A question submitted this afternoon from the jury indicates that it is leaning toward granting Ward Churchill's civil claim against the University of Colorado.
But the six jurors also appear to be struggling with what to award the former ethnic studies professor in damages, if anything.
Chief Denver District Judge Larry Naves read the question in the courtroom this afternoon.
"We are feeling uncomfortable about the damages portion. Would you be willing to meet with us to talk about what is required and other things regarding money," Naves said. "And is zero dollars an option?"
Naves read his reply to the jury.
"I cannot meet with you. Please re-read the instructions regarding damages and if you find in favor of the plaintiff but do not find damages, you will award in the sum of one dollar," he said.
Churchill attorney Robert Bruce said "it's one of those juror questions that seems to be leaning in our direction."
Ward Churchill Week 4 Update--Judge Tosses One Of Two Claims, **Update: Jury Receives Case
"Are you going to allow lies to overcome the truth?"--David Lane, Churchill's attorney
"What we heard here during the course of this trial is there are two worlds - the world the University exists in and the world Ward Churchill lives in . . . Ward Churchill's world was a place where there are no standards and no accountability"--Patrick O'Rourke, CU attorney
A jury began its deliberations in Ward Churchill's civil trial against the University of Colorado on Wednesday after hearing the closing arguments from both sides.
"The job you are now undertaking is quite possibly the most important decision you will ever have to make," Churchill's attorney David Lane told the Denver jury during closing arguments. "You are in charge of preserving, protecting and defending the Constitution of the United States of America."
Lane added: "Are you going to allow lies to overcome the truth?" . . . CU's attorney countered during his round of closing arguments.
"What we heard here during the course of this trial is there are two worlds - the world the University exists in and the world Ward Churchill lives in," attorney Patrick O'Rourke said. "Ward Churchill's world was a place where there are no standards and no accountability."
Exit questions--how quick a decision, and in whose favor? Scroll for updates--as always, check out the implacable Drunkablog, who managed to cover the majority of the trial from inside the courtroom, and PirateBallerina for additional coverage . . .
Chief Denver District Judge Larry Naves threw out one of Ward Churchill's two claims this afternoon, ruling that the former professor's assertion that the University of Colorado launched an investigation into his scholarship in retaliation for exercising his First Amendment rights was not "actionable."
The judge and lawyers met out of the presence of the jury Tuesday afternoon to go over the final language on the jury verdict form.
"This case will go to the jury on the other claim where there is clearly an adverse employment action, which is being terminated," the judge said.
The second claim in Churchill's civil lawsuit against the school is the primary claim -- that CU fired Churchill for exercising his free speech rights.
The first claim in his suit, which was dismissed this afternoon, was that CU launched an investigation into the former professor in retaliation for exercising his First Amendment rights, essentially chilling those rights.
Naves said an investigation, in and of itself, is not an adverse employment action.
Churchill didn't lose his job or his pay while the investigation was ongoing, the judge said, and the possibility that an investigation could chill free expression by others who fear that making a controversial statement will result in a whole sale investigation of their scholarship is not sufficient to bring a retaliation claim.
Naves cited several other cases where judges had made similar rulings.
The jury will receive instructions Wednesday morning. Closing arguments will follow.
"Where do you guys get off looking at every word he has ever written when the only thing he wrote that upset you was the 9/11 essay?"--Churchill's attorney David Lane
Ludwig took the stand for a short period Tuesday afternoon, testifying that he felt Ward Churchill was a valuable presence on campus because he served to combat the "cultural amnesia" that the larger society has about the treatment of American Indians.
He said it was "not easy" to fire the professor but that his academic transgressions were serious enough to merit it.
"We can't have one of our faculty members fall below that standard that we have," he told the jury.
Three former and current University of Colorado regents testified today that they authorized a review of then-Boulder professor Ward Churchill's speeches and writings only to find out whether they were protected under the First Amendment.
Former regent Patricia Hayes and regent Peter Steinhauer, both Republicans, said they found Churchill's comments in an essay about the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, "anti-American." But they said they also were concerned about other instances where Churchill made speeches that they thought appeared to advocate violence and terrorism.
They testified that they wanted to know whether the speeches and essays were considered protected speech under the First Amendment if Churchill had made them as a public employee representing the university.
Carlisle was the lone regent to vote against firing Churchill in 2007.
She said her decision to stray from her colleagues was based on the fact that the majority of faculty members serving on CU's Privilege & Tenure Committee voted to suspend the professor.
"They're the ones with the scholarship, they were the ones who should be making the decision about what sanctions should happen to Professor Churchill," she testified.
But Carlisle said she had the utmost confidence that Churchill was treated fairly and that the academic misconduct charges against him were fully proven.
"I believe Ward Churchill was given a fair chance to state his case," she told the jury.
"We did not sacrifice Ward Churchill," said Don Morley, a professor of communications at CU-Colorado Springs and a member of the university's Privilege and Tenure Committee.
Morley testified that he was hoping the fraud charges against Churchill that were being forwarded to his panel from the Standing Committee on Research Misconduct would turn out to be false.
"Why?" CU attorney Patrick O'Rourke asked.
"You just don't want to see one of your own fall and he's one of our own," Morley replied.
He said the Privilege and Tenure Committee was not a rubber stamp for the previous university panels that reviewed Churchill's work for academic misconduct.
His committee gave serious consideration to each allegation of fraud, Morley told the jury, and even absolved Churchill on several when the alleged wrongdoing didn't rise to the committee's higher standard of "clear and convincing" evidence for misconduct.
But what the committee did find in terms of misconduct, Morley said, merited terminating the controversial former ethnic studies professor.
CU Regent Michael Carrigan told the jury that the nationwide furor over an incendiary essay penned by Churchill about the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks was a wholly different matter from allegations that the professor had fabricated, falsified and plagiarized parts of his academic work.
And just because the misconduct investigation grew out of the firestorm over the essay — which CU later determined to be protected free speech — didn’t mean the university could disregard the information it was getting about Churchill’s scholarship, Carrigan testified.
“Essentially, if we ignored these allegations, the message would be that you can plagiarize, you can ghostwrite, you can do it, but just make sure you say something offensive so you can say you should never be investigated and your work should never be scrutinized,” he said.
Ward Churchill, fired by the University of Colorado two years ago for allegedly engaging in academic misconduct, called some of his critics "pathetic" during a second day of testimony at his wrongful termination trial Tuesday.
The frank description came after Churchill's attorney, David Lane, asked his client for his reaction to previous testimony from a colleague at CU who, according to Lane, characterized Churchill's three decades of scholarship as "not worth a pitcher of warm spit."
"How did it make you feel?" Lane asked.
"Angry," Churchill replied. "But anger is no new feeling for me."
Boo hoo. Critics also labelled "shit-knitters"--that's a new one.
Churchill is putting the meaning of his 9/11 essay in context for the jury. "I am not in favor of terror," he said. . . . "If the country wanted to avoid a repeat performance, maybe they should stop doing what it was that prompted the attack in the first place."
Churchill said people did not understand that Eichmann was a "bureaucrat, a desk murderer" and his mistake was assuming people understood Eichmann's role when they read the essay.
"When you bring your skills to bear for profit for yourself and your clients, you are the moral equivelant of Adolf Eichmann," Churchill said. "He never killed anyone, but without him the killing would have taken a very different or inefficient form."
Churchill continues to perpetuate a conflation of staggering malevolence--that somehow those working in the Twin Towers on 9/11, those corporate types involved in free market capitalism, are the moral equivalent of a man who organized train schedules and facilitated the murder of millions of Jews. But he's not in favor of terror, so he has that going for him.
Maybe he can't help it--he was just a "copy editor, essentially" for one of his cases of academic misconduct.
"It's an insult to my people and my history," Means said. "It's a scholarly massacre and it's not right. It's full of holes and full of lies. It's unconscionsable, because they don't treat white professors at CU the same way."
Yes they would, if any of them acted as academically irresponsible as Churchill. There is "scholarly massacre" at stake here, the kind perpetrated by Churchill in pursuit of a purely political agenda.
Where's Ward Churchillpalooza Week 3: Week 2 Recap, Will He Finally Take The Stand?
"Simply made-up, simply false . . . He just cheated"--University of Colorado sociology professor Michael Radelet, investigative committee member, on one of Ward Churchill's many faulty historical claims
March 18--MYB continued . . . "They don't invent facts, they invent the possibility that these things happen":
For the final question CU attorney Patrick O'Rourke asked indigenous studies professor Michael Yellow Bird during his re-cross Wednesday morning, he pulled up a transcript of previous testimony the professor had given to CU's Privilege & Tenure Committee and asked him if he had made the statement that "fabricated, made-up accounts promote the truth."
With a slight pause, Yellow Bird said yes.
"No further questions," O'Rourke said, closing his binder and taking a seat.
University of Colorado sociology professor Michael Radelet, who served on the investigative committee looking into allegations of academic misconduct by Ward Churchill, said his initial concern was that his colleague was being "railroaded" by people who wanted to see him punished for writing a controversial essay.
Radelet said he even signed on to a statement drawn up by his colleagues calling for Churchill's academic freedom and First Amendment rights to be protected by the university during the days after the 9/11 essay came to light.
"I am not and was not a person they would pick if they wanted someone to frame, railroad or even convict Ward Churchill of research misconduct," Radelet told the jury.
He testified that the committee, sensitive to the concept of academic freedom, "bent over backwards" to give Churchill the benefit of the doubt.
Radelet, who looked into allegations that Churchill had falsified information through his contention that there was "pretty strong circumstantial evidence" that Captain John Smith purposely introduced smallpox to the Wampanoag Indians in Massachusetts, said the claim was "simply made-up, simply false."
"He just cheated," he told the jury.
Drunkablog has Radelet's assertions that, by Churchill's standards, just about anyone in Boulder in 1996 could be a suspect in the JonBenet Ramsey murder.
Much more from the aforementioned Drunkablog, who has braved the trial's tedium and icy glares from the Chutchites for two weeks already, and PirateBallerina, who continues to serve up links galore to Churchilliana.
The Daily Camera's blog/story archives are here, and the Race to the Bottom blog offering legal insights into the trial continues to chronicle the Churchill legal saga.
Fmr. Gov. Bill Owens' Frosty Encounter With Ex-Professor Ward Churchill
"In retirement, he's starting to look a lot like Michael Moore . . . Ward Churchill is a plagiarist and a fraud and, regrettably, we continue to pay for his deception"--Former Gov. Bill Owens on ex-CU professor Ward Churchill
The deposition took place in the office of Churchill's attorney, David Lane. Owens, who left office in January 2007 and now is a businessman, was represented by the attorney general's office.
For his part Friday, Churchill refused to shake Owens' hand.
So Owens took a verbal jab: "I said, 'Come on, you're a big guy.'"
Lane said later: "I hope the governor's feelings weren't too hurt."
And apparently, by "big guy" Owens meant Michael Moore.
Churchill's response?
*crickets chirping*
Owens concluded:
Churchill and Lane claimed the firing was in retaliation for exercising his constitutional right to free speech.
"I very directly told David Lane that I also had a First Amendment right to speak on the subject, and I reflected what a vast majority of Coloradans were saying," Owens said.
"Unfortunately for David Lane, his client had a clear pattern of lying for virtually his entire academic career. That's why he was fired.
"I believe the jury will reject Churchill's (claims.)"
Drunkablog, Pirate Ballerina and SP will have extensive coverage of the Churchill lawsuit come next month.
Bruce Benson was named the 22nd president of the University of Colorado tonight, despite criticism from some faculty, students and staff that the millionaire oilman doesn't have the academic credentials and is too tied to Republican politics.
The CU Board of Regents voted 6 to 3, on a party-line vote, to hire Benson to replace Hank Brown.
It marks the first time since 1974 that a CU president has been hired without a unanimous vote.
Regents Tillie Bishop, Steve Bosley, Pat Hayes, Kyle Hybl, Tom Lucero and Paul Schauer — all Republicans — voted yes, saying Benson's qualifications are unmatched.
"No one in Colorado today has a higher understanding of higher education in Colorado as Mr. Benson," Bosley said.
And the sticks in the mud:
The three no votes came from the board's three Democrats — Cindy Carlisle, Michael Carrigan and Steve Ludwig.
Ludwig insisted the vote was not a true party-line vote, saying politics had nothing to do with his decision.
"We need great relations with Colorado state lawmakers," he said. "Another controversy or controversial figure sucks all the oxygen out of the room."
Carrigan said Benson had been too polarizing a choice, while Carlisle took exception with the board bringing forward only one finalist.
Bruce Benson's election as CU president illustrates the immense importance of down ticket elections; in this case, the 6-3 GOP advantage in CU Regents. Benson's party line election, following a nomination process full of partisan rancor couched in questions over his qualifications, demonstrated the seething intolerance emitted by the moonbats in the faculty and the students themselves throughout the CU system. Democrats Sen. Ken Salazar and Denver Mayor John Hickenlooper were among a handful of Dems who saw through the partisanship and believed that Benson was eminently qualified to lead CU as an institution, and not some GOP hack.
Ward Churchill Acknowledges University Indoctrination
Although indoctrination--teaching students what to think instead of how to think on their own--is something that others do, not Churchill himself:
“I was hired for what I do,” he said, not because of claims of Native ancestry. Likewise, “I’ve been fired for what I was hired to do.”
That, he said, is to provoke people into thinking about and challenging prevailing notions of U.S. history and global politics.
“Nobody is being taught how to think,” he said. Instead, most universities are “teaching people what to think. That’s indoctrination.”
Churchill seems to have a problem with projection. One scholar's provocation is another's indoctrination. At least he recognizes that the problem exists, though he has the roles and the agenda reversed.
He continues:
Churchill says he never expected his views to draw widespread attention, yet he has found that “it’s validating. I always had the expectation of restrictions” on free speech and academic freedom, he said, but “it’s an abstraction until you actually experience it.”
By firing him, the CU regents “gutted academic freedom,” he said. “Academic freedom only has meaning in the face of controversy and outrage.”
Translation: I never expected to be challenged! Academic freedom only has meaning when applied to scholars like me!
Churchill knows that controversy sells, so his claim of astonishment rings hollow.
The sole University of Colorado Board of Regents member to vote against firing a professor who compared some Sept. 11 victims to a Nazi said she followed the recommendation of a faculty committee, which suggested suspension.
Regent Cindy Carlisle told the Summit Daily News for its Friday edition that the Privilege and Tenure Committee had voted 3-2 to suspend former ethnic studies professor Ward Churchill for one year and demote him. CU President Hank Brown recommended Churchill be fired.
"I thought that they were the reviewing body who had the most at stake in terms of reviewing this," Carlisle said when contacted while on vacation in Hawaii. "They're active faculty. They're upholding the reputation of everything. They do the research, the teaching, the everything. I thought they would be in the best position to judge what the outcome should be."
Summit County Republicans criticized Carlisle for being the only regent to vote no in an 8-1 decision July 24 to fire Churchill for research misconduct, that included allegations of fabrication, falsification and plagiarism
Carlisle is a Democrat who represents Summit, Eagle, Grand, Clear Creek, Gilpin and Boulder counties.
In a follow-up letter on the issue, Carlisle said the reasons for her vote were "institutional." "As the case presented purely academic issues, I believed respect for faculty governance was of overriding importance. Plus, the work of the Privilege and Tenure Committee was extremely impressive both hard-hitting and fair and entitled to deference," she wrote.
Whether out of respect for the academics' recommendations or an attempt to shift responsibility away from herself, we can't help but feel that Carlisle's vote was calculated to bring her sympathy as a lone voice for free speech, and provide token "credibility" to the Regents' vote--for the Churchill-types, that is.
Churchill Updates 080307--Deranged Supporters Can't Spell, Ode To Churchill
**Update RMN columnist Mike Rosen discusses how a deranged Case Western Reserve University doctoral candidate and Churchill supporters equates CU's Regents to Nazis (and has difficulty spelling anything correctly), and how Churchill's dismissal has nothing to do with free speech:
"Subject: You are f**king nazi's (sic)
"It is IMPOSSIBLE to speak politely, intelligibly, with reason to moral cretins masquarding (sic) as humans, cretins utterly devoid of intelligence, humanity, common sense, courage: YOU ARE ALL F**KING NAZI'S (sic). May you and all your progeny burn in hell for eternity. Perhaps there is a special place there for nazi's (sic)."
The above e-mail was sent to all nine of the CU regents July 25, the day after their decision to fire Ward Churchill. The sender was one Paulette Sage, a doctoral candidate in sociology at Case Western Reserve University. Sage's spelling deficiencies and her ignorance of the difference between the plural and possessive is embarrassing enough, but her equating the CU regents with Nazis is positively idiotic.
Sadly, Sage typifies hysterical academic leftists distraught at Churchill's demise and appalled that one of their own tenured philosopher-kings could be held accountable for his behavior by administrators, taxpayers, tuition-paying customers, the community or even a panel of fellow academics.
Churchill will argue that no matter how offensive his speech, the First Amendment is designed expressly for the purpose of protecting his right to say it, and that faculty members especially must be able to speak and write unpopular views because their role is to stimulate free and open debate on cutting edge, controversial issues. He is right up to a point. Courts have granted more leeway to professors to say offensive things than they have accorded to administrators, on the theory that unrestrained exchange of ideas lies at the core of academic freedom.
However, there are outer limits. The University of Colorado should not have to tolerate speech which can reasonably be expected to cause serious disruptions of its normal operations. For example, there is an active ROTC program on campus. The university would have a legitimate concern that Churchill’s incitements to kill or maim military officers could threaten the peaceful functioning of this program and lead to further disruptions on campus.
Academic freedom must be accompanied by academic responsibility. Professor Churchill’s defamatory and incitement speech failed the test of First Amendment protection. He deserved to be fired on this basis alone. Of course, if the allegations against Churchill regarding plagiarism and other acts of misconduct turn out to be true, his firing is a no-brainer.
But Churchill is disingenuous (or naïve) when expressing surprise that politically-motivated hatchet men would scrutinize his academic record. He is, after all, a political activist both in his private time and in his classroom. Fair or not, insert yourself into a contentious political debate, and expect to be treated like a politician.
Just ask Michael Bellesiles, author of the discredited book Arming America. Those who criticized the integrity of Bellesiles's book—which argued that the conventional wisdom regarding America's colonial gun culture was a mere "folk tale"—did so, the author harrumphed, for ideological reasons. His critics were engaging in rank "McCarthyism" and, as Professor Joyce Lee Malcolm wrote in reason, Bellesiles complained that the book had been "subjected to unfair, unprecedented scrutiny." But an Emory University commission disagreed, ruling that the book was marred not only by errors and distortions, but also phantom (i.e. invented) evidence. After the report was made public, he was fired and previous sponsors, like the National Endowment for the Humanities, pulled support. Bellesiles denounced it as a "political decision that should send chills through academics everywhere and is clearly intended as a warning to any scholar who dares to work on a controversial topic."
Despite the mountain of evidence against Churchill, it took more than two years for the wheels of justice to turn. As he received more due process than ordinary Americans ever receive in the course of their professional lives, Churchill's dogged fight to keep his job only reinforced for many the notion that faculty members view themselves as a breed apart - entitled to lucrative lifetime employment no matter what they do.
That will be Ward Churchill's lasting legacy. He was the tipping point. Now, it's not just leading conservatives who view the academy as an out-of-control, disconnected bastion of petulant entitlement. In a recent Zogby poll, 58 percent of Americans reported that they now believe that political bias of professors is a "serious problem." Even more, 65 percent, viewed non-tenured professors as more motivated to do a good job in the classroom.
These are not isolated findings. A survey by the American Association of University Professors found that 58.4 percent of Americans had only some or no confidence in our colleges and that 82 percent want to modify or eliminate tenure.
The academic left decries the "chilling effect" of Churchill's firing, but the only individuals who should feel "chilled" are those professors publicly spewing deranged invective at that same time that they conceal a professional past rife with fraud and abuse. In reality, there was no chilling effect in Churchill's case - only a cleansing effect as higher education scrubbed itself of the man who, more than anyone else, proved that something is very wrong with our universities.
Academics who view themselves, in French's words, "as a breed apart" should acknowledge that Churchill's dismissal was actually a demonstration that tenure should be restricted to those individual scholars whose high academic rigor bolsters their arguments in favor of employing just such a system. Guaranteed academic employment (barring academic misconduct such as Churchill's or "acts of moral turpitude") should come with some basic professional standards, just as membership in the legal or medical professions do. As the professors themselves are in charge of hiring and firing, they are entrusted with "policing their own", and in this case, the professors found Churchill's conduct wanting.
But why do so many professors from the left--those charging the public, the media, neocons, etc. with producing a "chilling effect" on free speech and academic discourse--fear Churchill's removal? Any clear-thinking individual who examines a scenario like this would determine that rather than having a deleterious effect on their profession, a removal like this would actually strengthen their claim to tenure's benefits, and further justify its existence.
In addition, why do these same critics find the whole process so unappealing (besides their own political motivations), and so threatening to their existence? They themselves are in charge--not politicians like former Gov. Bill Owens who called for Churchill's firing, nor state legislators, nor the public at large. Even the CU Regents and the President can not fire a professor until the due process review has been conducted. Are these professors really just afraid of each other? A bad review or denial of tenure can damage a career, so are many more deficiencies ignored or tacitly acknowledged in exchange for similar treatment down the line, an academic quid pro quo that mitigates worries about rival academics' abilities to throw another colleague under the bus? Maybe that explains at least some of the 199 named professors who called for the investigation of Churchill to be rescinded.
Stanley Kurtz, who calls for the abolition of tenure, has some thoughts on what would replace it, should academic reform ever be implemented:
What would replace tenure? Probably long-term contracts. I believe a few schools have already experimented with this. As noted, the change would be grandfathered in, and at best would only happen piecemeal. So prospects of a catastrophe would be slight, while there would be plenty of time for experimentation with new arrangements. But I guarantee you, even the slightest prospect of change (i.e. one state legislature seriously debating the end of tenure in its public university system) would send the professorate into a mad rage, and would provoke a major national debate about the state of higher education as a whole. That debate would provide an opening for all sorts of academic reforms, not limited to tenure.
More than anything else, the conversion of tenure from a protector of academic freedom into an instrument of ideological exclusion is responsible for the destruction of the campus marketplace of ideas. Tenure is the cornerstone of the campus political-correctness problem, and even beginning a serious effort to remove it would almost certainly shake up the entire academic system. The time to consider a serious campaign to eliminate academic tenure has come.
Replacing tenure, however, would not eliminate the type of wackademic frauds that typically find their way into places of higher learning, whether attracted by ideology or an escape from the real world of the marketplace of ideas to the insulated, ivory tower where proclamations that disdain the "unwashed masses" when they do not fall in line, are not only acceptable but encouraged. Restructuring or eliminating tenure would have a positive impact on the teaching at this country's universities, with more attractive compensation as the salaries are redistributed (the left should endorse that!) toward teaching load and quality (as reflected by peer and student reviews), and away from the sort of navel-gazing "research", extended sabbaticals, and diminished teaching loads that produces graduate student enmity and second-class status for non-tenured positions. Surely the entrenched left in the professoriate wouldn't mind a little redistributive justice and equality?
What should concern us all, however, is academia's nurturance of loons like the hate-filled Churchill. No, they are not many, but they shout louder than their numbers would suggest. And though their influence is minor in American higher education overall, they can be very influential in particular fields, such as comparative literature and gender and ethnic studies. That's because the problem on campuses isn't rigorous Marxist materialists, as conservative stereotypes would have you believe, but craven emotional warriors in the arena of identity politics.
Ethnic studies departments, such as Churchill's, may be the worst offenders. Created in the wake of the ethnic pride movement in the early 1970s, many simply never had the same kind of academic oversight as more established and prestigious fields. Those professors generally toiled with little funding in isolated intellectual ghettos. Their scholarship wasn't tested in the high-stakes, high-profile competition that hones other academics and other fields. They earned their "psychic income" -- a phrase coined by former Gov. Jerry Brown -- trying to turn minority undergraduates into activists. (Meanwhile, the quality work on ethnicity was being done in more traditional disciplines.)
But by most accounts, today's undergraduates of all backgrounds tend to be in search of good jobs rather than ideological causes. If anything, ethnic studies are part of the accepted last stage of American education, the puncturing of myths -- in elementary school, we learn that George Washington could not tell a lie; in high school, we learn the dates and details of Valley Forge; in college, we learn that the father of our country was a hypocritical slave owner; and then, after college, few ever think about Washington again.
Still, just because an academic field is relatively harmless and even irrelevant (in the eyes of many fellow academics) doesn't mean that shoddy professors who can't sort fact from ideology should be tolerated, particularly at taxpayer expense. The Churchill case might be closed, but university officials nationwide have an obligation to bring scrutiny and the ideal of objectivity to these below-par departments -- perhaps by dismantling and absorbing them into more rigorous disciplines and insisting, not on any one set of views or conclusions, but on the high standards of scholarship that we expect from the best of academia.
Local Republicans want Summit County's representative on CU's Board of Regents to better explain her reasons for casting the lone dissenting vote against dismissing controversial professor Ward Churchill.
The board voted 8-1 last week to fire Churchill, a tenured professor of ethnic studies, after determining he had "engaged in acts of research misconduct, including fabrication, falsification and plagiarism," according to a report from the regents.
Regent Cindy Carlisle, a Democrat who represents Summit, Eagle, Clear Creek, Grand, Gilpin and Boulder counties, was the only regent who didn't support Churchill's dismissal.
"If Ms. Carlisle could not vote to fire Professor Ward Churchill despite the overwhelming evidence of his academic fraud and misconduct, we would also ask her to explain what circumstances would lead her to recommend that a tenured faculty member be fired," said Summit County GOP chairwoman Debra Irvine.
Faculty integrity is the cornerstone of every great university. The University of Colorado is no exception. . . . While the academic misconduct of one person should not tarnish the reputation for integrity CU faculty have worked so hard to build and maintain, his case is troubling. Charges of research misconduct led more than 20 faculty members (from CU and other universities) on three separate panels to review his work.
The faculty found a pattern of serious, repeated and deliberate research misconduct that included fabrication, falsification, improper citation and plagiarism.
Faculty reviewers unanimously agreed that the evidence showed professor Churchill engaged in research misconduct and that it required serious sanction.
That sanction was carried out Tuesday when the CU Board of Regents approved my recommendation to dismiss professor Churchill from the Boulder campus faculty. . . . Coloradans give us almost $200 million a year, federal taxpayers fund some $640 million in research annually, all to support quality education and research.
Our alumni expect us to maintain the value of their degrees, and students and their families trust that faculty who teach them adhere to the standards of the university and the profession. Failure to maintain academic integrity would cause irreparable harm. . . . By any measure, we have an outstanding faculty. Among them are Nobel Prize winners, recipients of the MacArthur Foundation "genius" awards, researchers at the forefront of scientific discovery and teachers whose work is guided by those who came before. The common thread is that they take pride in their work and understand their obligation to live up to the high standards of their profession and of CU.
In the end, CU will not be judged by the shoddy work of one faculty member but by the excellence the rest of the faculty demonstrate every day in classrooms and research laboratories.
The reputation for academic integrity and excellence built by generations of CU faculty, students and alumni will remain intact because the university's Board of Regents acted to protect it.
Rebuilding that reputation took a small step forward Tuesday. Brown clearly recognized the true obligation of a university, whose customers are neither the faculty nor the bureaucracy--but taxpayers who underwrite the institution and parents and students who pay for world-class educations. CU's first priority should be to these constituencies, not the petulant academics whose responsibility it must be to maintain the academic integrity and professional standards they claim provides the basis for awarding the Holy Grail of academia: tenure.
The RMN's Vincent Carroll explains to the Denver Post, and anyone else fooled by the notion that Churchill's "little Eichmanns" was a mere turn of phrase, the true nature of SS Obersturmbannführer (lieutenant colonel) Adolf Eichmann:
Eichmann was no mere foot soldier, mindless bureaucrat or technocrat . . . Why such a big deal about these distinctions? So that we remain faithful to history, of course. But also so that we understand the meaning of “little Eichmanns.” If someone calls you that, he’s not equating you to a mindless foot soldier in an ugly cause. He’s comparing you to an architect of genocide.
Which is why Churchill's commentary on the 9/11 victims continues to be an outrageous defamation, and illustrates the anti-American nature of Churchill's quackery.
**Bonus audio/transcript of Churchill and student-acolyte, lamenting his dismissal. Excerpt:
ANN ERIKA WHITEBIRD: And the decision to fire Ward Churchill is really sad for me. He's the only professor that I’ve taken a class, where I really felt empowered as an Indigenous person. And our history, the history of genocide against our people, the history, the policy, the US policy of extermination against our people, the forced sterilization of our women -- that was found out as early as the ’70s -- it was all something that Ward talks about in his books. So I’m not just talking about the class that he’s offered, the FBI at Pine Ridge, but, you know, other classes that he teaches and then the books that he's written is really affirming as a Native person.
The history that we hear growing up about the smallpox blankets, it's not something that you question. It's something that is part of our oral history. And it's part of the history of other indigenous peoples. So when I’m here at CU Boulder and I talk to other students who are Dene or from other nations, it's a common understanding.
It's not about scholarship, it's about making people feel "empowered"--not by the truth, mind you, but by whatever version of history suits your agenda. 9NEWS has a lengthy video of the moonbat presser following the CU Regents' vote. Emma Perez, Ethnic Studies associate professor, believes this is a veiled attack on tenure granted to women and people of color . . . Margaret Lecompte, professor of Education, attacks the "right-wing", CU "not a safe place" for academics . . . Tom Mayer, professor of sociology and Ward Churchill advocate is "distressed" . . . Hadley Brown, CU Tri-Exec, believes it is an attack on minority points of view . . . Ann Erika Whitebird, student and Churchill acolyte, sees the firing as "racist" and a continuation of racism she sees everyday on campus from "conservative, white Christians".
PirateBallerina has an excellent roundup of post-Ward commentary, including the amusing Reason article "Some Regents Push Back: Chief Lies-alot Fired", which includes yet another example of Churchill's predilection for misrepresenting historical facts.
Hours before Churchill was fired Tuesday, Lane announced he planned to file a civil lawsuit in a Denver District Court rather than in a federal court because federal courts are "inundated with cases."
Lane said he predicted it would take about a year to get a trial.
He also said a jury pool in a Denver District Court would be more representative of the overall population.
"The minority population of Denver is much more greater than it is in the northern tier or Colorado generally," Lane said yesterday. "But I’m not reading into that anything in particular. That is the demographic fact of life."
The 2006 suit claimed the university failed to pay $20,000 owed for Churchill’s attorney fees, Lane said.
Lane said the suite was filed in Denver because the university’s headquarters are in that jurisdiction.
If you are not reading into anything, Mr. Lane, why bring it up?
Will work for fraud food. Courtesy of El Marco, who has more photos of Churchill et al.
Both also said they were not swayed by the threat of legal action.
"I don't think a great university can be intimidated by legal action," said Brown.
"We (the regents) did not discuss any possibility of a lawsuit," said Hayes.
"This was an issue of what's best for the university and we had to step up to the plate and do what's best for the university," said Hayes.
Hayes also said they do not believe the decision will have a chilling effect on other professors.
"True academics will say this is a place they want to be," said Hayes.
"The message this sends is that the university faces up to problems and deals with them and that we are a reliable institution," said Brown.
And as much as yesterday's sacking of Ward Churchill brought closure--it also represented just the prelude to Churchill's guaranteed next step:
The next chapter is set to begin Wednesday, when the controversial academic and his civil rights attorney, David Lane, sue the university in Denver District Court.
Churchill warned that his dismissal is the beginning of a wider attack on scholars with unpopular political views.
"If you think I’m the endgame, you’re wrong," Churchill told supporters. "This is the kickoff. . . . Churchill, 59, said he would remain visible at CU while waging his court fight.
"I am going nowhere," he said. "It’s not about breaking. It’s not about bending. It’s not about compromising. When you negotiate your rights, you haven’t got any."
Let me rewrite that for you, Ward, to reflect CU's position--"It's not about breaking. It's not about bending. It's not about compromising. When you negotiate your standards, you haven't got any." There. Much better.
Lane said he will amend an existing lawsuit against the university today in Denver District Court. Already, he has sued asking that CU pay his legal fees. He said he will ask a jury for an unspecified amount of money and that Churchill be reinstated.
Regent Cindy Carlisle, who cast the dissenting vote, said she thought firing was too tough a penalty. She agreed with the Privilege and Tenure Committee’s 3-2 vote in May to suspend Churchill for a year without pay.
There were some clear winners in today's decision--the authors misrepresented by Churchill:
R.G. Robertson, author of Rotting Face: Smallpox and the American Indian, said he was glad that Churchill’s supporters did not sway the regents.
"I’m glad that scholarship, or the ideal of scholarship, won out over somebody’s weird view of political correctness," he said. "I’m happy that it happened, that he’s been found out, and, by his peers — meaning other university people — and been called what he is, a plagiarizer and a liar."
Robertson’s book was among those cited by investigators as having been mischaracterized by Churchill.
"Facts are facts and truth is truth, and when you’re dealing with history I think it doesn’t need to be distorted by people with a warped political objective," Robertson said.
Another author whose work was mischaracterized by Churchill said the firing was appropriate punishment.
"It’s important to know Indian history, and it’s important to know factual Indian history, not just a bunch of B.S. that someone made up," said Russell Thornton, a professor at the University of California at Los Angeles.
Churchill attributed assertions that the Army deliberately spread smallpox among Indians to one of Thornton’s books, American Indian Holocaust and Survival: A Population History Since 1492.
Ward and Co. vow to fight on:
Moments after the University of Colorado Regents voted to fire Ward Churchill, one of his supporters at the back of the Glenn Miller Ballroom shouted out, "Now it’s your turn!"
"You’re right," Churchill replied just before joining in with several American Indians from South Dakota as they started drumming and chanting the freedom song from the American Indian Movement.
Several of Churchill’s supporters decried the regents’ statements that they were dismissing him for a pattern of academic misconduct.
"I want to be clear," said Tom Mayer, a CU-Boulder sociology professor. "This is a political firing with academic camouflage. "I believe the people who voted (to dismiss Churchill) are the same people who would have voted against Socrates, Galileo ... and anyone else with an unpopular point of view."
Lane said he will sue in Denver District Court, rather than federal court, because he can get a trial sooner.
But he also said a Denver jury is more likely to be sympathetic than a federal jury, which would include "a lot of small-town people who are not enamored of Churchill."
Of course, all those right-wing, racist bastards in rural Colorado who don't accept Churchill's academic fraud. Shame on them! Let's go get a pro-Churchill jury down in the city!
Lukianoff said he expects that the First Amendment case could survive summary judgment and conclude with the university entering a settlement with Churchill.
"I think that overall, it's going to be an interesting, but difficult, lawsuit," he said.
The "media horde" pounded this story, with its First Amendment implications and the question of academic misconduct. While the majority of the MSM provided obligatory coverage due to the furor erupting at the beginning of the whole affair (with the Rocky Mountain News' investigative pursuit as a distinct exception), talk radio and blogs ultimately kept the story alive and the pressure consistent.
Unscientific polls at 9NEWS and the Denver Post don't seem to be leaning Churchill's way:
**This is a sticky post, continuously updated throughout the day. Scroll for pictures and video--
Verdict is in, Ward is out! --8-to-1, lone dissenting vote Cindy Carlisle, a Democrat "We will remain accountable to those who have high expectations of Colorado’s flagship university. And our faculty will remain true to high professional standards to ensure our reputation for academic integrity remains intact."--CU President Hank Brown, in a letter to the CU community, CU Boulder Chancellor "Bud" Peterson's statement
In front of about 30 people, many of them with cameras and tape recorders, former AIM leadership council member Dillabaugh (who said he'd been in jail and didn't care if he had to go back) threatened to kill me. PB and Drunkablog friend Laurie was a witness, as was Ken Bonetti, who said something like "now, none of that."
"The more the public sees, the more the public knows, the more they will realize that this is political maneuver and that Ward Churchill's termination is based solely on his free speech," he said.
Laurie McClure, 56, of Firestone, whose daughter Bonnie graduated in May with a history degree, was passing out fliers this morning on the topic of research misconduct.
She said her daughter's degree has been diminished because of the negative publicity surrounding the Churchill case and his ties to the campus.
She said the case isn't about his political views.
"This is about a tenured professor who doesn't know how to do proper research," McClure said. "And it's about a tenured professor who doesn't have a Ph.D."
Academic freedom DOES NOT mean academic fraud.Those aren't my words (though I wholeheartedly endorse the sentiment). That was a comment on Churchill from the moonbats at DailyKos.
CU's streaming audio experienced "technical difficulties" this morning. They promise to have things running this afternoon, but Slapstick Politics will be there in person to provide backup.
Ward Churchill entered the University Memorial Center at 7:45 today — the day he'll learn his fate as a CU professor.
About 20 supporters accompanied Churchill and his attorney, David Lane, into a morning meeting in UMC room 235 with the CU Board of Regents.
At least a dozen reporters and photographers were on hand to chronicle a pivotal chapter in the 21/2-year controversy.
Lane attacked the Regents for their closed meeting in the last chapter of the Churchill affair--"When you shine light on the cockroaches, they scramble for cover"--(for a moment I thought he was referring to his own client!).
Earlier:
Ward Churchill smiles in happier days, but his contempt for academic standards and the disdain displayed by his most ardent supporters will be tested today. (courtesy CU College Republicans)
Hilliard said that as a matter of security, he couldn't discuss the measures university officials will put in place today, nor could he comment on any changes in the levels of police and security guard staffing.
"We feel good about the level of security that we have," Hilliard said. "What we have to do is provide safety for the public to express their opinions, and safety for the board to get their business done."
CU Regent Pat Hayes, chairwoman of the board, said she hopes the day goes smoothly.
"We are hoping for the best and preparing for the worst," she said.
Ward's followers "promise" to be peaceful. We remain skeptical.
All it takes is a vote of the regents and a tenured professor is gone. They're making quite a show of trying to be fair and impartial. This has been scripted. This has been in the works for months and months.
I have no doubt they're going to fire him. And it's based — in fact if you read all the reports generated by all the investigators, you will acknowledge that each report has said this is all motivated by his 9/11 comments. There would have been no investigations. There would have been no action. There would have been nothing but for his 9/11 comments. That's why I'm so eager to take this into court.
Try two-and-a-half years Mr. Lane. This is quite the political theater to "take down" a tenured professor--a process lasting over 30 months. A process so interminable, bureaucratized, and politicized that CU's Regents vowed to expedite the tenure removal process, limited to a mere 100 days to "reduce the human misery involved".
Rules on how professors are granted tenure - and how they can lose it - have been tightened at the University of Colorado since Ward Churchill was given the job guarantee in 1991.
Churchill was granted tenure without the usual six years of review because administrators saw him as bringing ethnic diversity to the faculty, several professors have said. As it turned out, Churchill is not an American Indian, as he claimed.
New rules require strict review by administrators to be sure a tenure candidate has cleared all the hurdles - including vetting of his or her published works by outside experts.
Pat Hayes, who chairs CU's Board of Regents, said the board then reviews the process.
"We get their paperwork and we go through it and we look at how each one of those committees looked at that particular person in relationship to tenure. We go through the whole thing," Hayes said.
If one or more faculty members on a review committee opposes tenure for a candidate, the regents ask questions, Hayes said.
Churchill was given tenure in the communications department over the objections of several faculty members. Two other departments rejected him.
The review of tenured professors at five-year intervals - a perfunctory exercise in some departments - has been tightened, and the procedure to dismiss faculty members has been streamlined.
Let us hope that CU can avoid future debacles by refusing to grant the Holy Grail of academia--tenure--to crackpots whose political views happen to be fashionable and are indeed encouraged in a climate devoted to multiculturalism and diversity at the cost of academic integrity.
If Churchill is dismissed, his severance pay will be one year's salary, currently $96,392. It was not immediately clear if he will continue to receive benefits such as health insurance or employer's contributions to his retirement plan, said CU Vice President Ken McConnellogue.
The money already in his retirement fund won't be affected.
He has continued to receive his salary, although he has not taught since the fall 2005 semester. Part of the time, he was on sabbatical, and he also used compensatory time off he'd accumulated for teaching extra courses in previous semesters. More recently, he has been on paid leave.
He has received the due process from the CU system (innocent until proven guilty, something he denied to the targets of his political diatribes), and will likely find his legal arguments for a lawsuit fall on deaf ears (Churchill timeline):
Churchill has vowed to sue if he is fired. Legal scholars have given him little chance of prevailing in court: Judges usually defer to governing boards on personnel matters, particularly when due process has been followed.
The regents and Brown have done precisely that, said RL Widmann, an English professor who leads CU's faculty council.
About 25 faculty members have been involved in reviewing the charges against Churchill during the various stages of the investigation, Widmann said.
The regents will be closeted with a special counsel assigned by the state attorney general's office as they discuss possible actions.
Churchill has been found guilty of manufacturing historical events, plagiarism, and falsifying sources. Those aren't good arguments for an appeal.
You can search this blog's archives on the professor. For dedicated 24/7 Wardo coverage, blogger PirateBallerina's enormous body of work on Ward Churchill can't be found (or duplicated) anywhere else. If one were so inclined, weeks could be spent scouring his archives on the infamous professor. Props also go to the Drunkablog, who has spent his fair share of time in the trenches against Churchill and his minions.
CU President Hank Brown's Letter To The CU Community
Not available at the CU site (modified, but not in this form):
July 24, 2007
Dear Faculty, Staff and Students of the University of Colorado,
The Board of Regents today voted to accept my recommendation to dismiss Professor Ward Churchill from the faculty.
I made the recommendation for the good of the university. CU’s success depends upon its reputation for academic integrity. A public research university such as ours requires public faith that each faculty member’s professional activities and search for truth are conducted according to the high standards on which CU’s reputation rests.
We are accountable to those who have a stake in the university: the people of Colorado who contribute $200 million annually in tax dollars, the federal entities that provide some $640 million annually in research funding, the donors who gave us more than $130 million this year to enhance academic quality, the alumni who want to maintain the value of their degrees, the faculty and staff who expect their colleagues to act with integrity, and the students who trust that faculty who teach them meet the high professional standards of the university and the profession.
Given the record of the case and findings of Professor Churchill’s faculty peers, I determined that allowing him to remain on the faculty would cast a shadow on our reputation for academic integrity.
Throughout the case, we have adhered to shared governance procedures as determined by the CU Faculty Senate Constitution and Bylaws and adopted by the Board of Regents. During the course of two-plus years, Professor Churchill presented his position in writing, in person, with his attorney and with witnesses of his choosing. He was afforded full due process.
More than 20 tenured faculty members (from CU and other universities) on three separate panels conducted a thorough review of his work and found that the evidence shows Professor Churchill engaged in research misconduct, and that it required serious sanction. The record of the case shows a pattern of serious, repeated and deliberate research misconduct that falls below the minimum standard of professional integrity, including fabrication, falsification, improper citation and plagiarism. No university can abide such serious academic misconduct.
Professor Churchill fabricated historical events and sought to support his fabrications by manufacturing articles under other names. His publications show more than just sloppy citations or using the work of others without crediting them. The Investigative Committee of the Standing Committee on Research Misconduct found multiple instances of falsification, fabrication and plagiarism. Any student engaging in such a wide range of academic misconduct would be seriously sanctioned. We should hold our faculty to a high standard of professionalism
While Professor Churchill’s peers on the faculty panels were unanimous in finding research misconduct, views on the appropriate sanction varied. Some faculty recommended dismissal while others suggested a less severe penalty. My obligation as president is to recommend to the Board of Regents an appropriate sanction that is for the good of the university.
Some on the Boulder campus and beyond claim Professor Churchill was singled out because of public condemnation of his writing about September 11, 2001. They see this case as a referendum on academic freedom. The university determined early in the process that his speech was not at issue, but that his research was. The prohibition against research misconduct extends to all faculty, regardless of their political views. We cannot abandon our professional standards and exempt faculty members from being accountable for the integrity of their research simply because their views are controversial.
Professor Churchill’s activities not only run counter to the essence of academic freedom, but also threaten its foundation. Academic freedom is intended to protect the exploration and teaching of unpopular, even controversial ideas. But that pursuit must be accompanied by the standards of the profession. Academic freedom does not protect research misconduct. After his research misconduct was identified, Professor Churchill did not admit any errors or come forward to correct the record, as is expected in the profession.
CU’s most important asset is its academic reputation. Professor Churchill’s actions reflect poorly on the University of Colorado, but we will not let the research misconduct of one individual tarnish our reputation. Our faculty members take pride in their work and demonstrate their respect for the high standards of their profession and this university day in and day out. Professor Churchill’s research misconduct is an affront to those who conduct themselves with integrity.
We will remain accountable to those who have high expectations of Colorado’s flagship university. And our faculty will remain true to high professional standards to ensure our reputation for academic integrity remains intact.
Want to contribute? Visit our store for conservative gear for 2008! "A lot of guys yearning for adventure and romance would give their left one to be referred to in print as a man "who identified himself only as 'El Presidente.'" Nobody, for example, is ever going to refer to me as a man who "identified himself only as El Presidente." You bastard."--Drunkablog
