meatier problems.

What could be a weightier problem than a prosperous, fortunate country that was founded upon genocide? Clearly, if it was so founded, an intelligentsia is urgently needed to help it emerge from the dark moral labyrinth in which it exists, hitherto blindly. For only an intelligentsia is sufficiently used to thinking in abstractions to be qualified to act as guide to the nation.

Happy Independence Day

CNews 3July07

CU's Ethnic Studies department has again redesigned its webpage. Here are some quotes from the "Overview":

Ethnic Studies is an established undergraduate degree program that provides students with the conceptual and methodological tools to analyze the historical, political, social, and cultural forces that have shaped the development of America's diverse racial and ethnic peoples.

Completion of the program leads to a B.A. in Ethnic Studies. As an Ethnic Studies major, a student chooses an area of concentration in one of the four specific racial-ethnic fields: Afroamerican studies, American Indian studies, Asian American studies, or Chicano studies, and will gain familiarity in at least one of the other areas not chosen as the primary focus. In addition, emphasis is given to developing skills in oral and written expression, in research design, and in critical thinking.

[...]

The Department of Ethnic Studies encourages participatory, experiential, student-centered learning and empowers students to move beyond existing social, cultural, and political paradigms to more inclusive paradigms in which they are the subjects of their own reality. Consequently, all students are encouraged to examine and analyze their own inherited political/economic and social/cultural background and identities.

...and no, they still haven't fixed the misspelling of The Perfesser's alma mater on his bio page. [note: the misspelling has been fixed, probably today, since it was still misspelled when we visited the page this morning, and since both a June 6, 2007 google cache and an MSN June 22, 2007 cache of the page still say "Sangaman"] Too busy with all that critical thimking, no doubt.

• Research in the areas of age and aging, Chicana and Indigenous feminist theory, transnationalism, globalization and gender studies and Cuban studies, and the development of a Chicana feminist sociology.
• A comprehensive synthesis of Africana philosophy, philosophy of race and and critical race theory with various strands of critical pedagogy, critical class theory, feminist theory, liberation theology, postmodernism, and postcolonial theory.
• Chicana history and historiography, feminist theory, Chicana lesbian novels and creative writing.
• Intersection of environmental, legal, and political history, including political biography.
• Comparative ethnic studies, Asian American history, American radicalism and social movements, race and assimilation in American politics and society.
• Criminalization of Latino/a youth and the demonization of Mexican border crossers. Systematic analysis of musical, autobiographic and filmic texts by Latina/o youth and undocumented immigrants in the U.S.
• American Indian, Hispanic, and rural populations of the American and Canadian West and Mexico. Ethnography, ethnohistory, cultural change, and cultural impact assessments with emphasis on social and cultural impacts of energy, nuclear, and regional development.
• An analysis of the Black experience – particularly as it relates to questions of education, science and technology as well as other aspects of social justice – in the transMississippi West, and in cities throughout this nation.
• Critical analyses of US Law relating to American Indians in particular, as well as its impact on race and ethnicity in general, for example, the Japanese American internment, immigration, political prisoners, tribunals on the Vietnam War.
• Critical analyses of governmental agencies role in the de-stabilization of such groups as the Black Panther Party and the American Indian Movement. The genocidal impact of American Indian residential schools; Indigenous resistance to genocide, ecocide and expropriation in contemporary North America; literature, cinema, and the colonization of American Indians.

[and then, just in case you don't get it, ES indulges in a bit of self-@ss-patting]

It is clear from the above areas of research, scholarship, and creative work , that the Ethnic Studies faculty play a major role in the mission of the university as a "diverse community of advanced learning with the highest standards of scholarship, in which research and creative work enrich the teaching of students who thrive in an academic community."

CNews 2July07

CNews 1July07

Looks like Ward Churchill is in Atlanta for the holiday, and to add his unique indigenous perspective to "the first ever" US Social Forum
Excerpt:

"Ninety-eight percent of indigenous people died during the East to West movement," said Carrie Dann, a Western Shoshone Native American. "Why doesn't America want to talk about it?"

Dann spoke at a workshop called, "Where Have All the Indians Gone?", where attendees learned more about the plight of Native Americans as pioneers moved west during the 19th Century.

The Western Shoshone still own land in Nevada where there have been 1,000 nuclear bomb tests and where companies conduct dangerous and destructive strip mining for gold.

"They are destroying the land while exploiting it for money," Dann said. "The Earth should be taken care of and it isn't happening."

"So little attention is paid to indigenous peoples," agreed Ward Churchill, whose family is Cherokee [sic].

It is important people have their attention drawn to the destructive practices that are destroying the Western Shoshone land, Churchill said.

...according to the USSF's main web page, the theme for the confab is "Another World Is Possible • Another US Is Necessary" (on another page, the motto becomes a bit more ominous: "If another world is possible, another US is necessary") In either case, where they're going to get the material to build an entire other world, one can only speculate; and we also have to wonder how many other USSF speakers (besides Churchill and his fourth wife, TruthForce (misidentified on the USSF site as "Natsu Sito")) draw paychecks from the state.

To the Regents of the University of Colorado:

I write as a concerned member of the university faculty community, having taught for six yeas at Ohio State University, forty years at Princeton University, and the last six years as a visiting professor at the University of California at Santa Barbara. I also write as someone who has known Ward Churchill for more than ten years, and had the opportunity to work with him in several professional settings. My message is a fervent request that you reject the recommended dismissal of Professor Churchill, and either reinstate the majority recommendation of the CU faculty appeal panel for a one-year suspension, or more appropriately, decide on the dismissal of charges against Churchill. From the outset of this controversy I have been apalled by the rush to judgment that has characterized this case, and have taken a public stand that any effort to dismiss Professor Churchill from the University of Colorado represents a flagrant denial of academic freedom that would have severe adverse consequence for learning communities across the country.

Having examing the reports and evidence I am convinced beyond reasonable doubt that there exists no basis, aside from bias and outside political pressure, for the dismissal of Professor Churchill on grounds of ‘research misconduct.’ The alleged wrongs over a long, productive scholarly career have not been established to nearly the degree that should warrant disciplinary action, much less dismissal from a tenured position. However the alleged infractions of research standards is evaluated the issues reduce to matters of interpretation, accident, and some instances of carelessness that is to be expected to be present to some degree in the scholarly work of almost every senior professor.

I regard Professor Churchill’s scholarly work as having made major contributions in ethnic studies and with respect to Native Americans. This assessment is reinforced by Churchill’s worldwide reputation, as well as by the high regard with which he is held by students.

Against this background, I would respectfully request the Board of Regents to consider these charges against Professor Churchill in an objective manner, and to take into account not only issues of fairness in relation to this individual whose future is on the line, but with respect to the sort of university atmosphere that you would like to encourage at the Univerisity of Colorado. Naturally, this case is a challenge, but it is also an opportunity to adhere to principles of justice and to show support for academic freedom when it really matters, that is, when it is under attack due to political and ideological pressures mounted from outside the university.

Sincerely,

Richard Falk
Albert G. Milbank Professor of International Emeritus, Princeton University
(since 2002) Visiting Distinguished Professor, Global Studies,
University of California at Santa Barbra