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.
"The media was out of control -- it was an absolute mob mentality"--Ward Churchill's attorney David Lane, in opening arguments
"Churchill lost his job because he breached the trust of being a university professor. Professor Churchill did things that an eighth grader knows is wrong"--CU defense attorney Patrick O'Rourke
From the Daily Camera--Ward's legal counsel David Lane trots out the Churchill-as-martyr trope:
David Lane, Ward Churchill's attorney, invoked the names of Italian astronomer Galileo, who heretically declared that the Earth was not the center of the universe, and Tenessee teacher John Scopes, who was condemned for teaching evolution in school, as direct comparisons to what his client has undergone in the wake of writing a controversial essay on 9/11.
"Fast forward to 2005... Boulder, Colorado," Lane said during opening statements Tuesday morning.
Lane then moves on accuse CU Boulder of conducting a essentially a "lie-finding" mission using "pet poodles" selected to oust the professor:
Once Churchill's essay became widely public in January 2005, he told the jury, the media wouldn't let it drop.
"The media was out of control -- it was an absolute mob mentality," Lane said.
He said former Gov. Bill Owens threatened to cut funding to CU if it didn't fire Churchill. National media figures also jumped on the anti-Churchill bandwagon, he said.
Lane said all of that pressure prompted CU to find any way it could to get rid of the ethnic studies professor. It didn't stand up for him and defend his free expression rights, Lane said.
"They ran like cowards and they sacrificed this man because they were afraid of the howling mob," he said. "Lacking in courage, CU hung him out to dry."
Lane said the school undertook a full fledged effort to find anything it could in the dozens of books Churchill had written or edited that would justify terminating him. The school picked its own "pet poodles" to head up its committee to look into his client's work, he said, like CU law professor Mimi Wesson. Lane said Wesson, who made disparaging comments about the former professor, was in charge of the Standing Committee for Research Misconduct.
But Lane's biggest challenge, aside from trying to prove that his client was wrongfully terminated due to bias inherent in the system, is his own goal of disproving that Churchill in fact plagiarized or was responsible for any academic misconduct:
He said he would prove to the jury that Churchill never plagiarized and never falsified his work, as the school asserts.
"I think you will see that this guy has devoted his life to telling the truth for people who are not given a voice in society," Lane said, referring to Churchill's long-time affiliation with Native American communities.
He asked the jury to make his client whole again.
Yeah, good luck with that.
CU's attorney Patrick O'Rourke defended the university's actions, declared Churchill's essay "protected speech," but that he committed the "worst kind of academic fraud" possible, and compared his ability to discern appropriate academic behavior to that of a 13-yr-old:
However, he said, when the school began receiving allegations of academic misconduct attributed to the professor, it investigated his writings and found eight instances of plagiarism, fabrication, and falsification. A committee of 20 tenured professors made the determination, he said.
O'Rourke said Churchill's attempts to defend his work on various occasions over the past two years came up short in the eyes of his professorial peers, who held out the possibility that Churchill may have simply made honest errors. They characterized his misconduct as severe, deliberate and damaging.
"They said this is wrong," O'Rourke said. "Churchill lost his job because he breached the trust of being a university professor. Professor Churchill did things that an eighth grader knows is wrong."
The Denver Channel 7 has a Twitter-style liveblog going as well, and has the testimony from the first witness for the plaintiff:
Professor Evelyn Wu-Dehard [Hu-DeHart, ed.] is called to the stand.
She is a professor of history and ethnic studies at Brown University, formerly at CU.
Says ethnic studies emerged from the civil rights movement in the 60s and 70s. Says the contributions of blacks, Hispanics and Asians had been ignored for years. The notion of citizenship was reserved for white people.
"When CU tried to recruit me … Ward Churchill was already here."
Her opionion: Ward Churchill is one of the leading Native American scholars. One whose scholarship crosses a wide range. His impact is perhaps the single largest of all in ethnic studies.
"I think the worst thing that can happen to a scholar is when no one cares about you. When you provoke others. That is the highest testament to scholars."
She had written that Ward Churchill was not your typical academic.
He was in academic services. He had already be publishing and writing as a scholar. He did not have the usual criteria. Absence of Phd., which says you have an analytical mind. He was able to convince CU to hire him because of his published works.
She said he was an activist... an applied scholar. He takes information and applies it to areas of social import.
A jury of four men and four women -- including two alternates -- has been seated in Ward Churchill's wrongful termination trial against the University of Colorado.
Denver District Judge Larry Naves gave a set of admonishments to the jury, telling them not to read about the case in newspapers or on the Internet or to watch anything about it on television.
Opening statements are scheduled to be made Tuesday at 9 a.m.
The lawyers in the case took an hour vetting the prospective jury as a group Monday afternoon, asking questions about the role of the First Amendment and about the kind of questions a public university has the right to ask when an employee is making controversial statements.
They also asked the jurors if they thought they could be fair in the case.
Lawyers had already met individually with each potential juror in the morning.
Bonus video from last week's Ward rally at CU, with moonbats issuing support from the "free speech" cage. Drunkablog made the rounds this morning in Civic Center park ("Save Ward!" rally) and the Denver City and County building for the jury selection, but not much was going on . . . yet.
"He is looking forward to having his day in court finally in a public forum so the public can hear what this witch hunt was all about," Lane said.
The trial is being held in the courtroom of Denver Chief District Judge Larry J. Naves.
Prospective jurors began receiving questionnaires about their knowledge of Churchill and the facts of the case last week.
The jury will be asked to consider two claims: that the university retaliated against Chur chill first by launching an investigation into his academic record and then by firing him. Churchill, 61, is seeking reinstatement and a financial judgment.
"In firing Mr. Churchill, CU did the right thing in the right way for the right reasons," said Ken McConnellogue, a spokesman for the CU system. "Essentially, I think that Churchill has had a trial by a jury of his peers and now he wants a do-over, and so we hope the jury sees things the way we do."
Churchill was roundly criticized in the court of public opinion, justifiably terminated by due process of his academic peers, and now has his day in court.
Some see no resolution in sight, and the decision in this lawsuit as anything but the final word in the Churchill/CU saga.
Stay tuned for more "As the Ward Turns"--as the lawsuit's first full day will commence tomorrow with opening arguments scheduled for 8:30 am Tuesday.
Columbus Day Protestors' Defense Plans To Put Columbus On Trial
Looks like Ward Churchill's old buddy David Lane is trotting out the "we can do anything we want because our opinions matter more than any law" defense:
Defense lawyers argued Wednesday that Columbus Day protesters had a right to block a Denver parade because it celebrated a man whom American Indians view as a slave trader, murderer and rapist.
"Are you aware that to some [?--ed.] Native Americans, celebrating Columbus is the same as celebrating Hitler to Jews?" attorney David Lane asked prospective jurors during the first in a series of trials for more than 80 people arrested in the Oct. 6 protest.
Denver police made the arrests in an annual ritual in which opponents try to block the parade.
Lane argued that the parade is a form of "ethnic intimidation," similar to burning a cross on a black family's lawn.
City attorneys countered that the parade was legal because it had a permit. The only issue for the jury is whether the protesters violated city ordinances, such as blocking the street, they said.
"They want to use this to put Columbus on trial. That's not what this is all about," said assistant city attorney Melissa Drazen-Smith.
Surprising that Lane added the caveat "some". Giving offense, apparently, legitimizes the actions of the protestors.
Those on trial include:
The defendants are University of Colorado political science professor Glenn Morris, who has been in several of the annual Columbus Day protests; the Rev. Julie Todd, a Methodist minister who is a doctoral candidate at the Iliff School of Theology, and Koreena Montoya of Denver.
The lawyers for the defendants made various opposing arguments, saying their clients may not have known they were breaking the law, that the police may not have sufficiently warned them and that Columbus was a murderer and a slave trader.
The first argument is clearly a load of BS--what with all the green-hatted "legal observers" there (and surely Lane was consulted beforehand).
The second argument is also ridiculous on its face. One only need watch the videos from the parade posted on this blog to hear the repeated, clear warnings issued by the Denver Police. Either the defense expects the jury to be stupid, or the protestors temporarily went deaf (could be those bandannas and the repetitive drum banging as well).
As for the third reason, it is clear that the arrested protestors and their defense wish to lecture the jury with their version of a "history lesson"/academic colloquium on Columbus.
What doesn't appear to be happening is a challenge of the city's ordinances prohibiting anyone from blocking a lawful parade with legitimate permits for any reason. The protestors would simply offer that their free speech rights and alleged "moral superiority" would trump any such trifling legal restriction. Beyond that, city/state/federal laws are ALL inherently illegitimate, based as they are upon white colonial power:
"Asking an illegal colonizer for permission to be on land that doesn't belong to them doesn't work for us"--Glenn Spagnuolo
A ho-hum ending to a ho-hum furor. The editor still claims that the "Taser this: F*&% Bush!" editorial was about sparking free speech, not publicity.
That claims seems invalid in light of his scheduled (and cancelled) press conference, and a desire to piggyback on a national story with an unimaginative and unoriginal profanity that was old in 2002.
Students who have worked with McSwane at the paper, The Rocky Mountain Collegian, said they are not surprised by the furor he has provoked.
They described McSwane as arrogant and eager to make himself the center of attention. Winning a prestigious journalism award shortly after graduating from high school only boosted his ego, the other students said.
"Everything was about him," said Emily Polak, 20, a junior who was a reporter on the CSU paper.
Wednesday night's meeting started at 7 p.m. and the 310-seat room was filled to capacity. McSwane also spoke during the meeting, answering questions from the board.
"We expected a negative reaction, but we didn't think it would be as bad as it is," said McSwane.
It was the beginning of due process under the bylaws of the board, according to CSU. The nine-person board was to gather information and listen to public comment about the editorial before deciding whether to take further action.
The board has the ability to fire McSwane if they chose. They were not expected to make a decision Wednesday night, but one could come as soon as Thursday.
The board could dismiss the complaints, admonish, reprimand or dismiss McSwane.
The revenue costs have grown:
Student officials and faculty adviser Jeff Browne told the board that since the editorial ran, 18 advertisers have either called to pull their advertising or threatened to end their advertising in the newspaper, which could result in some $50,000 in potential lost revenue. Officials have said that staff would have to take an across-the-board 10 percent pay cut to make up for the losses, which cut into the $950,000 advertising budget. Browne said some staff members, including a photographer, have quit. . . . Nick Hemenway, a senior and an engineering major, summed up the argument for many who spoke in opposition to the editorial:
"Although the First Amendment guarantees freedom of speech, nowhere does it claim to provide freedom of consequence," he said, adding that he wasn't sure what punishment would be appropriate for McSwane. . . . No Collegian editor has ever been fired in its 116-year history.
McSwane's self-aggrandizing efforts to portray himself as the embattled defender of free speech are undercut by his apparent desire to draw national attention to himself (eery Ward Churchill parallels here--see below for more Churchill connections) Some moonbat gets tasered at John Kerry event at the University of Florida, and McSwane convinces his colleagues at CSU to use an expletive and the President's name to get 15 more minutes of fame.
He isn't defending journalistic integrity or the First Amendment.
**Update--scheduling confirmed, 180 Degrees/Eleventh Hour is the hosting group.
Hosted by sycophantic acolytes student groups, Ward Churchill could presumably teach "free" classes and conduct lectures for the students in any room on CU's campus, as long as the student group schedules the room (huge h/t to Drunkablog):
WARD CHURCHILL LECTURES FALL '07 AND SPRING '08
This continuous event, which will be going on during the fall '07 and spring '08 semesters, will be supported by a number of student groups in welcoming back the teachings of Professor Ward Churchill for all those who missed out on his years as a proffesor [sic] and as a head of the ethnic studies department here at CU.
Churchill Teaching on Campus Free Classes to Students WILL BE STARTING... Humanities 1B80 October 2, 2007 6:30-9:15 *syllabus to be handed out first day of class along with scheduled class location and times
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.
Churchill and his attorney describe the investigations and upcoming hearing as a charade and say they are convinced the majority of regents will vote for dismissal. The tenured professor said he has not spoken with the regents about the upcoming hearing but that the research-misconduct allegations were "concocted precisely for the purpose of providing a pretext for the regents to do what they were all set to do in the first place."
"I expect to be fired," Churchill said in an e-mail to the Camera on Thursday. "That's been ordained since the outset. ... So, they're going to do what they've wanted to do all along. Then it's my turn."
CU has released a rough timeline of Tuesday's festivities:
8 a.m.: The Board of Regents will meet in public in the University Memorial Center to announce it will go into executive session, behind closed doors.
8:15 a.m. until at least 4 p.m.: In private, regents will be briefed by the board's attorneys before holding a hearing.
The hearing will include arguments from Churchill and his attorney; university counsel; and the counsel representing CU's Privilege and Tenure Committee. Each party will have a set amount of time to present its case to the board. Regents can ask questions, but no new evidence can be presented.
The regents will then deliberate.
4 p.m. or later: Regents will meet again in public session in the UMC's Glenn Miller Ballroom to vote on CU President Hank Brown's recommendation that Churchill be fired.
Video of the meeting will be streamed online at www.cu.edu.
After the meeting: Brown and Regent Pat Hayes, chairwoman of the board, will hold a news conference in UMC Room 235. Media credentials are required, but the conference will also be streamed online.
CU said Thursday that an open microphone will be available at the end of the day for anybody who wants to express "their personal opinions on topics related to the events of the day."
An open mic? That should produce some, shall we say, spirited commentary.
The University of Colorado regents have scheduled a July 24 hearing to decide whether embattled professor Ward Churchill will be fired — ending a chapter in a 2½-year saga that has sparked a nationwide debate over tenure, academic freedom and scholarly misconduct.
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 arguetheir cases, according to the university.
"The regents can ask questions, but no new evidence will be presented," McKinney said.
The board is expected to meet again in public session at about 4 p.m., or later, to vote on Churchill's employment.
Even this last step in the initial firing has its own multi-stage process (courtesy of PirateBallerina).
One thing is for certain, there will be loud shouts of relief and anger depending upon which route the CU Regents finally vote in favor of regarding the academic misadventures of Churchill.
So, whaddya think are the odds? I say 3/2 for Churchill's firing, but who knows.
The Drunkablog links to an editorial citing Churchill's apparent unfamiliarity with the principle that the First Amendment applies to all, not just left-wing professors.
PirateBallerina, as usual, has all the Churchilliana one could handle--and though Churchill and Lane say nothing earth-shattering, readers and viewers seem less than impressed by the mighty prof.
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